I’ve been arguing with a colleague about how much personalisation outreach actually needs, so we tested it. Same asset (a salary data report for a recruitment client), same target list type (HR and career blogs), 200 emails per group.
Group A: template with first name and site name only
Group B: template plus one line referencing a specific article of theirs
Group C: fully written by hand, 3-4 sentences unique to each site
Results after two follow ups:
– A: 4.5% reply, 3 links
– B: 11% reply, 9 links
– C: 14% reply, 12 links
Time per email was roughly 1 min, 4 min and 12 min. So B was clearly the best return for the time. C won on raw numbers but not by enough to justify three times the effort, at least for this kind of asset.
Has anyone run something similar? I’m wondering if the result flips for higher-tier sites where the editors get hundreds of pitches a week.
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