Following up in an outreach campaign becomes less effective when the new message creates friction rather than opens up opportunities. Following up is helpful while the recipient still has some reasonable justification for interacting with the sender. Once the repetition starts creating fatigue and pressure, persistence will not be serving the initial outreach campaign any longer.
The risk in such a case is not only that the new email will go unanswered. The wrong justification for sending another message can change the image of the sender in the eyes of the recipient.
How Recipient Fatigue Affects the Value of Another Outreach Interaction
Each follow-up contact will be made to someone who has already received the previous outreach.
This is important because outreach does not start with a blank slate each time. Each contact leaves some trace in the mind of the recipient.
Another outreach can help to bring attention back to a proposal that has been overlooked. However, repeated outreach efforts can reach the point where the recipient starts perceiving another contact as a source of fatigue. Instead of seeing it as another opportunity to consider the proposal, the recipient sees the same person requesting their attention again.
In such a situation, following up will be creating a problem, not solving it.
Persistence Has to Correspond to the Opportunity
The importance of the opportunity will affect the appropriate level of persistence.
An outreach campaign connected to some highly relevant and valuable collaboration can justify several follow-ups. A speculative outreach request that offers some minimal benefit to the recipient may require less persistence.
In such situations, the problem is that the intensity of the persistence may outweigh the importance of the opportunity. Instead of showing commitment to the collaboration, the sender may seem more interested in getting some sort of reaction.
Such a perception will become a factor in the recipient’s view of the outreach effort.
Another Outreach Cannot Create More Relevance
Follow-ups can help to get some attention back. However, it is unlikely that they will increase the degree of relevance.
When the first outreach did not contain any strong connection to the recipient’s work, the new outreach will not improve that underlying connection. Repetition may simply make the weak connection more apparent.
This becomes particularly critical in outreach campaigns that rely on broad criteria to find the right recipients.
Increased persistence is justifiable in situations where there is some reason to think that the recipient can value the opportunity. Without it, increased persistence will only show the weakness of the initial targeting.
Repetition Can Create a Negative Reputational Impact
An outreach effort is also a branding interaction.
Sometimes the recipient will remember the sender, the company, or the website even without responding to the outreach. This means that the impact of persistence can go beyond the scope of the current outreach.
A recipient who experiences the outreach as excessively persistent may become less open to any future communication from the sender. In cases where the sender is an agency or a business addressing people in a relatively narrow industry, the impact may affect further attempts to reach out.
Therefore, the cost of follow-up outreach cannot always be calculated only on the basis of the probability of getting a reply.
Sometimes it is more valuable to maintain neutrality than to force an interaction.
Silence Does Not Need to Be Overcome
Often, the strategy of the outreach assumes that silence needs to be overcome.
However, sometimes silence is simply the result of a normal interaction process.
The recipient may not be interested enough to answer, may have other commitments, or may think that the opportunity is not worthy of a reply. None of these factors will necessarily benefit from increased persistence.
The sender is not aware of the real reason for the silence, which makes restraint necessary.
The follow-up is justified when another outreach has some realistic chance of restoring the opportunity. It becomes questionable when its sole aim is to overcome silence.
Follow-Up Potential May Be Reduced Over Time
The potential benefits of the follow-up are not unlimited.
During the early stages of an outreach interaction, another message may increase visibility and provide a legitimate opportunity for the proposal to be considered once again. However, over time, the potential gain may decrease while the risk of creating fatigue and reputational damage grows.
That is the reason why the follow-up should be evaluated according to its impact on the opportunity and not according to persistence itself.
Another message becomes worthwhile when it maintains or increases the chances of productive interaction. When it starts decreasing the receptivity of the recipient, the follow-up stops helping the outreach effort and starts working against it.
