Help with outreach emails for content marketing

[BobGW]

Hello,

Could I get some feedback on how to make a good outreach email?

I'm using buzzstream and Rand's awesome whiteboard friday. Here's what I've put together:

Hi [first name] have you seen this [our niche] article?

Paragraph 1 (short paragraph) comments on what the person is involved in, and ask them how these things are going

Paragraph 2 (short paragraph) talks about how I've shared and retweeted their recent important posts.

Paragraph 3 (short paragraph) Asks if they would link to our article. This niche article is really useful and needed to these people.

Paragraph 4 (short paragraph) I'm not sure how to reasearch and put something interesting here.

[my name]

co-owner

[our website]

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Hi,

Ofcourse this is just my personal opinion about this. I personally always tried to ask the people to 'link' to the article but used words like: mention, refer or any word like that. Just to make a bit clear that your goal is also not 100% linkbuilding but also building a brand.
Next to that in paragraph I would not myself tell the recipient that I think it's really needed for this people, I think they'll have to make that up for themselves.

Could you give us a complete example?

[Chris.Menke]

My thoughts are that's a lot of paragraphs and how many sentences are going to be in each paragraph.  If it were me, I'd whittle it down to just a few sentences.  For the best possible response, there's no way to get around customizing each email or doing some research on each recipient.  I'd recommend something more stripped down--maybe more along these lines:

Hi [recipient]

I'm a budding young [niche] writer and your article/comment on [website name & date] lead me to write this article on [article topic] this past week. I really respected your [other relevant, highly shared, well thought out article] and I wonder if you have any thoughts on mine and what I included in it. [Short, concluding, light-hearted sentence that references something personal about the recipient.]   [link]

Thanks,

[BobGW]

Hi Chris,

Thanks, yes one paragraph sounds a lot better. How would you frame it if the article is unlike anything that they have, yet it is useful to them? Also, maybe instead of

"your article/comment on [website name & date] lead me to write this article on [article topic] this past week"

I could truthfully (I want to be honest) say that the there's a lack of good material on [niche] so I created this article.

Though that doesn't sound as good as what you wrote.

Your thoughts?

[Chris.Menke]

How's this instead?

I'm an amateur [niche] enthusiast and your article/comment on [website name & date] led me to do some additional research this past week.  I ended up with a pretty detailed piece on [article topic] and I wondered if you have any thoughts on what I've included in it.  [Short, concluding, light-hearted sentence that references something personal about the recipient.]   [link]

[BobGW]

Thanks Chris,

I think I can adapt this to what we're doing.

This outreach seems like an art form.

Thanks again,

Bob