Are You Getting The Most Out Of Your BuzzStream Account?

BuzzStream. By now, you have heard of it and are mostly likely using it, but are you getting the most out of this link building CRM?

The main goal of BuzzStream is to make the link building process more efficient. It allows you to store prospects all in one place, it gathers relevant prospect site/contact information, it lets you email right from their system, and it keeps track of the progress for each client.

BuzzStream understands that efficiency is key so they have been making updates to make the system even more useful. Make sure you know about recent updates and learn about Big Leap’s favorite BuzzStream features.

Added Features

Email Open and Click Tracking

Towards the end of 2015, BuzzStream added email open and click tracking which I find as one of the most useful updates they have made.

As a digital marketing agency, we are always trying to be better and get better results for our clients. In order to do that, we need data, and these features give us relevant data that we can use to test emails and track interest.

You can now see which specific emails have been opened or clicked along with the overall open rate for an email template. In order to get this data, you have to update your settings on the email template! I have seen people ignore this new setting and lose out on valuable data.

How to Adjust Settings

When you are performing outreach, start like you normally would by selecting the websites then choosing the email template you want to use. Before you send the first email, select the tracking tab and check both “Track Opens” and “Track Link Clicks.”

Once you have done that, BuzzStream should remember your choice and apply that setting to other emails for that project. As you work on different projects be sure to check those settings!

How to View the Data

In order to see if a specific email has been opened or to get information about a link in an email being clicked, you can select the website and view the history tab. By your email subject, if you see a green eye then the email has been opened and if you see a mouse pointer then a link in that email has been clicked.

In order to see how a template is doing overall, you should select “Outreach” then “Manage Templates” and you will see the data below. If you don’t have opens and clicks tracking enabled yet, you will see an “N/A” instead of a percent.

We have found that open rate has helped us make adjustments to subject lines, and clicks help us gauge a prospect’s interest level.

Favorite Features

Detailed Relationship Stages

Relationship Stages is a feature that I’m sure everybody loves. It helps tell you where you are at in the process with each specific website. We have found that we can be better organized if we add to the basic relationship stages and if we have a key that our team has access to so we use all of the stages the same way. Here are some relationship stages we use along with a description:

• Not Started – This is a good prospect we have added to our list but have not emailed them yet.
• Attempting to Reach – We have sent the first email about linking to the client
• Followed Up – Contacted this prospect a second time to follow up with the link building opportunity since they didn’t respond the first time
• Coordinating – The website owner said they might link to the client but there is more coordination needed
• Waiting on Client Approval – We need the client to okay this opportunity (ex. giving away free nights for a travel review)
• Content Requested  – We have requested content for a content contribution opportunity and are waiting for the article to be completed
• Waiting To Go Live – Waiting for the link to go live. We have sent on content that needs to be published or the website owner still needs to add the link (after they have said they would)
• Link Accepted – The link to the client’s website is live
• Rejected – The website owner responded and does not want to work with us
• Costs Money To List – Requires payment
• Reciprocal Link Needed – The website owner has requested a reciprocal link
• Do Not Contact – Never contact this website because we had a bad experience
• Not Qualified – Decided this opportunity does not work so we should not contact them

Other Ideas

• “Waiting to Ship” and “Shipped” for product review projects
• “Work with Again” when you have gotten a completed link and the website wants to work together again in the future
• “Contact Form Submitted” to differentiate between emails and form submissions

How to Update Relationship Stages

Select the gear icon in the top right corner. Select “Settings,” then on the left-hand side select “Customize Fields.” Under “Custom Fields for Websites” you should see “Relationship Stage.” Select the pencil to edit.

You will then see this page where you can select “Add Another Option.” You can also select the color or previous relationship stages to change the color. It is helpful if every relationship stage has a distinct color so you can easily see where websites are at when browsing projects.

Notifications For Responses

If you are doing SEO work for many clients, you don’t want to have to be constantly checking many email accounts looking for responses. With the proper settings when emailing, you can have BuzzStream notify you when a person replies to your email.

Just go to the bell icon to see the notification tab when emailing and check the box “Notify when reply is received.” I personally don’t like notifications when there is a response because I find it easy to become bombarded by notifications when I’m doing a lot of outreach.

(Keep in mind that you still should check the email accounts directly on occasion in case somebody emailed you from an email address that was not saved in BuzzStream.)

Buzzmarker

This is the BuzzStream browser extension that should be a part of everybody’s process. When viewing a website, you can select the Buzzmarker icon to add that site to BuzzStream. This really limits the back and forth between browse tabs. Learn more and download the Chrome extension here.

Prospecting Lists

Have you found a list of links to go through? Maybe it is a list of the top blogs in your industry or even just a list of search results. Right click, select the BuzzStream Buzzmarker and select “Create a Prospecting List.” BuzzStream will gather the list of links in a sidebar like this:

You can select “Start Prospecting” and you will be taken to the first website on your list. On the right will be the option to add the information to BuzzStream but if it isn’t a good fit, just select the arrow at the bottom to skip to the next website. Feel free to view different pages on the website to figure out if it is a good prospect because BuzzStream will stay with you.

Organizing Your Website Lists

Customize the columns you see in the “Websites” tab to get a better overview of what is in the project and to make organization easier. For example, you may want to use the Domain Authority column so you can list the websites in the project from high DA to low DA. Or you may want to see email opens or team assignments.

To edit the columns you see, go to the far right column title, and a plus sign should appear. Select the plus sign and you will be given a list of category columns. Select the categories to see your column options. Just check or uncheck to determine what your columns are.

BuzzStream Customer Service

Everybody doing digital marketing is set up differently, so exactly how we have things set up at Big Leap may not work for you. This is where BuzzSteam customer service comes in.

I have been nothing but pleased when asking for help from the BuzzStream team. They are more than helpful and almost always respond promptly. If you need more help, I recommend setting up a meeting with one of their service reps and they can help you organize your account so it works the way you need it to. You can also email them for small questions or feature requests.

Hopefully, you have a couple of ideas on how to better use BuzzStream with your content marketing strategy. Do you have favorite features I didn’t mention? Tell me in the comments!