Authenticity won't go away. Whether it's your subject matter, tone of voice, or user-generated content, the 'A' word still dominates content marketing.

But one area still lags behind. And that's the way you contact the influential people in your network including customers, partners and media.

I mean, we're all used to writing an email that begins:
"Dear Andrew,
I hope it's ok to write to you out of the blue about sharing our articles on your blog."

Sorry, in today's world that won't fly. 

In the same way that there are millions of blogs that daily compete for the attention of readers, so there are thousands of emails from content marketers imploring the editor of a popular blog to share their content.

So how do you get the attention and interest of influential people in your sector?

Lesson one, don't go after the big fish first. Find your voice by connecting with people who publish content that you love. Don't worry about their follower/traffic count for now. 

The most important thing is that you feel confident reaching out to them in the first place. (If it's someone you already know, all the better).

Lesson two, show some social love before you write. Find their profiles, find a post that you like and share and comment. Then share and comment again. 

Not only do they get a reminder that you are in their circle, you've also got something to talk about when you rewrite that email.

"Andrew, I saw that post about Fulham getting relegated. Sorry about the cheeky comment, but it reminded me to get in touch..."

Finally, and most importantly, don't badger them. "I look forward to hearing from you" will do when you end most of your messages. 

Anything more aggressive, or a follow up every couple of days amounts to backlink trolling.

The Copyblogger article here is brilliant as well on how to do it. Make sure you give it a read.