Another bizarre email request came through my blog today.
I wanted to share with you the email I got, and the unusual lessons that are inside.
First, I get lots of requests through my blog contact page.
Some of them are for helping with marketing campaigns, others are asking for money, some are joint venture requests, and then other times….I get this kind of nonsense.
“I hope you are well. {NOTE: no personalization – shows a lack of real effort or research on who actually writes for the site. It would take about 2.3 seconds at the most to figure out my name}
After reading your blog, I think you may be interested in a project I run that would be great for your site.{NOTE: if they truly read my blog, they should have put something in here to prove that they did, and didn’t just hire someone to do this en masse}
We are looking for partners that we can place a page of our high quality editorial content with, in which the article will be written directly to a bespoke brief produced by you. In exchange we would like to place a link back to one of our blue chips client’s sites.
{NOTE: ‘Bespoke brief’? Who talks like that? I sure as hell don’t! Nor would I EVER recommend you do. I had to think about what it actually meant…and any time you ask someone to get out a dictionary to decipher your message, they are done…toast…vamoose…later gator. Never try and impress people with your creative use of big words. It doesn’t impress anyone}
{NOTE: So they want to put one of their clients content pieces on my site, with my endorsement, and a link back to their client’s sites? Wow! I am so excited!!! What an amazing opportunity for me. I am such a lucky guy and this is the opportunity of a lifetime for me! What am I waiting for…this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. YEESH. That is the best they can do, is it? There is truly NOTHING in it for me with their offer. Put crap up on MY site with a link back to some other person’s site…how enticing. How about I write my own content and link back to MY products, services, or recommended resources? Go figure.}
We endeavour to produce the highest quality content for our partner sites. I can assure you that all of our clients are recognised corporate brands, so the quality of your site will not be affected by the link within it.I’m sure you receive many e-mails similar to this, offering services at the lower end of the quality spectrum. {company name} Limited have worked on a high end proposition, we are content providers not spammy link builders. Please visit www.{removed for privacy}.com so you can get more of a feel for who we are and what we do.
{NOTES: Yes I do get lots of this nonsense…thanks for thinking of me. Yours is no better and actually may be worse. Now go away please.}
If you are interested in partnering with us, or have any questions regarding this opportunity, please do not hesitate to contact me.
{NOTE: Can’t wait!}
I look forward to hearing from you.Kindest Regards
…….
Maybe these guys have a great business doing this, I have no idea. The approach they took with this email SUCKED though. I can’t think of a more useless piece of trash.
Always remember when soliciting new business….the potential customer you are contacting has 2 very important questions they quickly want an answer to:
1) “What’s in it for me?” This email never once answered that question. Yet it is the most important one of all. Put some serious thought into the answer to this when writing emails or approaching prospects. If you don’t address this – expect them to dismiss your ‘wonderful offer’ much like I have here.
2) “So what?” Each and every line in your email request (or letter, or postcard, etc) should answer the question. Put content on my site? So what? I write my own. A link back to their site? So what? I don’t want to promote some moron I don’t know, trust, or like.
Put some thought into your emails and prospecting efforts.
Please!
Don’t let your email request get caught in a review like this one!
Answer those 2 questions and you will get a much more friendly response than this :O)
Troy

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