Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You're only a stranger once.

September 18, 2008

Dear ANYONE, If You Want a Blogger’s Attention . . .

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 11:57 am

Spam Ain’t the Way

Recently, I received the 4th unfortunate, attention-getting email from the same PR firm in NYC. I took the following screenshot of the subject line.

Expert Available Email Headline

To the first email in the series, which ran about 6 pages long, I responded,

“To a blogger, this is spam.”

The reply was stunning.

“We only want to help, not hurt

I will read you more often

Please give me your url”

What?

How could you have read me at all, if you didn’t have my url?

If You Want a Blogger’s Attention . . .

If you want to get someone’s undivided attention, here’s what you do.

In this case, here’s a message that might have worked.

Subject Line:
Social Media and Successful and Outstanding Boomer Businesses

Dear Liz,
I know you write about social media. I also know you’re passionate about small business. I’d like to offer an idea.

If you’re looking for a guest post written with wit and insight, we have a client who helps boomers use social media to save their small town businesses. She’d jump at a chance to tailor a blog post to your audience. I’d love to talk to you about it. Email me or call if you think this would bring value to your readers.

Thanks for what you do on Successful-Blog,
PR Person
Title: She who wants to write to 5 bloggers rather than blast 500

I’m sure I missed something. What would you add to the list?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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Filed under Liz Talks Corporate, Marketing, Successful Blog | 31 Comments »




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31 Comments to “Dear ANYONE, If You Want a Blogger’s Attention . . .”

  1. September 18th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
    Sherice said

    Love your blog, Liz (and yes, I actually read it!) What would you suggest for people wanting to approach other bloggers about being a guest writer? I’ve always wanted to do this but wasn’t sure how to ask. Any tips?

    Now I’m off to go ask the same question to 500 other bloggers (just kidding) ;)

  2. September 18th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
    Jenn Givler said

    Isn’t it offensive when someone contacts you to sell you something and they don’t even know you??

    I’ve gotten spam like this… my favorite was someone who addressed me as:

    Dear Create A Thriving Business,

    Ummm… yeah, last time I checked my name was Jenn.

  3. September 18th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
    Amy Derby said

    I just wrote an article for a series on pitching new clients, and one of my regular readers commented that she had been told it was ok to blast around a press release to folks who might seem like target clients. I wasn’t too shocked that someone told her that, sadly, because that seems to be a very bad trend right now in PR. I’m not sure why; they should know better.

    I’ve always said if you’re going to spam me, at least make it entertaining. Give me a good laugh as I’m hitting the delete button. I probably should have been more specific…

    I currently have a self-proclaimed underground surrogacy agency spamming me, which is disturbing on more levels than I can count. Further, responding to said spam messages — my note says “I’m not interesting in renting out my uterus, so please remove me from your mailing list” — makes the emails bounce back. There is no contact info whatsoever in the message. So what if I WAS on the market to tote around someone else’s litter for nine months. How would I get in touch with these morons?

    I also keep getting super-vague emails to buy text links on my blog. I don’t sell text links, so I assume these are just spammers. But I’m never quite sure. The latest message goes “I was looking up some sites on Google, particularly ones related to mine, and came across your site “http://write-from-home.com”. I found it out of the ordinary I must say. I am interested in doing business with you…” Legit or not, I’m not interested. But don’t you think it would be a good idea to tell me what your site is, or what you do, or — well — anything? Do people honestly think I’m going to write to them and drag the information out of them?

    Rule #1 in my world: If you want something from me, you’d better be willing to tell me what it is, because I’m not wasting my psychic powers on lazy spammers.

  4. September 18th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
    Michael Martine aka Remarkablogger said

    One more line is needed: We are prepared to pay you in the sum of…

    :)

  5. September 18th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
    Havi Brooks (and duck) said

    “Please give me your url”

    Hahahahahaha. That’s absolutely hilarious.

    For stuff like that you should probably have an incredibly obnoxious form letter template that says something like, “Have you seen my Alexa ranking? I won’t even read the subject heading of your email for less than a thousand dollars. Go away, please.”

    Or you could be less diva rock star about it and just have your assistant mass delete. Thanks at any rate for the belly laugh.

  6. September 18th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
    Alex Cristache said

    I must say that in answer like the one you got would have really pi##ed me off. You have nerves of steel Liz.

  7. September 19th, 2008 at 5:30 am
    Karin H. said

    You could of course start with being known as a regular reader/commenter on the blogger’ss blog you’re trying to woo ;-)

    Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)

  8. September 19th, 2008 at 8:34 am
    Monique Attinger said

    I just got back into the blogging biz after a “time out” for a small health crisis (on the mend) and a sabbatical from all things stressful… I now have a new business partner and a new site, and I couldn’t be more happy.

    The site has been up for about 10 days… and I’ve already had 14 spam “comments”. Each comment is FULL of links to those horrible kinds of sites (think gambling and other vices) and each time I block them, they simply turn up again as another hotmail email account.

    I think the nature of spam is aggressive — and anonymous. I’m actually quite surprised that your spammer wrote you BACK, Liz! That’s someone with more guts than brains…

    In any case, your response was perfect.

    I only wish that the internet was limited to those who are really participating with full integrity. Unfortunately, it’s populated by a reasonable cross-section of humanity as it exists everywhere… ;-)

  9. September 19th, 2008 at 10:04 am
    Patricia said

    Dropping into Liz’s digital tavern for a shot of strong advice I can really use. Thanks for this post. I have been railing for months that bloggers are:
    1. valuable chroniclers of our age and need to be treated as such
    2. the art of reaching bloggers with any kind of sincere, useful information is inefficient,a problem SPAM can never solve.

    I hang on to the simple belief that the business of blogging needs some guidelines so bloggers get treated with the same regard as professional journalists. Your list goes a long way toward that. But how do we operationalize it so everyone wins?

  10. September 19th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
    Cheryle Gagnon said

    Hi Liz,
    I agree that blogging should be helpful,informative, and entertaining. The best blogs should make the reader feel like they are visiting a good friend, or relaxing somewhere nice and reading an interesting book about a subject of their choosing. Otherwise it is like selling roller skates to a pilot.

  11. September 19th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
    Ari Herzog said

    I’m not shocked the note said, “Give me your url.” I’m more shocked the word, “give” was used and not something like, “May you send me your url?”

  12. September 23rd, 2008 at 7:33 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Sherice.
    Actually reading the blog is the best start. Then proposing an idea that fits with the readership is the next one on the list. Most bloggers are looking for great content. With some reasonable homework and a brief proposal like this . . .

    I’m thinking that a post on ___ that explains ___ would be right for your readers because ____. Would you be interested? I could have you a draft by ____.

  13. September 23rd, 2008 at 7:35 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Jenn,
    It’s particularly offensive when what they’re trying to sell is obviously something I’d never need or worse something I’m already supposed to be good at, for example, “Learn to read English.”

    Ouch!

  14. September 23rd, 2008 at 7:38 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Amy,
    I know what you mean and I particularly love your comment about wasting perfectly good psychic powers on spammers. Truth is I don’t get the ones that bounce either unless

    a. they’re testing the list.
    b. they got shut down that fast.

    Those are the only reasons I can come up with.

  15. September 23rd, 2008 at 7:39 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Michael,
    I like that line a lot!

  16. September 23rd, 2008 at 7:43 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    #5 Havi,
    I can’t wait until you and are in the same town.

    Dear PR Spammer My general counsel and her duck recommend that I no longer read your obnoxious pitches for less than $1000 because of the cost of the medication to recover from the experience.

  17. September 23rd, 2008 at 7:43 am
    Jenn Givler said

    LOL Liz – yeah, no kidding!

  18. September 23rd, 2008 at 7:44 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Alex,
    My default response in such situations is amazement. :)

  19. September 23rd, 2008 at 7:45 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Exactly Karin,

    We were joking at BlogWorld about the following sentence.

    “Hi, I’m regular commenter, first time reader.”

  20. September 23rd, 2008 at 7:47 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Monique,
    During a discussion at Gnomedex, a young man said that every ecosystem has it’s waste . . . spammers and trolls are ours.

  21. September 23rd, 2008 at 7:58 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Patricia,
    I think a lot of knowing what we want and holding the line for a few months will go a long way. :)

  22. September 23rd, 2008 at 7:59 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Cheryle.
    What a lovely metaphor. Where you on my plane yesterday? I think the pilot who landed it might have been one who bought those roller skates. :)

  23. September 23rd, 2008 at 8:01 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Ari!
    Another point well taken. The poor PR person is probably under such deadline pressure to produce she can’t see to next Sunday. :)

  24. September 23rd, 2008 at 11:13 am
    Amy Derby said

    Liz (and Havi and duck) — I want to know where you’re getting those bargain meds for $1000. You should charge way more. :-)

    Oh, and I did a little stalking, and you were right. The bouncer-backer was shut down and being investigated for criminal activity. And it wasn’t even my fault. I’m so excited! ;-)

  25. September 23rd, 2008 at 6:34 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hey Amy,
    Yeah! on both counts!!

  26. October 26th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
    Part 4: Social Media Marketing for Small Business: Mentors | Kyle Lacy, Social Media - Indianapolis said

    [...] Dear ANYONE, If You Want a Blogger’s Attention . . . [...]

  27. February 1st, 2011 at 10:23 pm
    Blissdom ’11: Top 10 Things I Learned — In Good Cents said

    [...] need a healthy dose of common sense and courtesy on both sides.  Instead of wasting time sending hundreds of generic pitches to bloggers or companies, use that time to write five valuable, personal pitches to companies that [...]

  28. March 23rd, 2011 at 10:21 pm
    Randall Gniadecki said

    I have done outreach to bloggers in the past for a PR company and found that although most bloggers say they want lots of personalization as long as I ACTUALLY took the time to read their bio and a few recent posts I could easily tailor the form letter to seem much more personal. This left the blogger feeling personal attention and ALSO left money in the budget for that gift card and giveaway they demanded. The biggest misconception (from experience in PR and as a blogger) is that the end client has an endless budget. The company will either spend their money on the details of the email and outreach -OR- on compensation/giveaways… unless you have a provable massive following that really fits their niche, then you are probably one of only a handful of bloggers contacted. Finally, I have never seen a blogger outreach campaign target 500 bloggers, and I was doing work for some BIG companies.

  29. March 23rd, 2011 at 10:24 pm
    Randall Gniadecki said

    PS. what you received was totally spam. Possibly even eggs, bacon, cheese and spam.

  30. March 24th, 2011 at 9:13 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Randy,
    I so totally agree. :)

  31. March 24th, 2011 at 9:16 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Randy,
    That advice in your comment is right on. We don’t need “beyond the call of duty” service. We just want to be treated like a person not a scanning machine. Most of the pitches I get are downright ugly besides being inappropriate. I sometimes want to write the person being represented to ask whether they’ve seen what’s being sent out about them.

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