8 Tips To Help Your Get Email Noticed And Secure Online Coverage
I get a couple of hundred emails a day which is a lot of information to digest. Some are from clients, I get all the hello@ emails for the business and this blog and internal emails from people within Simply Zesty. Most of the stuff I can filter in an efficient way but about a quarter of the email I get needs my attention and for me to make a decision on if I should reply or take it further. That actually takes a lot longer than you would think and as the email burden starts to get larger I wanted to share some of the ways that I filter out emails. As many of the emails are from people looking to get coverage on the blog I thought I’d flip it on it’s head and write this post about how to get noticed by email and how to secure coverage online. Remember that my inbox is tiny when compared to some of the bigger blogs or people whose attention you are trying to get online via email. Use these tips and you have a much better chance of having your email replied to…
Don’t Make Your Email Look Like This
Below is an actual email that I received yesterday and which prompted me to write this post. I get these all the time and it’s useful to use as an example of everything that you shouldn’t do. First mistake is that the email has been sent to about 50 other blogs and I have been cc’d along with the rest of them so I know that this is nothing unique to be even if it was an interesting story. You also don’t need to make stuff bold to get my attention or repeat yourself or demand that I join twice.
Build A Relationship Or Get Referred
If there is any way in which you can build a relationship before sending the email then that is a must. Maybe you can start following the person on Twitter and engaging in conversation. Once you have struck up a relationship it might just be a simple case of sending them a little DM saying I just emailed you something interesting that I’d love you to take a look at. This approach takes a little longer but it does work as for some reason the DM is harder to ignore. People rarely send me stuff by DM on Twitter but when they do I tend to at the very least read it and look in to it a little further. The other way is to be referred. So if somebody comes to me saying Mr X said this would be of interest to you and I know Mr X then I’ll nearly always read the email. It taps in to the feeling of not wanting to let a friend down and personal recommendations nearly always work.
Keep It Extremely Short
If you can’t explain what you do in a couple of lines then it really isn’t going to hold most people’s attention. Think of your email like Twitter and feel under pressure with the amount of characters you have. If I see that an email runs to 4 or 5 paragraphs I’ll very rarely get past the first line or sometimes won’t even start reading it. Get everything you want to across in 2 lines and by all means tag a press release on at the bottom of the email under the signature with full details for me to pursue if I need them.
Nobody Will Open Attachments
If you are lucky enough to have somebody read your email that is great but there is even less chance that they will open an attachment. Link to everything you need to share on the web, paste a press release in to the bottom of the email and only attach photos or logos but if you can just link to them somewhere that is even better. Attachments take time to download, are cumbersome and most people will just ignore them.
Include All The Information You Need To
Journalists, bloggers and people going to cover your story are on the whole pretty lazy. You should provide them with all the information they could possibly need to cover your story within the email. This could include things like a link to the site, a free sign up code, logos or screen grabs, press release, videos, quotes and any additional information that they need for the story. The last thing somebody who is busy wants is an email exchange going back and forward looking for the right logo or logins to test the site. By giving them everything in one email you make sure there is the best possible chance of securing some coverage
I Don’t Believe That You Read My Blog
If you start the email like the one below it really doesn’t do anything for me and I get so many of these every single day that if that many people were reading the blog it would be a lot bigger than it was. Listen I know you probably don’t read the blog and I am fine with that but quoting some post I wrote 3 months ago as a starting point really doesn’t mean anything to me. I know some people will have read the blog but for the most part it is a lie and starting an email with a lie is never the best bet.
Describe Everything In The Subject Line
The subject line is there for a reason. It’s your best chance of getting attention just like the title of a blog post or the headline in a newspaper is. Don’t use something generic or cryptic that tries to lure me in to the email because that will more than likely get ignored. Make it clear and to the point and tell me exactly what you are after. Honesty is the best policy here rather than trying to hide what you have behind a veil of secrecy. Remember you are up against 100s of other emails so make sure your doesn’t get deleted immediately without the person even opening it.
Don’t Use Ridiculous Language
I know you love your start up or your product and that you think it is better than everything else out there. Nearly every single email you get pitching for coverage contains one of the following words though….unique, game changing, incredible, revolutionize, viral, exclusive are words that we hear every single day and they don’t make the slightest bit of difference. People hear them every single day and the chances are that although what you are pitching is good it won’t actually be any of the above. Just stick to plain language.
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