Today is a day for a rant post of sorts. I get a lot of emails enquiries for work, client correspondence, spam, sales pitches so on and so forth. Here are some things that drive me crazy.
Using ALL CAPS to show me you really mean it. Email is fairly easy to use but some people are not good at getting the point across. Sometimes ideas are a bit more complex than what can be written out in this quick email. Sometimes we just aren’t communicating all that well. There are once and a while going to be frustrations but all caps are not going to solve the problem in fact they will more than likely further the frustrations. Unless you are in the military reciting acronyms they are unneeded. In my opinion you may as well call me up and open the conversation with “Are you stupid?”.
Cramming the entire email into the subject line. Subjects suck, sometimes I look at my email and think “how the hell am I supposed to summarize that into a quick subject line?” But, subjects are not the place for the whole email. If you need help say something simple like, blog broken, need help. Then in the body of the email explain to me the problem. When an email comes across like this I saw your blog today, I would really like to… (remaining content has been omitted because you tried to jam it all into the subject line.)
Colors. If I send over an email with a few questions and you email back with the answers in red, we’re cool, that works. When you start changing up text color inside of emails, especially when you combine that with the fore-mentioned ALL CAPS we’re in trouble. Just use bold, my eyes are pretty good, I can differentiate.
Contact me but don’t tell me who you are. Seriously it may just be me but I like to be somewhat personable with my clients. If I am going to respond to your request then I would feel bad if I can’t call you by name. Besides we are eventually going to talk further, possible even over the phone. I am going to assist your business or business idea in some way, shape or form. Eventually money will even exchange hands. Start it off right and introduce yourself.
Bonus
Solicit me through my contact form about your service without really research who you are about to solicit. If you start off pitching your service by offending the potential buyer you will probably not make it very far. Here are some key points pertaining to specific industries.
- Contact someone who makes their living as an SEO and let them know that you can get their site to the front page of google.
- Contact a web designer or design firm and let them know that you are running a special and can have their new website up and running in 4 days for $399
Ok that’s a short list but you get the idea.
Extra Special Bonus
When attempting number 1 listed above be sure to leave your url as www.google.com, then they are sure to take you seriously!
There are many more but I thought today was a good day to get that off my chest. Who knows, could be the start of a great series.