Soliciting Custom Blog Writing

One Too Many  emails – I just had to Reply.

Today, I received a well written email soliciting custom blog writing services. I have received many of such types of sales emails ranging from copy writing to website design to Search Engine Otimization. Many of these email authors lack an full understanding of brand identity. A common defect of these types of solicitations is they come from no-name people from out of the blue with no marketing exposure preceding them. I think some are well-intentioned and naive about marketing. But who are they?

When I received this particular email, instead of simply deleting it, I decided to help the author by writing a constructive reply and giving them some advice. After all the advice is free and it allowed me to vent. I want to share with you my response and the original email from the person, (who will be nameless),  that sent it.

Although the note is well constructed and it’s clearly a good deal for the price quoted . The questions persist, “What do I get for my money?”. Will the person come through with quality work results?  Are you or me wasting our time doing business with him or her? Is it too good to be true? Do you believe everything you read? I don’t know the person that wrote the email.  I have no idea about the quality of work that person will deliver, except for the sample representative copy of the email itself. My purpose in this post  is to stress a point about brand identity. Please read on about the exchange of emails regarding soliciting custom blog writing services .

The email

Hi,
I am a Marketing Manager with a trustworthy digital marketing agency. We are an experienced digital marketing company working with a number of agencies all across globe including UK, USA and Australia.
We offer business content writing services tailored to any specific industry, audience and requirements. We create content in professional and grammatically correct English. All our content writing projects are proofread before being forwarded to our clients.
You will find our work to be credible, well-structured, easy to read and understand, and consistently great.
Our business content writing specialization includes:
• Website Content Writing
• SEO Copywriting
• SMO descriptions/Punch lines/Tags
• Profiles and Articles
• Blog writing
• Press Releases
• Product Descriptions
• White Papers

Our Price Package:
Custom Articles US$10 per 400 – 500 words
Custom Blog Posts US$6 per 250-300 words
Custom Press Releases US$12 per 400 words
Custom Copyediting US$5 per 400 words
* Please Note: Price is Negotiable on bulk orders

We do not charge by the hour for our content writing services, but have project rates instead.
Please feel free to contact us if you want us to complete your writing projects. We promise to supersede your expectations always.

Waiting for an early reply from your end,

Thanks,
Warm Regards,

XXXXXXX

 

My reply

Let me talk to you as a Dutch uncle. You need to establish your own brand with a decent website using a registered domain in your name. Your domain name should include your brand embedded in it . Your website is the starting point. You will need more than just a website to grow your brand. Your brand may be about delivering  quality writing services to benefit your target audience.  Your website is the hub of your website presence and requires the interconnection with other web properties such as social media networks and blogosphere. This will allow you to gain visibility and creditability on the Internet.

You want traffic to come to your website, so your compelling website content can answer the visitors questions and be a centralized place to gain detail information about you and your business anytime and anywhere.

Your website should provide: reasons why I should do business with you, contact information, how you conduct business, your philosophy, your qualification and background, skills, education, experience, samples of your work and testimonials from customers that have used your services. It should include a call-to-action to directly contact you by email or phone and feel good about it.

You must have a real identity with a postal address. I want to know you exist and that you have a full name that is verifiable by search engines results and there is a photo of you. I want to know more about you before I am willing to consider doing business with you. Are you a real person with the skills to solve my problem? Can I trust you? Your website can help answer these questions augmented by using your email address as a conspicuously connector of authorship to tie together your brand by linkage to your domain, your website, directories of Yelp, Google Places, Hotfrog, Manta, Yahoo local, etc., as well as, social media of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

You have sent me a note using a Gmail email address as a vehicle soliciting custom blog writing services. You provided no reference to a marketing agency or any name-brand that I can conduct research to find out more about you. When I google your name (found in the email address) I can’t find you. I don’t know where you reside to limit by search. You are asking me to blindly trust you without knowing anything about you. In this day and age,  it’s extremely easy to get scammed. Scamming on the Internet has run rampant.  You’re an unknown and working initially with you is a risk. Frankly, many people are a afraid to take a chance to do business with you.

I hope this helps you improve your business and gain new customers.

 

There was no further reply or response.