We all know the major impact social media and other online tools has had on marketing, advertising, and branding as a whole. But here is a the break down of how online marketing works and what works best.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Cobrasnake Hamburger Sneakers
Cobrasnake Hamburger Sneakers:
Holy hamburger lover’s paradise. These sweet kicks have got all the fixins. Order up a double double with lettuce, tomato, cheese and special sauce and they’ll throw in some extra laces. These custom kicks are brought to you by the infamous party rocking photographer CobraSnake, Vans, and Colette collaboration and they’ll be making stomachs growl in unison when they launch on March 1st. Get ‘em while they’re hot folks, these babies are a limited edition (only 60 left!)
Spring Bath Decor with Sanindusa Collection New Day
Spring Bath Decor with Sanindusa Collection New Day: 
As many of us are patiently waiting for spring to come, we couldn't help but share the New Day bath collection by Sanindusa because of the inspiring spring decor you can create with it. As the name suggests, this decor collection gives off a sense of renewal - a fresh start. This energizing mood is really perfect for a bathroom space when you consider the function of a bathroom. It's a place to take care of one's body, to cleanse, to refresh, to prepare, to wind down at the end of the day. Essentially, these activities help restore our mindset too. Sanindusa did a great job expressing that uplifting spring feeling with their New Day collection. Find out more about it at Sanindusa.
As many of us are patiently waiting for spring to come, we couldn't help but share the New Day bath collection by Sanindusa because of the inspiring spring decor you can create with it. As the name suggests, this decor collection gives off a sense of renewal - a fresh start. This energizing mood is really perfect for a bathroom space when you consider the function of a bathroom. It's a place to take care of one's body, to cleanse, to refresh, to prepare, to wind down at the end of the day. Essentially, these activities help restore our mindset too. Sanindusa did a great job expressing that uplifting spring feeling with their New Day collection. Find out more about it at Sanindusa.
What Happens When Your Site is Featured on the Front Page of Yahoo? Plus: How to Get National Press
What Happens When Your Site is Featured on the Front Page of Yahoo? Plus: How to Get National Press:
This is a guest post by Jamie from Eventual Millionaire.
As a blogger I’ve had a lot of success with national press.
I’ve been on CNN Newsroom with Tony Harris, MSN Money, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine, Success Magazine, Fox Business, Fortune.com, and my face was on Yahoo’s homepage twice.
I get asked about how I’ve done it – but not only that, they ask how much traffic I received from it. Since you are here at ThinkTraffic, I bet you want to know how much traffic I got and how to get it yourself.
In this post I’ll also share with you a few lessons I’ve learned, and stupid things I did along the way.
The First Press Experience
Six months after I started EventualMillionaire.com, and about a week before I was planning on quitting blogging altogether, a journalist from CNN emailed me. They ended up doing a story on how I paid off $70,000 in debt so I could quit my corporate job. (Shout out to Adam Baker from Man vs Debt who was also in that story.) The day after the story aired they wanted me to be on their TV show, CNN with Tony Harris. A few days after that, my face was on Yahoo’s homepage.
I was floored! I started receiving email from old friends from high school who saw me there. But it turns out, when there isn’t a link to your website, you don’t get a ton of traffic. I assumed I would have MADE it with my face on Yahoo’s homepage. I got some traffic, a lot of people trying to sell me stuff, and even a marriage proposal out of it. These are the results:
That bump in traffic came when I was on TV. My article on Yahoo didn’t have much of a bump at all. I received almost 3,500 visitors. Since there wasn’t a direct link to my site, I had many people looking up my name on Yahoo or Google.
Mistake – Bad SEO: At the time, if you looked up my name, my site didn’t come up first. In fact another blogger who wrote a post about me came up first. The second listing was my personal Facebook page. Back then, I didn’t even have a link to my blog on my Facebook page! I should have taken time to make sure my name produced the results I wanted.
Smart Move – Email List and Leverage: The weekend before I was on TV I created a giveaway for my email list. I worked all day and night and created the Eventual Millionaire Starter Kit. I was able to add 350 people to my email list. I also leveraged that press to land on the front page of my local newspaper, and also an interview with the local TV station. It took about an hour to draft a quick press release and get the email addresses of six people to send it to.
Yahoo’s Homepage Again
Less than four months later it happened again. (I had no idea it would happen once, let alone twice!) I was in Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine and since Yahoo syndicates its content it picked up this story too.
This time there was a link, and a LOT more traffic.
There were over 8,000 visitors to the site in less than 2 hours. AND THEN MY SITE WENT DOWN. My face remained on the homepage of Yahoo for 48 hours. My site was down the whole time. I remained on the phone with tech support very upset that they would not do anything about getting the site back up.
Mistake – Bad Hosting: I didn’t plan for traffic spikes. I had the cheapest shared hosting option through a company called 1and1 (I do not recommend using them, or having shared hosting when you are trying to drive traffic).
Smart Move – Use Your Connections: Since my site was down there wasn’t a ton that I could do. But I did start to work with what I had. For example, one person that I knew locally called me. They offered to email Dave Ramsey’s right-hand man with the link to the article. I jumped at the chance and sent him everything he needed to know. Dave Ramsey put a link to the article on his Facebook page. (Of course my site was still down, but a lot of Dave Ramsey people sent me messages on Facebook!)
Action Item: How to Get Press to Drive Traffic
Help A Reporter Help A Reporter Out (HARO) sends out three emails per day with requests from journalists and blogs looking for sources. I would highly suggest signing up. I’ve landed Fox Business, Success Magazine, MSN Money and many others from HARO. Here are my tips for landing them:
- Get the email, scan it, and send to the most important ones ASAP.
I’ve used HARO when I have been looking for sources, and I can tell you, journalists get FLOODED with requests. It’s much easier to be noticed as one of the first few received.
- List your qualifications, and get to the point.
Since they receive so many requests, use the first sentence to really explain your qualifications–Why are you an expert on this? Then quickly get to the point and tell them what information they are looking for. I usually use the last sentence to be personable, and ask them to call or email if they need anything else at all.
- Journalists usually don’t care about you; they just want a great story/tip.
We tend to get egotistical thinking we are really great. Most of the time I’ve worked with high level journalists, they have been rushed for time, and don’t really care about me – they just want a good story. (I know right??) Make sure your focus is on them and not you.
- Practice and then only send to the big ones.
This is what I do now. I used to send a reply to almost any request I was qualified for. I’ve been in books, on blogs and websites. I started to get really good at having my information accepted. I rarely got much, if any traffic from these smaller places. Now I only send to larger publications. It’s just not worth my time now to send to the smaller, lesser-known avenues. With the larger ones, I get a less responsive rate, but when I do get a response, it’s much bigger. Last month I was in Success Magazine, and while it was more of a slow and steady flow of traffic, the new subscribers I have from it have been amazing and awesome. From that magazine I had a millionaire call me, give me his advice on becoming a professional speaker for an hour, and now he wants me to interview him!
Action Item: Sign up at HelpAReporter.com as a source. This week, reply to at least one journalist looking for your expertise.
Guest Posting
Guest posting is still important too, even if you plan on focusing more on national press. CNN found me within my first six months because I had guest posted on GetRichSlowly. Not only did I get 400 new subscribers from that first guest post on Get Rich Slowly but it paved the way for CNN and Kiplinger’s (which both lead to landing on Yahoo). I highly recommend guest posting. My guest post for Get Rich Slowly, which went live the day after I submitted on January 10th 2012, had 263 people sign up for my email list.
Action Item: Email at least one bigger blog (10,000+ subscribers) about guest posting. (Make sure to send ideas and don’t just say, what do you think I should write about?) Specifically find a blog in your industry where journalists might be reading.
Interviewing Strategy – Traffic Results
When I started my podcast about a year ago, I thought I had a great idea: I’ll interview business owners with a net worth of $1 million or more. Then I’ll ask them to help promote the interview. Therefore I can grow my traffic by leveraging their traffic too. It made sense in theory. It turns out it’s a lot harder than I thought.
First, most millionaires don’t have social media accounts or email lists. Second, they are really busy. So even if they have a presence online it’s hard to get them to promote it. But sometimes it does work. I interviewed David Heinemeier Hansson of 37 Signals (creators of Basecamp and co-author of Rework). We had a great interview, and he ended up tweeting to his 57,000 followers about the interview.
His tweet brought in over 1,000 downloads on that day for his interview. It also brought on a lot of new subscribers. While the idea for driving traffic from millionaires was really hit or miss, one major benefit that I didn’t expect came about. I know over 50 millionaires personally. In fact, I consider a few of them friends now. One is in my mastermind group. Two are mentoring me for free. More than half of them have specifically told me if there is anything I ever need to just ask. These are huge benefits that really change the way I do business.
Action Item: Try interviewing someone. It can be just questions via email, or you can do one video or audio interview to try it out. Don’t put pressure on yourself, just try it and see if you like it. I had never interviewed anyone before I interviewed my first millionaire. (So do as I say, not as I do!) Email someone this week that you think would make a really great interview. It’ll provide you content and expertise and start to help you build a great relationship.
Just Try Something Today
The only way you get traffic is to take action. So choose one of these three Action Items to do this week. Go put it on your “to do” list.
It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you only hit a home run if you take a swing. So go and start hitting things!
Jaime is a business coach and speaker and each week she interviews a self-made millionaire for their tips, advice on business and stories. You can download her Top 10 Actions recommended by millionaires and check out her latest free webinar called Millionaires Say What?
Why I Chose Starting a Business Over Grad School: Part 1
Why I Chose Starting a Business Over Grad School: Part 1:
I graduated high school and went to college, getting a degree in economics and mathematics. I’m not a radical and I hate risk. So why in the world would I start a business when my friends were going to graduate school?
I’ve always been blessed to be comfortable understanding money. I’m good at conceptualizing it and thinking of the implications. And that’s where my first stumbling block arose. Because there is no way around it: graduate school is expensive. Tuition and living expenses can easily push over $50,000 per year, and a grad school program will be two years in the case of most masters programs, and longer in the case of law degrees and programs.
So you come out of school with $100,000 in loans. Is that the end of the money story? Not so fast. Remember, you used to be doing something else. In my case, I was working a solid job that was paying me around median wage. The cost of going to school includes all these lost wages, too (Economists call this opportunity cost). So now the total cost of grad school comes in the neighborhood of $200,000.
There can be different goals of going to grad school. You may want to change career paths, make more money, or you might just like school. But most people want to come out making more money. How long would it be before you’ve come out ahead of where you would have been had you kept working your job?
Using data from a Georgetown University employment study we can get a handle on average wages for recent grads, experienced grads, and holders of graduate degrees. Let’s just pluck some values that look to be about in the middle. Obviously, in real life, engineering is more lucrative than education.
| Years after graduation | 0 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 15 |
| Job ($50k/yr) | $100,000 | $200,000 | $350,000 | $600,000 | $850,000 |
| Grad School Job ($75k/yr) | -$100,000 | $50,000 | $275,000 | $650,000 | $1,025,000 |
(This table intentionally leaves out any investments, discount rates and raises purely for simplicity. If any discounting is taken into effect, it would make graduate school look worse.
We can momentarily assume that periodic raises are given equally, but the ceiling may be higher for those with graduate degrees.)
The table shows that, using an average scenario, it would take about 10 years before you get back to where you were–strictly monetarily. In other words, you would have been richer for a full 10 years after grad school had you not gone. After 10 years, you start getting the monetary benefits of your degree.
Importantly, even given the tremendous cost of education, it should be considered a thirty year investment. If you get a graduate degree at twenty-five years old, you break even at thirty-five, and you come out way ahead by the time you start getting toward retirement at fifty-five or sixty. I don’t want to pretend that’s not true.
What I want to do is to think about the cost of graduate school and think about what else I might do with that money. Rather than go to grad school, is there anything else more compelling to do with $170,000? Quentin Tarantino famously said that people should not go to film school. They should take the money that the would have spent on tuition and make a film.
When I looked at the investment necessary to go to graduate school, I saw a greater opportunity, and that was to start a business.
In part two I will talk about my second reason: why should I pay so much to learn?
I just want everyone to be awesome. My first company, Brode, makes the first Drinking Companion for professionals, a special vitamin that helps promote proper hydration and detox when drinking alcohol.
6 Things Your Small Business Can Learn from Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google
6 Things Your Small Business Can Learn from Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google:
Phil Simon, author of The Age of the Platform: How Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Have Redefined Business says these innovative businesses share several common threads. “They embraced platform strategies really well, which is really the central message of the book. They built up their platforms and added different features or offerings.” The lessons that can be learned by these companies are applicable to any business, not just those in the high-tech or digital space, says Simon.
Keep reinventing yourself. In the Age of the Platform, companies that constantly reinvent themselves lead the pack. Keep adding planks to your platform. Start a newsletter. Become an expert at an online industry forum. Add new services or features to your suite of offerings. Find an underserved market niche and modify your product/services to fill their need. Write a white paper. Team up with a complementary business and share customers. Revamp your website. Whatever you do, don’t stand still. The moving target survives. “As for when it’s time to do it, I would argue that you are better off doing it too soon than too late,” asserts Simon. “Companies like Microsoft that have been, traditionally, very late to things like search or cloud computing are trying to play catch up.”
Curate your customers. Apple curates many passionate users and turns them into partners (app developers for their iPhone and iPad) who pay back profits. How might your customers generate profit for you? Maybe you offer a reward for referring a new customer. Or create a wiki that enables customers to suggest new product lines. Think of new ways to get your customers expanding your brand for you. In the Age of the Platform, the fundamental relationship between a business and its customers is changing. “Just remember that you’re never going to make everybody happy and there is a kind of customer you’d want to go for,” says Simon. “When Facebook has 845 million users and it makes a change to one of its features, and it ticks off 1% of them, that’s a pretty good batting average, but you still have 8.5 million people who are upset.”
(Image: Thinkstock)
Let others’ platforms do the work. There are free and low-cost tech tools designed to build or expand your platform that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Content management systems like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and others enable you to add planks such as blogs, plugins, widgets, integrated social networks, podcasts, videos, etc. Groupon can bring customers to your business. Salesforce.com enables a small company to act and operate like a big one. Sites like eLance allow you to connect with low-cost specialists of almost any vocation. All of the popular social media sites offer great free branding tools. Sites like Kickstarter enable entrepreneurs to test new product ideas in advance.
Don’t be afraid to expand into unchartered territory. “What if Google had been satisfied with just being a search engine, or Apple had only made computers?” asks Simon. “Great platform companies understand that the more high-quality services and products you offer, the more customers and growth opportunities you’ll attract.” He says diversifying invites serendipity and makes your company more resilient to unexpected changes in a market. Find something your company does really well and then use that as a starting place for a brand new endeavor. Perhaps you translate all of your marketing materials into Russian to serve the local Ukrainian community. “You never know which new path will lead to unforeseen success.”
Be sticky. Attracting customers with your great products and services is step one. “Getting them to stay with you – and only you – is the ultimate goal,” asserts Simon. He points to Amazon.com’s launch of the Kindle Fire as an example. The product made it easier for users to shop at Amazon.com and consume media and entertainment at Amazon rather than anywhere else. He suggests small business owners asking the following: “How can your business lure in customers and keep them there? With amazing customer service, follow-up, regular email specials, or contests? With interactive features at your website, birthday coupons, or preferred customer perks? Make it hard for your customers to want to go anywhere else.” He also recommends using existing platforms as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, or Pinterest.
Move quickly, and make small bets. If you see an emerging need or trend in your industry, be the first one on your block to blog about it, ask your customers about it, and turn it into a new offering. You don’t have to sink a lot of money into this new endeavor, but you do need to act decisively to beat your competitors. The worst that can happen is you’ll fail. But you’ll know how to improve it before any of your competitors do. Being first fearlessly is a characteristic of successful platform companies. “Merck had put out a drug called Vioxx that cost over $1 billion. All of a sudden the FDA shut it down and there were law suits stemming from the people taking it and dying or having heart attacks,” says Simon. “If you’ve got a digital product you can fix it seamlessly. You can turn it off seamlessly. Your ability, now, to make a change, that’s why to me the costs of failure are a lot smaller.”
Small business is BIG BUSINESS at the 2012 Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference + Expo hosted by Nationwide, May 23-26, at the Hilton Chicago Hotel in Chicago, IL. Expect innovative sessions, high-powered speakers, and an early peek at the products, trends, and services you’ll need to stay ahead of the curve. Beat the March 16 Early Bird deadline to get a $200 registration discount at www.blackenterprise.com/ec/! And be sure to nominate your company or another business for our Small Business Awards! Want to pitch your business idea and win $10,000? Don’t miss the chance to enter our Elevator Pitch Competition before March 30 to qualify for the $10,000 grand prize. To register and find out more, visit www.blackenterprise.com/ec/
Montecarlo Furniture by Tonino Lamborghini
Montecarlo Furniture by Tonino Lamborghini: 
Italian car designs are synonymous with luxury and craftsmanship which is exactly what we can expect from the Montecarlo furniture line by Tonino Lamborghini - a collection of interior products characterized by the use of elements made of carbon and Kevlar. The sofas are especially intriguing. Their strong, modern design combined with the use of rich, glorious leather in bold red and black colors, make these pieces powerful and unique. They're definitely not meant to blend into the background of any space. Go to Lamborghini for more information.
Italian car designs are synonymous with luxury and craftsmanship which is exactly what we can expect from the Montecarlo furniture line by Tonino Lamborghini - a collection of interior products characterized by the use of elements made of carbon and Kevlar. The sofas are especially intriguing. Their strong, modern design combined with the use of rich, glorious leather in bold red and black colors, make these pieces powerful and unique. They're definitely not meant to blend into the background of any space. Go to Lamborghini for more information.
How to Write an Email That Will Actually Get a Response
How to Write an Email That Will Actually Get a Response:
How to write an email?
What’s next? A post on how to tie your shoes?
I know, I know. Email is such an ubiquitous part of our lives that you might think that people would naturally have it down pat.
But having received thousands of emails over the past four years, I can say with certainty that frequency does not necessarily beget proficiency. Which is to say: a lot of people out there are pretty clueless about how to compose a good email. Even those hired as professional PR reps!
No matter how basic a life skill, it’s something you still have to learn. And unfortunately, nobody seems to be teaching young folks the components of an effective email, despite the fact that it forms the backbone of modern communication. Knowing how to write a good email—one that will actually get a response–is crucial to your success: it can make the difference between whether or not you get a job, find a mentor, get funding for an idea, or receive potentially life-changing advice.
You see, each email is essentially a pitch, even if you’re not literally selling a business idea. What you’re pitching is the idea that you’re worth responding to—and that can be a tough sell. The person to which you’re writing may get dozens, even hundreds of emails every single day, and they can’t possibly give every single email the same time and attention. So just like with face-to-face pitches, these people develop ways of slotting their emails into two tracks—those that get a response and those that get kicked to the trash folder. What determines the track you get funneled to is whether or not you raise one of the recipient’s red flags; an email can be your first impression with someone, and since the recipient doesn’t have much to go on, he or she will be looking for little, subtle clues as to whether they should hit reply or delete. These red flags can be really small things—things that may not seem at all fair to you–but they’ve probably found that 8 out of 10 people who exhibit those characteristics aren’t worth responding to, as it ends up being a waste of their time.
The blog Think Simple Now did a great job of outlining the way the sender of the email and the recipient of the email have very divergent perspectives:
Observing the Receiver
- Gets a lot of email.
- May receive compliments regularly, if they are a public figure.
- Regularly gets asked a standard set of questions and favors.
- Does not have a lot of free time.
- Does not mind helping you, if it is fast.
Observing the Sender
- Spends a long time crafting the ‘perfect’ (-ly long) email.
- Believes that their request is original, unique, and special.
- Believes that they are the first to ask for such favors.
- Cannot imagine why anyone would turn them away.
- Desires to tell the whole story, explained from every angle, so that the listener can understand their point of view.
The key to getting a response to your email is to put yourself in the recipient’s shoes and tailor your email accordingly. How do you do that? Well below we outline some of the things we look for in determining whether or not an email is worthy of a response. Now, the language may seem a little harsh. But this is not one man’s personal’s pet peeves—these are the same things that business owners, agents, and newspaper editors have told me they use in evaluating their emails; these are the things folks already say behind your back, and there’s no use in keeping it from people for the sake of being “nice.”
Note: These guidelines are only for emails that you write when you’re hoping for something from the recipient, even if it’s just a response. If you’re just dashing off a quick note to pass along some information or share your appreciation, or are corresponding with someone you’re very familiar with, the rules really don’t matter very much.
Respect the recipient’s time and make sure the email is even necessary. Everyone’s time is precious. When you send an email, what you’re saying is, “What I have to say is worth five minutes of your time, time you could be spending on your business or with your family.”
So don’t waste the recipient’s time with a question that you can figure out yourself. Exercise some self-reliance! I’m amazed at the number of questions I get that could easily be answered with a 10 second Google search (indeed, it is tempting to respond with “Let me Google that for you…”). After you exhaust Google, search the person’s website. Check out their past articles, their FAQ, and their About page.
On AoM we accept guest post submissions, and right above our contact box we have a link to the “Write for AoM” page that describes all of our guest posting guidelines, one of which is:
“Submit your guest post using the form below. Don’t email us asking if you can write for us. It will just get deleted. If you’d like to write a guest post, write it up, and submit it using the form on this page.”
And yet day after day we still get emails from guys that say, “Hi! I was wondering if I could write a guest post for you.” I used to still respond to these emails, but I found that 9 out of 10 of the people who couldn’t be bothered to read the instructions, couldn’t write a good guest post, either.
Begin with a salutation. Starting straight off with the first sentence of your email makes you sound abrupt. Instead, begin with “Dear ____” (for a more formal email), or “Hi _____” for a more casual one. But not “Hey ____” unless you’ve already established a rapport and history with the recipient.
I think the tendency to leave off the salutation is strongest when using a contact form to submit your message. But keep in mind that even when you use a contact form, it arrives in the person’s inbox looking like any other email.
Type your email address correctly in the contact form. This probably seems like a complete no-brainer. But people will ask me for advice, I’ll spend 20 minutes thinking about their question and writing a thoughtful reply, and then when I hit send, I’ll get a delivery failure notice. Arg! That’s 20 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.
Address the email to a specific person(s). Do your best to find out the name of the person who will be reading the email instead of saying just “Hey everybody” or “To Whom It May Concern.” Using a person’s name builds rapport since it makes your message seem more personal and less like spam. If there are a couple of people in charge, address the email to both of them. Since Kate and I run the site together, people who address their queries to “Brett and Kate,” instead of just “Brett” automatically get extra points.
Spell the recipient’s name right. Again, a no-brainer, right? Yet we get emails addressed to “Brent and Kay” all the time. Misspelling someone’s name kills your rapport with the recipient before they’ve even read the body of your email. It tells the recipient that you either don’t know much about them or aren’t very detail-oriented. And if you follow the spelling error with, “I’m such a big fan of yours,” you come off as rather disingenuous.
Build a bit of rapport before getting down to business. Just as in any kind of pitch, you want to create a bit of rapport with the person before you start talking business. It makes the recipient of your email a little more inclined to like you, hear you out, and want to help you. Keep it short and authentic. Here are some examples of rapport-building intros:
“I am a loyal fan who has been reading your website for three years. Because of AoM, I now take James Bond showers, shave with a safety razor, and write weekly love notes to my wife.”
“I have been a customer of Jim’s Sporting Goods for the past 20 years. My dad bought me my first mitt there when I was 7.”
“I am a great admirer of your research on the howler monkey. Reading your book made me want to come to this university and major in biology. Which is why I’m writing to you today…”
“As a fellow native of Austin…”
Something I’ve been noticing PR people do lately is to say something like, “You have a great site. I really enjoyed [article I clearly just picked off the front page one minute ago].” When rapport-building is obviously phony, it backfires. You want to say something so specific that the recipient knows you’re not sending the exact same generic message to lots of other people and that your interest in them is genuine.
Keep it short and to the point. Again, everyone’s time is precious. Don’t send someone a wall of text. Don’t give them your life story. Get right to the point in as few sentences as possible. You might think that giving the recipient as much detail as you can will make it more likely that he or she will respond to you, but the opposite is true. A giant block of text makes the recipient feel overwhelmed; they’d rather just delete it than deal with taking ten minutes to read and digest your tome. If your idea isn’t interesting enough to grab someone in just a few sentences, then you need to work on your idea, and if the advice you need requires multiple paragraphs to explain, you either need to do more research yourself first or it’s simply not a question you should be asking a stranger over the internet.
Make your request crystal clear. Even though you want to keep your email short, be sure to make whatever it is you’re hoping to get from the recipient as clear and specific as possible.
This is my least favorite kind of email:
Hi AoM:
I really enjoy your site. I feel like it is a great fit with what we do. We should do some kind of partnership or something. What are your ideas on how we can do that?
Sincerely,
Vague Vinny
Of course I don’t have any ideas about how we can work together…you just entered my mind ten seconds ago! If you are contacting me, it is your responsibility to take a look at the kind of things we already do and then come up with an idea you think we might like—a clear, concrete proposal. Give the recipient a pitch they can say yes or no to. If you’re asking a question, make that question as specific as possible, one that it won’t take the recipient very long to answer.
The shorter your email and the easier it is for the recipient to answer your question, the more likely you are to get a response.
Don’t be a tease. Now for my other least favorite email:
Hi Brett and Kate-
I have an awesome idea that can help you improve your website. Write me back if you want to hear more!
XOXO-
Huckstering Harry
Why would I waste my time writing you back if I don’t know whether or not I’d even be interested in your idea? Automatic delete.
If you have a website, link to it. Don’t tell me about your blog or website without linking to it. I know it would only take me 5 seconds to Google the name of your biz, but I’m not going to do it. It’s just one of those deal-breakers. Make things as easy as possible for the recipient.
And when you link to your site, make sure it’s up and running! Numerous times people have pointed me to their site, and when I clicked on it, the site was down for maintenance. Delete.
DON’T USE ALL CAPS. The universal sign of the crazy man. Using all CAPS make you seem like you’re shouting. Automatic delete.
or all lower cases. Yeah I know it’s 2012, and capitalization is so 20th century. And maybe someday the young people of the world will rise up and do away with capitalization altogether. But until then, when you’re dealing with 29-year-old geezers like myself, you should capitalize things that need to be capitalized, otherwise you seem lazy and dopey. If you can’t be bothered to take the time to push the shift key on your phone, I can’t be bothered to take your email as seriously as other people’s. I know, it’s not fair, but 8/10 emails from people who don’t capitalize are, in fact, pretty dopey emails.
Proofread and spell check. Read the email over a few times to make sure everything is right. Remember, this is your first impression with someone—make it a good one. I know a newspaper editor who throws a press release away as soon as she sees a mistake. Personally I’m not looking for perfection—I’ve thought some of my own emails were flawless when I sent them, only to look at them later and see egregious errors. But do the best you can, and at least spell words that are important to the recipient correctly. “I want to write about manlyness” won’t get you very far.
Close with a valediction. Ending your message without a valediction and your name makes you seem brusque. Close with “Sincerely _____,” or “Best __________.”
Return the favor. If somebody takes time out of their day to offer you free advice, do whatever you can to support their website or business! For example if somebody runs a shoe blog and sells shoes too, and you ask him all sorts of questions about what shoes to wear with what, and he kindly answers you, then buy your shoes from him! Only a scalawag asks for advice from a small business owner who’s willing to talk to him and then takes his business to some giant impersonal website to save a few bucks.
Follow-up once. But just once. If you still don’t get a response, they’re not interested.
Related Photos
Extendable Dining Table by Roche Bobois - Astrolab
Extendable Dining Table by Roche Bobois - Astrolab: 
We made a fabulous discovery over at Roche Bobois with their Astrolab dining table. With glorious polished aluminum legs and a glass plate top, this table is also extendable. The exposed motorized cog mechanism reveals two 40cm extensions to accommodate any type of dinner gathering. It's battery operated and remote controlled. How fabulous! The fact that the mechanism and gears are visible gives this table a retro mechanical yet futuristic personality. It's also available in a coffee table version. Learn more at Roche Bobois.
We made a fabulous discovery over at Roche Bobois with their Astrolab dining table. With glorious polished aluminum legs and a glass plate top, this table is also extendable. The exposed motorized cog mechanism reveals two 40cm extensions to accommodate any type of dinner gathering. It's battery operated and remote controlled. How fabulous! The fact that the mechanism and gears are visible gives this table a retro mechanical yet futuristic personality. It's also available in a coffee table version. Learn more at Roche Bobois.
Touch Sensitive “Digitar”
Touch Sensitive “Digitar”:
As the name indicates, the Touch Sensitive Guitar uses Touchskin surfaces in the neck, drum and wheel that allow users to effortlessly strum to their favorite tune. Aside from being easy to use, the guitar also includes a myriad of features including wireless linking to social media sites where you can see how you measure up to your friends and direct downloading of digital music tutorials for the built-in LED lighting guide.
Designer: Formquadrat
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Yanko Design
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(Touch Sensitive “Digitar” was originally posted on Yanko Design)
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Louis Vuitton Tambour Regatta America's Cup
Louis Vuitton Tambour Regatta America's Cup:
For this year's America's Cup Louis Vuitton introduces a new, blacked out Tambour Regatta in two versions: an automatic with a chronograph, countdown, fly-back, and 42hr power reserve and a quartz model with chronograph, countdown, and sound indication. Both watches will feature rubber straps and black stainless steel cases. Link
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