{"id":517,"date":"2008-06-14T10:43:21","date_gmt":"2008-06-14T14:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getgood.com\/roadmaps\/?p=517"},"modified":"2008-06-14T10:43:21","modified_gmt":"2008-06-14T14:43:21","slug":"from-the-category-clueless-pitches-that-make-you-go-hunh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getgood.com\/roadmaps\/2008\/06\/14\/from-the-category-clueless-pitches-that-make-you-go-hunh\/","title":{"rendered":"From the category Clueless: Pitches that make you go Hunh?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some blog pitches are so bad you wonder, really wonder, about the person who pressed &lt;send&gt; Others are just a bit off. A rare few are excellent &#8211; you can&#8217;t wait to write or participate in the program. Later in this series, I&#8217;ll talk a bit about the secret sauce that makes some pitches really stand out. <\/p>\n<p>Today though, I am going to share a few that just make you go Hunh?<\/p>\n<p>First, this pitch from a PR agency that appears to have forgotten&#8230; the pitch. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"190\" style=\"margin: 5px\" width=\"456\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/\/\/i0.wp.com\/getgood.typepad.com\/getgood_strategic_marketi\/wheresthepitch_1.jpg?resize=456%2C190&#038;ssl=1\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Clearly, it is meant to be a soft-sell teaser to get the mom blogger to opt-in to learning more cleaning tips. But, leaving out the information about WHO the pitch is for doesn&#8217;t make a blogger want to know more. It just makes her laugh. Typos and the poor salutation don&#8217;t improve the situation.The email also wasn&#8217;t signed; after the &quot;Thanks&quot; there was some space and the email footer.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, as we&#8217;ve discussed here many times, most mom bloggers don&#8217;t write about cleaning tips. Here&#8217;s my favorite cleaning tip: set aside the money to hire a cleaning service or marry someone obsessed with cleanliness and willing to do the work. Camouflauging your cleaning product pitch as a fun activity for kids won&#8217;t change that. Grade: Fail.<\/p>\n<p>Next, we have a pitch for a &quot;Life changing contest on Facebook.&quot; Yawn.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"337\" style=\"margin: 5px\" width=\"451\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/\/\/i0.wp.com\/getgood.typepad.com\/getgood_strategic_marketi\/contestthursam.jpg?resize=451%2C337&#038;ssl=1\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>When I dragged this out of my spam folder Thursday morning, my first reaction to this teaser campaign was that it was mostly boring, bad grammar and lame blogger exclusive notwithstanding. I did however note that it was from a firm that has something of a reputation in blogger circles for &#8212; let&#8217;s be polite and call it &quot;excessive emailing.&quot; I wondered what the follow-up might be. <\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t have to wait long. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"322\" style=\"margin: 5px\" width=\"463\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/\/\/i0.wp.com\/getgood.typepad.com\/getgood_strategic_marketi\/conteststalking.jpg?resize=463%2C322&#038;ssl=1\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Notice the similar language to a pitch included in a <a href=\"https:\/\/getgood.typepad.com\/getgood_strategic_marketi\/2008\/06\/blogger-relatio.html\">previous bad pitch post<\/a>. I won&#8217;t leave you in suspense; yes, it is the same agency, and no, I won&#8217;t name it. Here&#8217;s the thing\u00a0 &#8212; one day doesn&#8217;t even give the blogger a chance to read her email, let alone decide whether she has any questions. This isn&#8217;t following up; it is stalking. <\/p>\n<p>The follow-up email also wasn&#8217;t from the same person who sent the initial email. Of course, both emails were sent by a bulk email program that must have had a glitch and attached the wrong sender name to the follow-up. Grade: Fail.<\/p>\n<p>Lessons\u00a0 learned:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Teasers and exclusives. They have to be good, really good. Connected tightly to something the blogger cares about <strong>and<\/strong> will write about. Otherwise, you&#8217;re just looking for free advertising. Which you won&#8217;t get. <\/li>\n<li>Follow-up. No sooner than a couple days after you send the pitch. And make it a follow-up: short and sweet. Don&#8217;t resend the whole pitch as they did in the example above. If the blogger didn&#8217;t get it for some reason, and it sounds intriguing, he&#8217;ll ask for more info. <\/li>\n<li>If you use mail-merge, make sure your technology works properly. <\/li>\n<li>Exclamation points do not make otherwise uninteresting copy interesting. Use them sparingly if at all. <\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t try to fool the blogger; she knows there&#8217;s a client and a product. Stealth pitches just set off alarm bells about your agency. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><small>Tags: <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/blogger+relations\">blogger relations<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/bad+pitch\">bad pitch<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some blog pitches are so bad you wonder, really wonder, about the person who pressed &lt;send&gt; Others are just a bit off. A rare few are excellent &#8211; you can&#8217;t wait to write or participate in the program. Later in this series, I&#8217;ll talk a bit about the secret sauce that makes some pitches really [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[36,8],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/getgood.com\/roadmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/getgood.com\/roadmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/getgood.com\/roadmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getgood.com\/roadmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/\/getgood.com\/roadmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/getgood.com\/roadmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/\/getgood.com\/roadmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/\/getgood.com\/roadmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/\/getgood.com\/roadmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}