Dog knows, I’m not the world’s greatest with self-marketing. Like any self-disrespecting creative, it makes me deeply uneasy to toot my own horn, preferring other people to do it for me, while I stay in my workspace and create.
But being uneasy with the act does not mean I am not savvy about the means.Â
Last night, this hit my work email:
“My name is [redacted], and I’m a Customer Manager here at [redacted]. Our goal is to empower small to medium event organizers by helping them implement specific online promotions to increase their attendees. I personally do the strategic planning with our clients, which is something I love.
I found your event [redacted with [redacted] online. It’s clear that you’ve put a lot of passion into making it a wonderful experience for all.
In honor of this, I’d like to offer you our Premium Services. These are constructed in a way to help you build online visibility, stimulate interest, and get more attendees to show to your event excited. If you’re curious to learn more, check out the link below:”
And just…oy. Yeah, you used all the good tagwords: “implement” and “strategic planning,” “empower” and “build.” But that’s all you used.
Look, if you’re going to try and advertise legit services, you need to be persuasive, and part of being persuasive is making your target feel like you’ve actually done some work to learn about THEM, their projects, and how you can actually help them. Sending vaguely-worded form letters may seem cost-effective, but it’s not going to be revenue-producing. Because why the hell should I outsource promotion to a company that can’t even successfully promote itself/talk specifics?
And if you’re a scammer, you’re a disgrace to the breed. Because I had no interest whatsoever in clicking the link provided.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go build some online visibility and stimulate interest in my
projects, by doing the one thing you failed to do: be interesting to your potential audience.