In this video I'm going to share the two things you should never say in an e-mail to someone
you don't know; especially if its an influential person and then I'm going to walk you through
a word for word script that I've personally used and continue to use to email influential
people and I get responses, fast.
First, let's start off with what you should never do.
Don't write long emails.
If I get an email, an unsolicited e-mail from someone I don't know and it's a long one,
I almost always ignore it.
Why?
Because I'm busy!
Am I missing out on potential opportunities?
Maybe.
But I got enough on my plate and chances are a rogue request from someone I don't know
isn't going to help me as much as it's going to help them.
What's funny is I'm not the only person who ignores long emails.
As a matter of fact, one of my friends thought about instituting a rule for everyone who
emailed him.
He wanted everyone to email him two versions of the email.
At the top the short version of the email a one sentence email.
At the bottom the long version of the email.
Why?
That way you can read the one sentence see if it was interesting enough to keep reading
if not delete.
Who else doesn't like to get long emails?
Journalists, bloggers or anyone of importance.
Why?
Because they are busy.
Adam what are you doing?
Get back on the camera man.
Number two; don't ask for anything for free.
The internet has turned people into panhandlers.
And I'm probably going to catch some flak for saying that but it's annoying.
You know people who wouldn't be caught dead asking for a dollar on the corner are asking
for much more than that in an email.
I remember back when I was doing these site reviews with those A list bloggers and I remember
people would email me all the time.
Asking me to do site reviews of their website, for free.
And I remember this one person who actually got mad at me because I didn't want to give
them a free site review.
Don't do that.
Forget about me for a second emailing anyone and asking for something huge like that is
a tragic mistake.
Not only are you going to look like a panhandler but you are going to ruin your first impression
with that influential person and they are going to ignore you forever.
That said what should you do?
What should you write to these people?
I like to send short and sweet emails that takes advantage of what George Loewenstein
calls an information gap.
I've talked about information gaps before but if you unfamiliar with it I'll explain.
When there's a gap between what people know and what people want to know, they desperately
seek to close that gap.
When I email people who I don't know I try to open an information gap in that first email.
As an example if I want to promote my article the "Content is King" Myth Debunked, where
I explain why I believe design is king not content.
I can email bloggers and say I stumbled on some academic research that proves design
is king.
It was conducted at a university in London and the researcher found that when people
distrust websites ninety four percent of the time they sited design related reasons.
If you'd like me to forward that research your way let me know and I'll gladly send
it over.
Notice how I created that information gap?
I shared the results but I didn't share the research.
Why?
Because if I share a link in that introductory email they might have thought I was fishing
for a link.
What I wanted to do was I wanted to make them ask me for the link.
That way when I do go ahead and send them the link I'm not sending unsolicited link
request.
I'm sending them exactly what they asked for.
But what else was going on here?
I was emailing people who I knew would be interested they were design bloggers.
Why wouldn't they want to learn about why design is king and have research to back it
up.
But there is even more going on here.
I started off my email with I've stumbled on some academic research that's a credibility
trigger it wasn't my opinion or some blogger's opinion.
It was real life academic research.
How can you write e-mails that get responses just like that one? for that click the link
below this video and download the free worksheet where I walk you through the exact e-mail
I've use to contact New York Times bestselling authors, world renowned researchers and professors
from top universities and that email that I walk you through got responses.
Lots of them.
That said if you made it this far in the video I know you liked this strategy.
So I want you to do two things.
First, leave a comment below this video and tell me what types of emails do you respond
to?
And what types of emails do you ignore?
Be as specific as possible I'd love to hear all about it.
And second what I'd love for you to do is send a link to this video to a friend if you
think it could help them get in touch with people they'd like to get in touch with.
Or you know what better yet every time someone sends you a stupid email instead of ignoring
them just send them a link to this video and on that note get your like on by nailing the
like button and get your brain bigger by subscribing to SocialTriggers for free.
Who else doesn't like to get long emails?
Can you tell me? he