Are You Making This One HUGE, Common Mistake In Your Emails?

Or, “It’s Not Me, It’s You”.

There was a time when getting free music was a really exciting perk of any job.
CDs were expensive and, when I was in radio, it was lovely not having to pay for them.

There was also effort and expense for a new band, in sending you their CD.

They’d probably had to save up to record the demo, more to get it mastered and pressed, even more for the physical copies and then a load of cash for posting.

It was easy to listen to everything I was sent, because I wasn’t sent much.

Now that I occasionally choose music for TV shows (find out how I started HERE), I still get sent tunes.

Because bands no longer have to put any hard cash behind sending it (and can generally record pretty cheaply and easily), I get a LOT of music.

Far more than I would ever have time to listen to. So a lot of it slips through the net.

What is it that will make me take the time to check out an artist’s songs?

What is the magic something in the email that makes me want to spend five minutes listening to music I may never use?

How NOT to do it 

Let’s first talk about what won’t work. 

Here’s an email I recently received, with the name & some details hidden to protect the ignorant.

(I would worry about them reading this blog and feeling bad…

…except that they clearly don’t do that kind of simple research)

You’ll see the second in a couple of weeks.

Here’s the first:

(feel free to skim-read the long-bits)

Hello Marsha,

Just found you via google. 

Wanted to give you the heads up on [a certain city]’s indie-pop combo [Bandname] – we now have the recently released debut album ‘[Name Of Album]’ available in instrumental form (10 tracks). Download link for tracks (both vocal and instr) with metadata / lyrics etc: 

https://websitewhereyoucandownloadourtracks.com

The band have been featured on This TV show, That Radio Station, Another radio station that you used to work for, which I wouldn’t know because I clearly haven’t bothered to do any research on you, A music TV channel and Another TV show. ‘[one of our singles]’ was a medium-sized radio show’s ‘Single Of The Month‘ and a featured song on another radio station, it was also playlisted in a certain clothing brand’s stores worldwide. 

http://www.youtube.com/ourvideo      http://www.facebook.com/ourfacebookpage

Hope you can consider this music for any suitable projects.

Kind regards,

[Name]

As you can see, not terribly offensive.

They didn’t shout at me, diss my taste in clothes, or threaten my grandma.

They didn’t even have bad spelling or punctuation.

What the problem is with this email

Let’s look at what else they didn’t do.

Make the email in any way about me.

It was 100% all about them.

They even wrote “Just found you via google”.

Way to make a lady feel special, dudes.

You’re basically telling me you googled me, saw that I choose music for TV shows, then spammed me without a care as to what I actually do or what I’m into.

Nothing to make yourself stand out from the crowd.

“But Marsha,” you may be thinking,

“Surely if it’s useful that they told you all those impressive facts? Doesn’t that make them stand out?”

The impressive facts are impressive. But there needs to be something BEFORE that.

Something that suggests that I am not just getting the same identikit email that every other music supervisor on the planet is getting.

As my genius friend Simon Pursehouse says (in his INCREDIBLE blog for Sentric Music):

“Basically; call me pretty before you try and kiss me yeah?”

When ‘cold’ emailing, the NUMBER ONE mistake people make

is to make the email all about themselves.

(TWEET THAT HERE!) 

How to help yourself

Google is a wonderful tool. With it, you can find:

(a) facts about that person that you can comment on, in order to make them feel special

(b) answers to questions that you might otherwise waste someone’s time with

(c) ways in which YOU can help THEM

What you get from (a) is ESSENTIAL INFORMATION that MUST be considered in any ‘cold’ email you send.

Over the next two posts, I’ll cover (b) and (c).

If you want more help in the meantime

– and you want a fully tailored service, where I’ll help you with every aspect of having the person you admire sit up and take notice of you –

then you can find out more about Grab Their Attention, 

my intensive session to make this happen for you,

by clicking HERE.

Over To You

What’s your pet hate when people email you?
Is it punctuation? Or “Dear Sir” – when you’re a lady?

Let me know in the comments below, or by clicking here!

If this post has made you think of anyone, please share it with them – or with your twitter/facebook/linked/Pinterest chums – by pressing one of the round buttons below.

Thanks for reading!

You rule,

xx (Yes Yes) Marsha

PS want to know my best-ever client secret – and get even more advice, tips, plus stories that I won’t put on the internet? Come and join the Yes Yes Family – it’s free! Just pop your details in below:

Photo Credits: Jonathan Rubio via Compfight, soundfromwayout, timsamoff, pheezy, all via Compfight cc

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