Commentary by Aaron Montgomery……I continue to be surprised by how some people stay in business. I do my darnedest to make sure that my company image is one of a professional and maybe even a company that is bigger than we are. But some people just don’t seem to get it. You never have more than one chance to make a first impression.
Here is a great example. One of my customers just had his site redesigned and I thought it looked pretty good. I told him that and that I might be redesigning my site soon. That customer referred me to his website guy. Here is the email I got from the website company soliciting my business:
From: XXXXX Studio [mailto:chad.n@XXXXX]
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 6:51 PM
To: info@garmentdecoratingsupply.com
Subject:
May we help you with web design? XXXXX is one of clients
chad
Needless to say, my first inclination is to run away. Chad seems to be less than educated and tells me nothing about his company, pricing or the work that they do. He doesn’t even bother to take the time to add a subject line. I just happened to skim my spam folder and found it.
Here is how I would have written that solicitation email:
Subject: Website Help Referral from XXXXX
To Whom It May Concern;
We received your information from XXXXX who is one of our valued clients. They indicated that you might be interested in discussion some help redesigning your website.
We have X years experience in the website design field and have expertise with all sorts of website and applications including (list expertise here). Besides XXX whose site you have already seem you can also see some of our other sites at XXX. We have several very affordable packages to help you get started, but we would love to discuss your specific needs at your convenience.
Please let us know a time that would be convenient for you to discuss this further. We understand that everyone is busy, so if we do not hear from you we will follow-up with you in a couple of weeks.
Thank you in advance for the opportunity!
Sincerely,
Chad XXXXX
(Title)
(Company Name)
(Phone)
(Tag line)
I would love to hear your thoughts. – Aaron