How to NOT Be Taken Seriously in Online Business

I have several of my own websites. However, unlike some websites, my About page features a photo of my mug that explains what I do and why.

Most About pages are a bunch of corporate blah-blah-blah or generic dribble. Maybe that is why folks no longer read them?

Today, we’re going to focus on automation and personalization. Automation to the point of being ineffective, and the lack of personalization.

Over 30 years as an online consultant, year after year, the concept of personalization has been reinforced as a key to building online relationships. In particular, with those you do not know and don’t know you. Unfortunately, they lean hard on “automation” to the point that it is impossible to take their communications seriously.

Personalization Matters

I’ll share my experiences with you. Rarely do they address me by name, even though I am the person behind the website. Which is weird because if they just visited the About page, it’s just me.

Evidently, they don’t even visit my contact page, where I make it clear that I do not accept guest posts either. But unaddressed guest-post solicitations come by the boatload.

This indicates they didn’t visit my site, but purchased my email address from somewhere. I know this because I don’t note my direct email address on any of my websites and use a different email address for my contact forms. This allows me to track where they likely scraped my email address.

Instead, I direct visitors to my contact pages to fill out a form and provide the information I need to determine whether I can be of service. (And again, I don’t accept guest posts.)

That still doesn’t stop them. This week, I received a contact form submission with the subject: “Paid guest posts & Back-links services. If you want paid guest posts for your website, check my sites and let me know.”

This email included a foot-long copy-and-pasted “inquiry” about SEO and how I need to work with them. Okey-dokey.

Quality Over Quantity

Overusing automation relies on quantity to see what sticks. But effective marketing is nothing without knowing how to target potential leads specifically. I write about this on my consulting site, Marketing Mission: Target Those Who Care.

With email, there is no need to be selective, as you are not charged per email. Therefore, there is no cost-benefit ratio to consider. So let the email blasts commence.

Again, using my experience as an example, here are two emails from this site. These are exact examples—I’m not making this up…

Subect: guest post

i need paid guest post on your site at https://www.businessemailetiquette.com/with permanent do follow link please tell me your post price and link insertion price

waiting for your reply

Why would anyone take the above seriously and reply?

Here’s the other one; I only modified the referenced URL:

Subject: Please visit My mail, Don’t ignore it

I Hope are doing well,I have searched your company details in it.
URL ; https://XXXXXXXXXXXX

I am proved this Offer ;
We are Digital Marketing Expert, We will post All Niches Blog Post on the High Authority Website to increase your domain authority and help you in Google Rankings. We have plenty of Quality Websites where we can post your article with your keyword Anchor Tag. The Back-link will be Do-Follow and Indexed in Google. Let us know if you are interested & want to Get Rank on Google.     

If anyone else in your company has worked on it, please attend the gmail i’d. I have some similar websites. Your company will feel good working on it

I make contact with many companies every day. But only a few companies would reply. Once a company is attached. Then they worked with us on daily base

I hope you reply Me.

Thanks & Regards

Yikes!

Trust and Confidence

Does the above instill confidence and trust? Remember, I’m not your average netizen. I have just a bit more experience and knowledge to read through the hype. But that didn’t stop them.

Quantity over quality. Hoping someone who doesn’t know better will bite. Certainly, this approach is not a solid business plan.

Both were using Gmail accounts instead of domain email addresses for their company and website. That’s also a credibility red flag.

I receive several similar requests each week from this website and my other websites. Clearly, they don’t take the time to properly cold-call online, which is an art. Not automation — art.

Details and Due Diligence

While I’ve talked about this before and have several articles on the topic, the situation seems to be getting worse, not better. What perplexes me is how they can send emails like this and seriously expect to be taken seriously. How is that possible?

When emailing for commercial gain, every single tiny detail matters. Taking the time to qualify your contacts, address them directly, and use proper sentence structure and grammar is how you are taken seriously.

Many emails I see fail to reach that bar. If you don’t care to be taken seriously, you won’t be.