Internet Marketing Ninjas Blog

Link Building and Emails – Humans do it Better.

The biggest secret to getting your emails opened.
(underlying…. "how to get links too")

Spam Spam Spam – we get the shit every day – and tons of it. I spend hours each day weeding out my email.

To the simplest degree, when weeding through spam, the whole secret is finding what appear to be human – and written JUST for you.

Now imbedded in all my crap spam spam spam (mass emails or computer generated emails) are tons of "Link request emails".

Shit, if you’ve got a site, you get heaps of this crap. You do, I do, we all do……even that person you’re trying to get a hold of.

How many of us think when we’re writing to someone "I’ve got to create a subject line to let them know I’m Human, and I’m ME" – eh, sure, all internet savy people do…we do because we’re weeding through the shit too every day.

And ya know what, I can guess pretty damn good at just from looking at the subject line and identifying spam spam spam – and I bet other internet users are the same. Amoung spam from banks I don’t belong to, lotteries I won but never entered, the guy in africa who died and need help transferring millions of dollars, the Freakin’ "let’s trade links" crap….We can spot them without even having to open them…. Morons with subject lines like "Link Request" – ugh! Delete!

How many of us think "You Bastard, if you read my site you’d see nowhere for a "Let’s swap links" you #%@*&!"

Think it’s just you? – Oh No, it’s All website owners. The tipping point for this crap was back in 2004 – it’s worthless now from an SEO standpoint, and also from an email campaign standpoint – Big ole whopping failure all the way around!

Damn! Most of this is because of so many SEO people with only a little bit of knowledge (not rocket scientist yet) can be a really dangerious thing……and damn clients who dictate "Numbers, damn it, Numbers" (remember Chucks ole "pennies and Franklin’s")  – and can you blame people for filling the need of what the demand is for? How many of those sites succeed?…..

So how does this apply to link building you ask? Well…..
If you’re seeking links then you’ve got to send emails by hand that show that you are a human and you have something to offer. What you offer should be of value (resouce or other), and it should be specific to that person. (Short and to the point might also be a nice trait with emailing).

Emails that get through are ones that look to be from a human to me with thought.  I’d guess I’d be 99% more adpt to open and respond to an email that fits this criteria….

And ya know what? Writing real takes time…..yea Time! But ya know what, if you want your link stuff to stick, ya gotta go human.

And if you want to get your emails responded to, Ya better be human.

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15 Responses

  1. Jim,

    You ok. Compared to your other posts, the past two post seem to have a overly pissed off theme to them. Maybe it’s just me reading into them to much. I agree with you on the human touch theme, maybe be slower but gets a better response.

  2. dude if you are spending HOURS per day weeding out your email then im not sure you’re as “internet savy” as you think you are.

  3. regular …yea, I did swear several time in the past few posts…. funny, I was thinking the same thing on my way home at 1am….and on 4 hours sleep from the night before. Needless to say, I think I’ll sleep in tomorrow am….if I can…ha

  4. Hey Jim, I just came across was blog article and I had to comment. I think we are all a little tired of spam equally so legitimate e-mail marketers are tired of all the admin created as a result of false positive spam complaints.

    As the marketer, I have taken the process of sending my message is very personally which means are treated like a real business and every person on the end of each e-mail is actually a real person and not just another number.

    As the consumer, I taken the process of receiving messages equally as personally any spam to my mailbox gets reported and I take every conceivable step towards eliminating the scourge of spam… I think back to Internet marketing it is our duty to clean up the industry.

    But at the end of the day, there is only so much we can do!

  5. I run some rubbish “coming soon” sites which I haven’t got round to do anything with.

    Always cracks me up when my coming soon site with one page gets these…

    “I just visited your site and found your content to be really interesting…”

    Now I *know* no human would say that about a coming soon page.

    Also love the ones where my site about flowers/whatever gets the following…

    “I have been looking at your site http://www.example.com – I think our content is closely related and we should exchange links. My site is http://www.discount-viagra-casino-mesothelioma.com“.

    It’s no wonder 99% of link exchange emails go directly to trash, do not pass go…

  6. Of course it takes time but it pays off. I know how it feels to get all this spam. The line that fools me the most is “Re:” I always think its someone who is replying back to me but its really just another spammer.

  7. Amen! Once you create a website, the spam really starts flowing in. I am never caught out these days and alas for the boring emails, nor do I read them. If it’s from a stranger and doesn’t catch me, I spam it.

  8. Yeah its always a good idea to have something you can offer them too, if linking to your site can add value, and vice versa, you will have a good chance of getting linked… that is of course if the email makes it to the inbox…AND they decide to open and read it!

    J

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