I’ll be e-mailing a fairly large website with a proposition that I believe will be beneficial to both parties. They have an e-mail address specifically set-up for “partnerships,” but they don’t give a name of who to address it to.
So two questions: One, how should I introduce the e-mail?
And two, does anyone have any general suggestions for such an e-mail?
It seems with e-mail leaving out the opening salutation is acceptable.
Since this won’t be a legally binding contract, and it’s your first correspondence, I would think you can be a bit loose with the legalese. But if, and when, an actual arrangement is set-up where money or other goods or services will be transferred from one party to the other, I would suggest a healthy dose of legal terms and conditions.
I would make this first pass as short and to the point as possible, no more than 3 or 4 short paragraphs. Paragraph 1, introduce yourself and your intentions. Paragraph 2, describe how you envision your partnership with them. Paragraph 3, describe how this partnership will be beneficial to them. Optionally, paragraph 4, praise their company.
IMHO.
Good luck.
What’s your goal here? to make money? If so, sending an email cold isn’t your best bet.
What does the company that owns the website get out of this? Whoever benefits within the company is the one you need to contact, and they may not be at the other end of this email address you have.
What’s the second party you refer to? you? other? Perhaps you should get them involved first; perhaps you should even convince them to join your pitch or do the pitching themselves.
Personally, I wouldn’t make a first sales call by sending an email to a webmaster account cold. I would call in and find the right person and work from there. Then, depending on the size of what you’re proposing, I’d either pitch it there, or work on getting an appointment to pitch it properly.
But I really don’t know what you’re proposing and what the various parties get out of it, so it’s hard to give reasonable advice.
Nope, just publicity. Without revealing too much, I believe I have a product that I can offer them to use on their website, which would draw them both a broader and younger audience, with relatively little effort on their part. All I want, in return, is the exposure.
As for your other question, the second party I referenced was indeed myself.
Still vague.
Is this a third party product? Will they pay for it?
What do you mean by “exposure”? Do you mean you want your name on the website? Does your product have your name heavily embedded?
Who in their company benefits from this? will they sell more product to the new audience you’ll bring in?
Without knowing more, I recommend as before: don’t send a blind email. Figure out who in the company benefits (have a specific title in mind, like VP of Sales or Product Manager, or whatever you’re after), call the company and try to get that person on the phone. Then pitch them. Be sure you have figured out in advance what they get out of it and focus on that. Getting more people or younger people to their site may not mean anything to them. Getting more sales will. Have a concise, well-targeted pitch together before you call.
Again, more detail will get you higher quality advice.
I’m with Bill here.
Sending a blind email to a drop box pretty much guarantees you to land in the ‘lowest priority just below dirt’ file. You want to do some digging and make the first contact face-to-face. You’ll have a much greater chance of success that way.
That is, unless you live in St. Petersburg, FL. Down here if you call people they get all pissed off then you get put on some kind of global shit-list and you’re branded as a trouble maker so no one in the entire metro area will ever return your calls again. Sorry, you guys are probably right for the majority of the world, just venting here.
ccwaterback wrote
It’s not just in St. Petersburg. Rejection is the pain of sales. It’s what it is.
If you want to sell something, you have to take a chance and talk to someone, knowing that there’s a 95% chance they have no interest in you or what you’re proposing. But if you stop selling, you stop getting sales.