Below is an email that I received on Monday in my capacity as SA Rocks Editor/Owner. Read it first and then I’ll go in to my reasons for liking the way it is structured (albeit coincidentally).
Hi Editor,
You won’t know me – I’m a big reader of 2Oceansvibe and was referred by a link there.
Anyway, I’m going to take a flyer here – just drop a little bait and hope for a bite…
I’m a music producer at the moment, studied at UCT and now living in Johannesburg trying to hit the big time. My record label has recently signed our first artist, a guy by the name of Timothy Moloi and are busy in studio recording his debut album. In the mean time, though, we decided to record a couple of live videos of him doing some covers of cool and interesting songs. Basically it’s just a way for us to get word out, create as much of a buzz as we can. We’ve had an incredible response to them so far and I thought I would share the videos with you:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TimothyMoloi
Now, I’m sure that you must have MANY people pawning their wares to you, but as a blogger (and in particuler, a South African one), you undoubtedly act as one of the tastemakers of our generation and I figured it would be worth a shot to see if you would like any of the videos. My favorite is the One Republic cover (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4fiPe4U_Ow&feature=channel_page), but feel free to have a browse around and prove me wrong! All the artists on the videos are South African – hope you’re impressed!
I’m not too sure what to say from here, man. I won’t beat around the bush – obviously it would be in my best interest for you to actually cover us on your blog and for that I would be incredibly grateful, but if not, a simple personal reply would be fantastic – another viewpoint to see what we’re doing right!
Look forward to hearing from you!
Let me break down the above email in to sections/reasons why I was taken by it and responded immediately.
References
The email references 2oceansvibe, I know I have a link in Seth’s sidebar and therefore know (or feel) a little bit of legitimacy from the email’s author.
Hope and a wish
The author openly admits that he is taking a chance. He isn’t being too presumptuous and assuming that I will obviously respond and act. There are no orders coming from the email, there are hopes and requests.
Know the blog
James (the author of the email) clearly went and read SA Rocks. He knew that I liked local music, liked to help promote local artists and liked to support an underdog. So he appealed to these attributes with: “My record label has recently signed our first artist, a guy by the name of Timothy Moloi and are busy in studio recording his debut album.”
Play on my field
Multimedia and new media content are integral to my world, it’s how I make my living and how I interact with people. So it’s a good thing James didn’t tell me that he hated the internet and would never release any of Timothy’s music online for the world to swipe. In fact, he did the opposite. He sent me links to a YouTube video of Timothy vocalising the hell out of a song I knew “Apologize” by One Republic. He had dropped the bait in my lake and I was not only staring at it, listening to it but chewing on it as hard as I could.
Play to my Ego
The crème de la crème, my ego. James played the game perfectly by stating the following: “Now, I’m sure that you must have MANY people pawning their wares to you, but as a blogger (and in particuler, a South African one), you undoubtedly act as one of the tastemakers of our generation and I figured it would be worth a shot to see if you would like any of the videos.”
How could any self-indulgent blogger possibly say no to a line like that? James got my, hook, link and sinker.
End the pitch
Do not linger, do not be verbose, do not become pedestrian and cliched. Write what you want to write, get it out, close it down and end the email. Do not linger. I hate it when I have to sift through ten paragraphs of shit to get to the point of the pitch. Say what you want and leave me alone.
And here I sit blogging about James and Timothy and will be meeting with them very soon to see how I can help them in any capacity I can think of.
James, well played. And to anyone who is trying to pitch to bloggers that might be reading this, take note: A good pitch will be responded to immediately and will have the bloggers commitment from the word Go.
