We get probably 15-25 messages a day for JV or Joint Ventures. I can understand and appreciate the need to joint venture but the pitches are the weakest ever. Here is one I got just yesterday:
Hi, I have a product launch coming up (pre-launch starts on the 7th of September), and I would like to discuss engaging your services as a JV broker. By nature of what you do, you must have a relationship with a number of affiliate marketers, and I see a great opportunity to leverage that relationship. Basically I would love you to introduce JV partners (or affiliates) to my JV Partner Program, and I would pay you a percentage of each sale that any of them make, forever. This includes a percentage of the continuity, so you could be building a monthly passive income. My product is in the Make Money / Work From Home niche, however I have also had some outstanding results testing on some other databases, like IM and Personal Development. It is a very unique product. I know you are busy, so rather than write pages about my JV Partner Program, you might prefer to just watch the video. You can do that here… www.thebossbuster.com/jvsignup I’d love to discuss this further with you, you can contact me on any of the following:
Well here is the scoop, poop. Unlike email marketing bloggers have to be much more selective what they write about. I have spent 6 years writing over 1 post a day on average and I am not about to throw all that away for one post of something I don’t like… no matter what the cost.
Now normally I would just dismiss it as someone spamming contact forms but this persons ip has been the site a lot… So its possible this was a serious attempt to get me interested in a Joint Venture. So I thought I would write about what is wrong with the pitch and what would be a pitch that would peak my interest.
1) Its to goddamn long.
2) There is no personalization. Even my marketing unsavy wife can spot a form letter like this a mile away.
3) You took 917 charectors and over 160 words before mentioning the product.
4) Its tooooooo goddamn long!!!!!
So what could you have written that would have gotten my attention?
Something like:
Hi Jeremy,
How are you? I am a LOST fan like you and dying to see the next season. What do you think is the best LOST fan website out there for news?
Oh by the way I have a new product coming out at www.thebossbuster.com. I would love it if you could check it out and tell me what you think.
Take care
Dan
Why does this work?
1) You conneted with me (in this case the LOST show I love.
2) You asked me a question which will get me to respond (and lowered my defenses )
3) You asked me just to check out your site. If I like it I will promote it.
4) Its short and sweet.
And I don’t think I am alone. When trying to get bloggers to promote your stuff just connect with them and very delicately drop your website address. If you have a quality product odds are they will help you promote it.
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2415 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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Using Delicious to Understand Your Users 
My Basic 3 Pronged Approach To Website Analytics 
How To Get People To Promote Your Stuff 
{ 50 comments… read them below or add one }
Haha. Well that was very interesting to say the least.
Yeah, I can spot too how that looks like a marketeer trying to do serious business talk. I like the shorter one, of course, it’s shorter. hahaha.
Simple tip, big lesson. Very very good! Will be useful for me in the coming month
If it was too long — you wouldnt have read it. You Did.
You moan he dosnt mention the product quick enough — but you would be happy if someone tried to suck up to you to show you are both lost fans. lol.
Would this work:
—————————————————————
Shoe!
Check my fooking website: www. site .com
Love you, and Lost (it rocks!)
Samn,
—————————————————————
I see this as a better example then yours.
1. It mentions the site Stright away.
2. It still kisses your ass (but after talking abou the product)
3. you can bond – because you both love lost.
What you think?
Ha! Love that one. I would reply if for no other reason than you made me laugh
p.s love the 12 week course — cannot wait for next bit
Lol, i’m not surprised. No wonder tons of people nagging about why they’ve got nothing to work. They just keep failing.
Haha, just you wait Shoemoney, there’ll be 9000+ JV proposals in your email box soon, each asking you about the new season of Lost =P
So now you’re gonna get a million emails with the same LOST pitch line. hehe.
You have given unique idea to Spammers…Shoe
That was one of the things I hate about PR people in sorts – they don’t connect just like those requesting JV’s.
btw – speaking of LOST is this the last season coming up?
I agree with this post completely… on one hand.
On the other hand, is a quick, very-obviously-fake attempt at connecting with you really THAT much better/less annoying than the first example you showed above?
I mean…
“Hey Shoe! You used to be fat and you’re from Nebraska and you painted your toenails once? HA! You are never going to believe this, but my ex girlfriend used to have a neighbor who knew a guy from Nebraska… and he is STILL fat, and his wife gets her toenails done every week! Small world, right? Oh, and by the way, check out my new ebook!!!”
I think this sucks just as much as the typical generic 100 page pitch.
I definitely agree about the need for a short personalized email that makes a connection and then just drops a link with a brief description, but I just think the connection needs to be real and genuine, not some forced/fake attempt at making a connection for marketing purposes only.
Easier said than done, of course. And that’s probably for the better.
I’m with you. Nothing irritates me more than someone pretending to be interested in me. More than anything else, that will absolutely guarantee that I won’t reply.
Certainly the last one was to the point and giving personal feelings as well.
But I think you should be habituate of this kind of mails and messages.
Very well said Shoe. These days Long Emails are being dropped by many of well known Internet people like you..lol
Putting things across in Short and Sweet should be good way to promote things in smarter way. By the way i liked your saying marketing unsavy wife..hahahahahah
Does shoemoney still do the link thing for most commented? Every comments section I see that stupid clown face like 5 times restating the original post. “I agree shoe. Long emails are bad!”
We do still have it in the sidebar
Shoe you better get ready to get tons of emails that start with
“How are you? I am a LOST fan like you and dying to see the next season. What do you think is the best LOST fan website out there for news?”
*LOL*
(of course those will just be automated copies)
So what is the best Lost fan website out there?
buddyTv of course!
I always think it’s funny when these guys (or link trade people) feel the need to explain how affiliate marketing works to you. “See, I will pay you a % of the total sales. It’s a win/win!”. ha
That’s right. I really agree with the personalization. Any e-mail recipients will be attentive to you, if they will know that you know them well. Spams and automated mails are zero-effort, and I just hate less efforts acts.
Sweet! Now I know how to get you to read my emails.
Yes, that is a really good tip, lesson learned… and when given so publicly, one that will not be forgotten in a hurry I assure you.
So while we are at it… any feedback about the video itself? Although it stings to hear it, I’d rather get it right. Please feel free to give any positive feedback as well as negative.
Dan.
LOL – in a way his email worked, you did post about his product.
Yeah this is a shame. But at least they try! They should start telling what is in it for YOU instead of wasting your time with long letters.
Gunter
I have found that 99% of the time they only focus on what you can do for them and not what they can do for you and how you would benefit.
Sales fail.
Great advise shoe. Keep it short and to the point.
Jeremy,
I would be interested in knowing how many emails this post generated. Did you get an influx of JV offers written similar to what you just posted?
Adam
I agree Jeremy. Most of the JV requests I receive are even longer – sharing their entire life story. It’s ok – but if they are serious about the JV it should be short and concise – about business first.
Sharing entire life story …lol
It must be really long Holly ?? How do you get so much time to read them ??
YES! I don’t really have the time to read through all the emails. I try to anyway. I used to have a Customer Services person who I hired to handle them because of my lack of time with the emails. It’s hard to balance everything. I think the real serious requests for JVs that i have received were REAL short and concise. It is usually the long ones that don’t have all their stuff ready or together anyway.
It’s all a matter of opinion – many people don’t like to talk personal when talking business..
It must be hard spending 6 years writing over 1 post a day on average. Don’t you feel bored sometimes Jeremy?
What are you used to do to keep you blogging?
I like the way you write on your article, I realise that I still can’t find out your writing pattern, that’s a good point of yours. Some visitors get bored with blogger writing style.
It’s a pity I didn’t get it right… I have had so much traffic off the back of this post it’s insane! Pity no one has signed up. I am thinking a large part of the reason is because they are going in to laugh at me with the pre-conceived idea that I am a chump.
Had I have got this right… well Jeremy probably wouldn’t have promoted it anyway… but if he did, and I got the same traffic and his endorsement… I’d be laughing!
I can see how people with little experience can try to explain what affiliate marketing is in their pitch and how they can benefit… but to send a copied message like that to someone who clearly understands what affiliate marketing is… that’s really ridiculous, lol.
Hehehe, yes, nice article, that JoitVenture-things are on of the things i hate to. With our Kinderbücher we had the same problem too.
I don’t even read those emails that are way too long
I don’t get emails about joint venture, what I do get is lots of emails through my contact form offering me SEO services.
I delete them before even finishing reading them as most of them have spelling errors or are too long.
The best way to prevent such things is to accept JV requests only on Twitter, 140characs, thats all about it.
Great post Jeremy! I liked how you show us how to talk to the big boys to get your pitch heard.
Don’t you think there should be a lost fan site that is like fantasy sports that you pick what will happen next & who will dye next?
Oh yeah, hey I’m the affiliate manager for Pingo.com that just launched a soft phone application called EZdial. Since you dropped Sprint like I did after 8 years, it would be sweet if you could check it out on your AT&T smart phone and tell me what you think?
http://www.pingo.com/en/ezdial.do
Take care
Brian AM @ Pingo.com
Talking to BIG boys is not that easy Dude…you need to work hard for that ..lol
I very happy to be able to read your article, and I feel very lucky to be able to read your article, your article is very good and make my life more and more motivated to advance again, many thanks
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STOP Spamming man …. At least spare this blog …lol
Free $700 is not possible ..Shoe why do you approve such comments ??
I agree.
If it was Kate (aka Evangaline) from Lost offering a joint venture I bet Jeremy wouldn’t mind how she pitched it:)
Honestly people. Get over yourselves. All this ‘ people sharing their live stories with me, and id love to do a JV ‘ etc.
Of course your all highly successful and Elite people. Bill gates and steve jobs can deal with it, im sure since your also success stories you too can handle it.
Get real lives
straight and to the point, I agree with you that was a weak sales pitch, and I liked the way you rephrased it.
The K.I.S.S. principle applies. In a world of spam clogged email inboxes you’d better get your message across quickly, or it is not going to happen at all! The swort and sweet success of twitter is suddenly starting to make so much more sense.
I am glad you mentioned this Jeremy! Thanks..
Jeremy,
Thanks for the info man. That was interesting. Whoever that was definitely was trying to sale you…lol – man
That Great info and advise shoee
Thank’s anyway.