Guest post by Selena Narayanasamy

The hybrid of watching videos and reading emails, arguably the two biggest ways to spend time on the Internet, seems like a match made in heaven. After all, what’s not to love about combining these two powerful means of communication? And video email is on the rise. What was once a tech-lover fantasy may now be a blossoming reality for the masses. This is thanks to both creative applications of old technologies and some emerging technologies.

Click-on-This: The Classic Approach

YouTube became popular because countless people sent emails to all their friends with links to funny videos. These simple links take people to a video site where the content is played. Revolutionary, right? Continue reading

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Those two concepts put together, not likely to win the “couple of the year” award, are they? And they shouldn’t, simply because guilt trips should never be part of business emails, especially when it’s the first email you send out!

Imagine this! You want to introduce your recently launched business. You mention your website, then jump to saying you have a kid who’s just turned two and add a link to cute photos of that kid. Then mention an obscure site you used to have but no longer exist. And finally, in paragraph 4 actually mention one of the services you provide. Nothing on your expertise, no reference to satisfied customers, no detailed skill set of your team. Just throw the baby in, that’s bound to work!

No matter how I twist and turn it, other than guilt trip, no other reason comes to mind for mentioning offsprings and showing photos to potential customers. Maybe, just maybe, if you were a photographer specializing in newborns and toddlers, there might be a reason for the photos. But saying your main quality as a business professional is having a child? It’s crazy! And the image of yourself you put out there has little to no chance to generating leads or sealing the deal.

Remember, you’re trying to build a business relationship! Yes, if you’ve had a client for years, a personal bond develops, you might even become friends and show eachother family photos. But if it’s a new client you’re targeting, keep it professional and tell them how you can help them grow their business. Honestly, they couldn’t care less about you as a dad!

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…be smart about how you try again!

I don’t really understand why some PR and marketing professionals are off to a good start and then mess it all up in the end! Let’s say you have a cool security product to promote. You wander around the blogosphere, looking for relevant blogs. You find them, you make sure they have covered a certain story, one presenting a problem your product can easily solve. You send a nice email to the author of the blog, showing that you’ve read it, understood who they target and only then contacted them.

All great! You get no reply for a couple of days. And you ask yourself: “Shouldn’t I remind them of my initial email?” And then you blow it! Instead of writing a short follow up email, you resend the same email, completely disregarding the fact you’ve already sent it again. If you take the time to try again, why not do it right?

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I’ve recently received an email looking like an attempt at email marketing, promising me some world renowned book for free. I was intrigued by a) the fact that the spam filter didn’t catch it and b) my not knowing anything about the book. So I took a second look at the content, thinking it might be some promotional ebook version sent out to bloggers by someone with way too little experience.

I saw the price for the book, big and shinny, along with a promotional discount image. I deleted it and moved on. But it got me thinking about all the promises marketers and PR people make in their emails and how not keeping them makes them lose potential customers, potential exposure on different channels, their reputation and more. Continue reading

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What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

Welcome to a new edition of our almost-weekly reading roundup. First of all, I’d like to wish you Happy Monday! Hope your week is as bright as today’s sun, keep busy but don’t stress out, but before anything else, try reading the posts I’ve run across!

Tanya Maslach, guest writer on Women on Business gives businesses a new perspective: a few great lessons they could learn from Hollywood.

Liz Strauss, in her “Visible Authenticity” series, identifies 10 blogger best practices we should use when extending our reach.

We’ve all heard of sucessful blogger pitches, of results and of how we should adapt our message to each of the persons we contact. If you really want to see how it’s done, Tod Defren of PR Squared has published a great case study showing how exactly one should write to fit the profile and background of each blogger they contact.

Regardless of their field, ailing businesses have some common issues. Karen Swim of Words for Hire has identified 5 of the common problems businesses on a falling trend seem to be caught up in.

Mary Schmidt, a guest author on Lip-Sticking, has come up with a funny list of things to do when you want your emailes automatically ignored.

And to finish this week’s roundup on a funny note, I recommend Ian Lurie’s Geek Guide to Problem Solving, or otherwise put, 10 ways to think for yourself.

What did I miss? No matter how hard I try, I definitely can’t read all the great posts published in a week. So please tell me what you’ve come across and let’s all share our findings!

Have a lovely week!

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