Check Out This Super Unprofessional Proposal I Received Yesterday
I recently received an email from another online business asking to purchase advertising on one of my non-business related websites that was soooo unprofessional that it made me stop and think about how many people send out email like this all the time… then expect to be taken seriously.
Let me give you a little background…
Here’s the email that was submitted to me via an online form to one of my children’s crafting websites.
Hey,
I love your idea for Candy Corn Pins! = ] So cute!
I would like to buy an ad on your site for a online costume store. I would like to place the ad on: http://www.url-of-page-here.com
I can offer you around $25 for this ad.
Do you have PayPal or would you prefer a check?
Thanks!
Sally = ]
At first, I thought it was from one of my visitors because it started with a “Hey” rather than any kind of proper salutation (like Hi Name, or Hello Name)… it simply said “Hey.” In fact, my visitors usually address their email more appropriately and they are just contacting me for personal reasons… so this didn’t start things off very well.
Then as I kept reading, I realized that this was an email from an advertising firm, whom I won’t embarrass by using their name.
So what’s wrong with this message and why do I think it’s extremely unprofessional?
1. Improper Opening: The salutation was poorly done, as I said above. In addition, the sender should have identified herself and her business in the first sentence. At least she should have used my name in the opening to let me know that she’d done her homework!
2. Cutesy Little Symbols: Never use smiley faces or other symbols in your professional correspondence until you have established some sort of relationship with the person on the other end… It screams novice!
3. Not Enough Details: When Sally composed this email, she told me what webpage she wanted to place the advertisement, but didn’t provide me with any other information. As an online business owner, I’d like to know what kind of advertisement she wants to place, how long she expects it to run, the name of the advertiser, etc. After all, I have standards to uphold… I can’t just let anyone run an ad on my site without knowing some of the particulars.
4. Too Presumptuous: She just assumes that I’m going to leap at her “offer” so she asks if I want paypal or check. I don’t think so!
5. Terrible Closing: Just like with the opening, she does a really poor job with the closing… no last name or additional contact information. I still don’t even know what firm she represents!
As you might imagine, I was pretty curious where this little gem of a advertising professional came from, so I traced down the firm from the email address that was required in my online form. Let me tell you, the advertising firm was every bit as unprofessional as this email.
In fact, it only consisted of three main pages… one of which outlined all the firm’s employees. Sally was displayed prominently there with a picture and a completely ridiculous biography (The stuff in red is what I changed to protect her true identity):
Sally Noname graduated from Marketing School, with a degree in Marketing in 2006. Her main responsiblity at The Firm is to grow great ads for our clients, think of new ways to grow better ads, and contribute to making the website as best as possible. She also likes to build her own webpages.
During her free time Sally likes to walk the local trails, spend time with family, and play sports. Football, basketball, and softball are some of her favorites. She loves laughing and having a good time with friends, and with her two dogs Ace and Capone.
Favorite Band: Three Days Grace
Favorite Color: Purple/Red
Favorite Movie: American History X
Favorite TV Show: The Hills
Favorite Food: Chicken Parm
You can bet that I’m running out right now to try to get these people to sell some advertising for me right now… NOT!
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2 Responses to “Check Out This Super Unprofessional Proposal I Received Yesterday”
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Hi Arvada,
I got the same email and so did many others. Think about it for a minute, nobody could actually be that dumb and have an internet marketing job. There is a method to this seeming stupidity.
There are actually 6 websites with the same silly profiles you mentioned, and all under different names. This is definitely a scam - and a larger one than it would seem from viewing one site.
This blog has traced 6 of them back to a single IP address.
http://www.1earthadventures.com/2008/06/25/malaysia/grassroots-advertising-and-gr-adscom-scam-or-not/
It’s apparently a REAL marketing company doing paid-link SEO ‘dirty work’ under the guise of a maze of ‘false front’ companies, fake employee profiles using stock photos and false identities like “sally” who contacted you.
This is to spread paid links and influence Google’s pagerank system without implicating the ‘top level’ SEO companies (who pose as these weird companies) in deceptive linking practices.
What a WEIRD world!
Thanks for posting this… your research into this company was a real eye-opener.
As far as people being that dumb and have an internet marketing job… you’d be surprised just how many of these types of emails I get from legitimate companies that have been around a long time.
I wrote this article without the intention of exposing any sort of scam or “dumb marketer,” but with the intention of showing those with very little marketing experience what NOT to do when they write email proposals. I was trying to use it as a teaching tool… you made it even more of a teaching tool when you exposed the scam. Thanks!!!