Sabrina Dent: Freelance web designer, developer and internet marketer living in Cork, Ireland with one dog and a husband in no particular order.
Searchles: Artles, Tactles and Clueles
This afternoon, I received an email off my contact form from the unfortunately named Elias Shams at the unfortunately named Searchles. According to the email footer, “Searchles” rhymes with “circles.” I can’t help thinking, though, that there’s a fundamental problem with you brand when you have to point out to people that it does not rhyme with words like artless, tactless and clueless.
Anyway, the email just smelled spammy; it was not addressed to me personally, and not about anything I’ve ever expressed any interest in. So I double-checked with Twitter and indeed: Suzy got it once, Damien twice, Darragh twice, Lexia twice, and Redmum also twice.
I believe, campers, that we call this Yahtzee!
Just to be clear, I don’t mind at all when people use my contact form to contact me. I do mind, however, when people use it as a dumbwaiter for delivering piping hot spam direct to a random Inbox. And I particularly mind it when the communication attempt is as wildly inept as Elias’ was:
- If you want to contact me, have the courtesy to actually figure out my name and address me. (BIG HINT: My name is IN MY URL.) It helps to foster the illusion that this is at least a little bit about me and not all about you.
- The email has six links to six different sites within it. You have my attention for less than thirty seconds; give me ONE PLACE to go.
- It has no specific call to action. Again, you have my attention for less than thirty seconds; give me ONE THING to do.
A good pitch email just isn’t that hard to put together. And when you’re sending it to hundreds or thousands of bloggers, each one vocal and each one carting around their own personal soapbox, it’s particularly important that you get it right.
As I pointed out to Elias when I wrote back to him, if you spend half as much time copywriting your email as you do trawling for random bloggers to send it to, you’re much more likely to end up with a pitch that doesn’t suck out loud.
Elias replied to tell me that this wasn’t spam, that he picked me to write to because of the Ladies Tea party post; apparently, he loves women and thinks we’re the best thing ever. (I’m sure Damien and Darragh will be totally flattered to hear that.) And apparently, my little missive has broken him as a man:
I can’t believe you think my pitch suck :-( u just put a huge crack on my heart :-(
And so, courtesy of Suzy, I leave this as consolation for poor Elias:
05 Feb 2009
| In: Advertising + Crankypants + Marketing | Tags:Elias Shams, FAIL, searchles
Even better: if he spent a quarter of the time *properly targeting/qualifying* the outputs of the trawl, or an eighth of the time coming up with a product that stands out as appealing to those qualified targets…
Remember what Ogilvy said, kids: A gifted Product beats a gifted Pen.
Or, as the stats show, decreasing order of significance (from memory):
1) Product
2) Targeting
3) Timing
4) Creative
But in all cases for online marketing: read, memorise and internalise Permission Marketing or just FOAD.
05.02.2009, 8:07 pmActually, he has a product that I think has potential and would probably appeal to a pretty wide pool of bloggers. It’s just that it’s so ineptly presented you can’t figure out what it is, nor will you necessarily choose the correct link in the email that will take you to the one out of six destinations that will *sort of* tell you what it is.
I know I am more meh about this than other people, but I don’t mind random promo mail via my contact form. (On my blog, at least, you can consider that permission to contact me. But do it well, or do it at your peril.)
What frustrates me the most is BAD random promo mail. My first instinct was to sit down and re-write it for him, simply because it pains me to watch people helplessly piss on their own shoes.
I got an email as well, that has to be the most unfortunate name ever for someone whose business is internet and email based – Elias Shams. I immediately thought, “It’s an alias, it’s a sham!”, then I felt a bit guilty in case that was really his name, so I emailed him back to find out if he could explain what the hell he wanted.
05.02.2009, 8:32 pmThis is hilarious! I totally feel like I am in your tea party now. The time u are all taking to do Elias bashing :-( That goes for you too Sexy Pedestrian. I remember I was goofing around ur site too. This is what I get for believing women are the best thing on earth. You guys are lucky I love ur kind more than my kind. Sometimes, I even wish I was one of you guys. NO it does not mean I am gay. I am very straight :-) I just envy your kind to be more human than my kind. That’s all. Anyway, if you only take a fraction of the time u r all taking to bash me, to put it on installing our free plug and play related content widget on your site, you will have a much more attractive site and blog. Translation – more revenue (if u care about revenue). U think I made this feature for my mother? No! for you guys. Anyway, best of luck to u all.
05.02.2009, 9:01 pmHey Suzy, thanks for the video. It was awesome
05.02.2009, 9:01 pmIt’s sad when they seem to try so hard, but there’s so much on the internet about this these days, there is no excuse to spam in such a way that’s just asking for a response like Sabrina’s
I really hate it when I get CVs (and spammy messages) via my site that are addressed “Dear Sir”. In how many languages/cultures is the name Ann for a man?
On our old site there were two people listed my partner and myself, so at least target us both. On my new site it mentions Ann all over the place and I still get “Dear Sir”.
You won’t be working with me, buddy!
05.02.2009, 11:12 pmSomeone please nail this fuckwit to a bench and punch him in the face hourly until he learns to speak his own first language. Oh, and nice work with the homophobia there, fella. That’s sure to make people hate you less.
The rest of you, please get a clue. He was reading all your blogs before spamming you?
Was he fuck. He bought some shitty script which trawled every WordPress site listed on irishblogs and dumped an identical shitmail on all of you.
And now he’s here pretending otherwise. Excuse me while I break out the cluestick and find out who funded this moron, then start annoying the crap out of his upstream until they hurt him.
06.02.2009, 12:41 amI think I’ve just woken three kids and an angry wife with a very loud guffaw at John’s epitaph there.
06.02.2009, 2:53 amThis is priceless.
I too was spammed by the clueles/fuckwit/homophobe/moron but within half a second my spam alarm had me hitting the delete button.
By the time I got to Sexy’s comment I was about to pitch in on why you were giving this knob-end the brain-time let alone the air-time.
But oh no. Big hole. Get handed a shovel. Hand it back for a mini-digger.
He’s like something off Little Britain.
Priceless. Absolutely fucking priceless.
Oh COME ON. When you get an email from someone named Alias Sham, how can you *not* write a blog post about it?
Really, though, I write these posts because I think they’re instructive object lessons. While yeah, a lot of us would have hit the delete button on any unsolicited email, I honestly, truly deeply believe that a handful would actually have been interested in this company if they pitch had been half as long and ten times better written.
Elias, you can make jokes and type like you’re a 12 year old sending text messages all you like, but you’re missing the point here.
We are your target market, and we’re giving you free feedback and priceless experiential marketing advice here. We’re telling you that your pitch and your pitching method sucks. You can blow that off it makes you feel better, but here’s a tip:
Most people’s pitches stimulate readers to take a look and make a decision about your product. YOUR pitches stimulate people to email you back and ask you what the fuck you’re on about, and then write angry blog posts about your company.
That is not a good return on your investment.
I work with Elias at Searchles and I can tell you that his first language isn’t English, so he has an excuse there. Of course, I am pretty sure his grammar is just as bad in his native language, that’s just who he is.
“then start annoying the crap out of his upstream”
I wish I knew what that meant so I could use it context sometime.
John, if you want to get laid (as Elias always does, even with women thousands of miles away), it is probably best that women don’t think you’re gay. I don’t think that’s homophobic, I think it’s just practical.
06.02.2009, 3:40 amWow! Such angry crowd. Easy guys. Thanks everyone for the comments. I take all of it as compliments – even the “F” ones. Now that you all gave it me, would you at least take a look at my Discovery widget please? Come on, with all that F words each one of you used on me, the least you can do, take a look at my discovery widget. It is for your own good. Take my word for it. It is plug and play. You don’t like it, u can easily unplug it. Cheers
06.02.2009, 3:40 amBy the way, why are u guys picking on my name? My Mom loves it. Besides, I am living in a country with a president names Barak Hussien Obama, and u think my name is strange. U guys need to travel more :-)
06.02.2009, 3:42 amElias,
As you seem to be slightly at odds with your own first language I’ll oblige you with a definition of your own last name:
Sham:
fake: something that is a counterfeit; not what it seems to be
imposter: a person who makes deceitful pretenses
assumed: adopted in order to deceive;
Ironic, no?
06.02.2009, 11:43 amSomething kind of Charles Dickens-esque about the name Elias Shams isn’t there?
“Elias saw the headmaster old Mr Pinchfist Fuzzychaps and wished he could run away from the worst school for orphans, St. Bastards.”
09.02.2009, 3:59 pmIt hasn’t put oul Elias off
11.02.2009, 9:37 amGot another mail from him yesterday, he got my usual PFO by reply
Elias emailed lots of irish bloggers again last night…
Currently looking for song titles which include searching for ones brain for my next dedication to him.
11.02.2009, 12:51 pm“Thanks everyone for the comments. I take all of it as compliments – even the “F” ones.”
This is hilarious.
11.02.2009, 1:16 pm