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As someone who is trying to build their own online brand, I struggle with networking and marketing as I don't enjoy forcing products onto people. That said, I understand their importance, but I prefer to do both more organically. I can't say the same for some of the people I've encountered. In this article, I want to take some time to talk about how not to market your brand. Cold Emails Listen, I'm not going to claim that people are reaching out to me all the time. That said, I do occasionally get emails from people who want something from me. Aggressive Personalization For instance, check out the following email: After the drama surrounding your Buckeyes this summer, you must be happy with the way they came out and performed this past weekend - your running back Mike Webber looks like the real deal.~From your LinkedIn profile I noticed that there are some easy optimization you could be putting place to help you get more visibility: background image, about me w. a CTA and your headline.~If you’ve ever been interested in understanding how to leverage this powerful platform more effectively for new business, I’d love to connect. Having worked at LinkedIn for 3 years and now working with entrepreneurs and small businesses, I think a quick conversation could be valuable.~What’s the best way to get a few minutes on your calendar? After reading this email, I was quite confused. Does this person want to talk football with me or sell me some ambiguous service? Following Up Naturally, I ignored the email. Unfortunately, this person didn't "give up easy": Similar to Urban Meyer, I don’t give up easy.. for better or for worse. (hopefully better)~A friendly reminder of my previous email regarding your current use of LinkedIn and the opportunity that exists in utilizing the platform more effectively.~I work with small business and entrepreneurs to put in place structured LinkedIn lead generation systems.~Do you have a few minutes? Again, I had to ask myself: does this person want to chat about football or sell me some ambiguous service? It all seems a little odd to me. In what world does this sort of marketing work? I sure hope no one ever walks up to me on the street, notices that I have a Penguins shirt on, and tries to pretend the they're into hockey, so that can try to sell me something. That's not genuine, and it makes me trust you less as a salesman. To be honest, that's even a bad analogy. If I'm wearing a T-shirt, I probably like the team. Going to OSU does not imply that I'm in any way interested in football, but whatever. Round 3 Sadly, the emails didn't stop there. On top of the first two emails, I received an additional two emails. Let's dig into number three: Your Buckeyes put up a ridiculous score this past weekend against Rutgers - not even close.~Historically, small businesses have been slower than, say, growing start-ups or medium to large companies in adopting LinkedIn for business development. (budget constraints, no dedicated team)~That is not to be misunderstood with there not being a huge opportunity for you on LinkedIn. In fact, many entrepreneurs and small businesses are beginning to leverage this platform for new business with great results.~Do you have a few minutes this week or next so I can show you how? At this point, this person completely gave up on the transitions. They just spewed some random tidbit about the local team before jumping right into their sales pitch. That said, I still have no idea what they're selling. Throwing in the Towel At this point, this person started to grow frustrated, so they resorted to my favorite sales tactic: the guilt trip. Check it out: Last note from me regarding better utilization of LinkedIn. You are either too busy or not interested, if it’s the former feel free to use the below to get in touch when it makes more sense. Ah, you know what? I've been interested the whole time, but I've just been so busy over the last two weeks to chat football with you. Can you spare a few minutes to chat Urban Meyer? Okay, so I didn't respond like that--or at all--but you get the point. Product Pushing While the first set of emails are by far the worst I've ever received, there were definitely more. For instance, I once received several emails from someone looking to do AI for ads on my website. Take a look: Hi Jeremy - You have created a fantastic programming resource with an incredible wealth of information,~My name is ------ and I'm writing to let you know about -------------.~We developed a unique machine learning technology that tests different ad sizes and locations to determine which ad placements are most effective for engaging each of your visitors individually. The -------- platform is proven to increase ad revenue from 50 to 200%, while simultaneously improving the user’s experience on your website.~I'd love to connect with you soon to further explain the --------- platform and how it can be a very useful tool for you. Do you have any time to speak over the phone, or would you rather receive more information via email? Overall, I don't think this is a bad email. They came out with a nice compliment, told me their name and their products name, explains what their product does and how it can help me, and asked if they could follow-up. All-in-all, I would consider this the perfect "cold email." Unfortunately, I don't exactly respect that kind of marketing. For starters, I hate ads and I've already voiced that several times on my site despite having them. As a result, I would never purchase a service to improve my ad revenue. That's just not something I would ever do. If their marketing team did some digging, they may have realized that. Granted, I don't fault them for not doing their research. I can't imagine that cold calls and similar marketing tactics are that popular, so they have to go with the shotgun approach. Despite requesting my response for a follow-up, the author of the original email decided to follow-up twice: Sorry to bother you again, but I just wanted to check in to see if you received my last email and had a chance to think things over. Let me know if you have any questions or would like to learn more. I really don't want to be a pain, but I really do think that your site is a perfect fit for our website improvement system. Whether you're interested or not, just let me know either way. For whatever reason, when ex-boyfriends do this, it's considered creepy. Yet, when businesses do it, it's considered marketing. If I didn't answer the first time, why would two additional emails provoke a response? It's weird and creepy. Honorable Mentions In addition the the previous two sets of emails, I've received several others. The following quotes are some of my favorites: The Finance Guru Every so often, I get emails from people from LinkedIn who apparently don't like the messaging interface. That, or they prefer to ask creepy questions from the comfort of their burner email. I don't know. I found you on LinkedIn and was wondering what you currently do for bookkeeping for your firm. I just wanted to follow up on my previous question about what you do for your bookkeeping.~I'm curious because I help small firms and startups get set up with automated bookkeeping, payroll, and account management solutions.~Are you interested in automating those functions of your business? I understand you are busy, so I'll make this quick:~I help small firms and startups get set up with automated bookkeeping, payroll, and account management solutions.~This way, you won't have to worry about your finances.~Are you interested in learning more? Apparently, I really need to share how I do my bookkeeping with a complete stranger. The Clueless Household Cleaner Sometimes I get cold emails from people who don't even know my genre of content. For instance, one time I got an email from someone who literally read a headline of an article and assumed I was into household cleaning. My name is ------, I am the main editor at -------.~While browsing your site, I noticed you have an amazing article from this page:~therenegadecoder.com/updates/issue-49-website-housekeeping/~My team actually just published a comprehensive article on The Guide to Creating a Detailed Household Chores List which I think your visitors would truly appreciate and add value to your awesome article.~If you were willing to add our link to that page, I would be more than happy to share it to thousands of our social followers to help you gain some visibility in exchange.~Let me know what you think and thank you for your consideration! Hi, I would like to follow up and make sure that you saw this. Thanks. Hi, I've reached out you a couple times, but I haven't heard back. I'd appreciate a response to my email below. Thanks. Imagine the surprise of their followers when they open up an article about WordPress maintenance. LinkedIn Connections Speaking of LinkedIn, I hate that platform, but I'm hesitant to remove my profile for no good reason. As a byproduct of holding onto my LinkedIn for so long, I've received many connections from people I've never met who just want to sell me some product or service I don't need. It's wonderful. Examples To further illustrate my point, here are a few quotes from people trying to extend their network: Jeremy - it's great to connect. Our main goal is to connect impactful social content with thousands in your target markets every month. B2C, B2B - we've worked with 55+ happy clients in the last 6 months. I'd love to share more about our proposed offer - there an email that works best? Thank you for connecting! I'm ----------- and I help IT professionals get more high paying clients. Do you need any help with this? Thanks for connecting. Let's jump on the phone real quick so you can hear how other CEOs benefited from my content lead generation method in terms of new leads/sales and increased branding. When and how can I reach you best? thank you for your kindly acceptance,we are --------------- , we do give out loan to individual , Organization and cooperative companies , our service is fast and reliable , we give out our loan at the rate of 3% interest and we do finance from 200K to 500M we do raise fund for real estate project and other projects , we also give supportive finance to entrepreneurs and business owners,if you are interested kindly state the amount you need as a loan and the purpose you need the loan for thank you Thanks for connecting with me. LinkedIn tells me that you work in the SaaS space. If so, I was wondering if you own a software or mobile App? If you don't mind, I would like to try it out and possibly write a review on it. Do you have a link where can I download a free trial? I hope you are ok with that. Thanks for your time. Apparently, all I had to do was put Founder in my bio to attract all this attention. If you need to build your network, I recommend doing the same thing. It really attracts people from all over the place. Reflection That said, it's really frustration that a platform meant for professional networking is really just a place for ego stroking. I've meant to rant about this in the past, but I've never been able to come up with enough content. Perhaps dumping some of my frustrations here will suffice. At any rate, are these types of "cold messages" not frustration? I can't think of a time where someone reaching out to me at random has ever gotten me to feel anything other than irritated. Do people actually buy into these messages? Let's say for a moment that I decided to respond to all these messages. What do you think the outcome would be? Do I need a 200k loan to kick off The Renegade Coder? Can I trust a random person with content lead generation? All of it seems kind of ridiculous. While they never really stoop to the craziness of the first guy, these types of messages are still bothersome. Though, I'm probably just a grump introvert who would rather do things myself. Who knows. A Bit of Perspective That said, I want to hear about what you have to say. Have you experienced cold emails before? Do you respond? Are they effective? I'd love to know all that and more, so let me know what you think in the comments. Otherwise, I recommend checking out some awesome articles I found about bad cold emails: The Five Worst Cold Emails We've Ever SeenSalespeople, Please Stop Sending Terrible Prospecting Emails Like This One And, if you're in the market for more rants like this one. Check out my series on engineering. At any rate, thanks again for taking time to read some of my work!