How to follow up (and get raving fans or disgruntled critics)

You know what's a blessing and a curse?

Creativity.

You're either a genius or just straight-up whacky (on rocks) ??

Like this infamous Office of Government Commerce?(OGC) logo, for example.

(If you can’t see what's wrong with it, keep looking. You’ll see it eventually)

So I went out on a limb myself to do some experiments on my guest post outreach campaign.

Genius-or-whacky? Have a read, and decide for yourself.

A breakdown of what I did

So I struggle with follow-ups.

99.9% of follow-ups are just BORING. When was the last time you received one that didn't look like this?

? "A follow-up in case you missed my emails!"

? "Just a quick nudge..."

? "Following up because I know you're busy!"

I was very guilty of this.

No one ever said follow-ups needed as much TLC as the initial outreach email.

But think about it, your follow-ups are all opportunities to still convince someone to reply to you. It's untapped potential.

So then it hit me, this genius-or-whacky? idea. It's composed of 2 parts:

1. Write a letter.
2. Put that letter in the follow-up email.

Sounds innocent enough, right?

Again - you can be the verdict of that. Let me show you part 2 first.

Part 2: The follow-email

Here is my follow-up email.

Piqued your interest?

Would you click on that link?

Good. Because that was my sell.

Part 1: The Letter

When people click on that hyperlink, here is the letter they were met with.

OK first things first, if you’re against the profanities, I’m so fucking sorry.

But if you’re here, it probably really accurately describes how you feel.

And for that — I am also just really fucking sorry.

So now that we’ve got the?anti-pleasantries?out the way, and you’re still reading this, it’s either because:

1. I’ve pitched to you,?and this hyperlink has piqued your interest,
2. You’re angry, you’re going to reject me, and hey, this article looks angry, so you’re going to rant with me,
3. I have maybe 27.356 seconds?to convince you why you should say yes.

So I’ll get right to the reasons?why you?probably shouldn’t give me a chance

1. I’m an opportunist

I take opportunities, and I also present them back to sites I guest post to.

Yes. I’m in it for links, recognition, fame, the whole 9 yards.

No beating around the bush. I absolutely want to leverage your hard-earned brand and also get some of that link and viewer-ship fame.

But here’s the thing. There are many other first-class victims (like yourself) I am targeting.

And a schmuck like me surprisingly gets a pretty good yes rate.

I also like to share the link love and I’ll do it with you (-:

2. I’m going to create more work for you

But that’s work you’re already going to need to do for great content anyway.

In fact, I’d argue that I’d help eliminate that writing process for you.?

I freelance write, and manage content for a few SaaS companies. So I get it – sometimes random guest contributors are more effort than they’re worth.

If I’ve pitched you- then I’ve done my due diligence, and I’ve researched your top articles already.?

I know exactly how you like them.

From the average article title character count to the number of links (external and internal links), and even semantics like whether your subheads are punctuated, sentence case, action-oriented, etc.

But let’s not kid ourselves. Accepting my GP request is still like digging your own coffin bed.

You’re the real person doing the work here. Here’s just a glance:

• Taking < 30.730 seconds to?reply to my email,
• Approving the pitch, keyword, reading the article, back and forths, editing yadalalala~
• Aligning content schedule, formatting it, publishing it, etc,

And unless someone hacks your email to give me the wrong guidelines – accepting my pitch is GUARANTEED to be less work than usual.

And despite those reasons, if you say yes…

You’ll get a damn good article.

And a damn easy (and pretty efficient) experience working with me.

And if you say no…

No strings attached here. I would like to thank you for your time and hopefully, this article has made you less angry.

And if you don’t say anything…

Well, that’s a bad idea.

I follow up pretty hard.

So please just say yes.

Or not.

Or do what you want because really — who am I to tell you what to do.?BUT?– and this is not?(really)?a threat- I will continue to follow up for a while,?so help me help you (-:

Sincerely,?

Jessica

The results...

?? Raving fans...

?? And disgruntled critics.

I sent this follow-up to 33 people.

27 people read my email. 16 replied.

No, not all of them were conversions. Some were no's, some were letting me know they don't accept guest posts, and some were irritated people.

So... genius or whacky?

I had fun with this. And I think it's safe to say that this has been a controversial tactic.

On the one hand - the people who appreciate the humor are probably the people you want to work with.

On the other hand - you ostracize a portion of your market.

But as the adage goes, if you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one.

Now, I can't say how effective this experiment was.

I know how many responses I got that are tied directly to the follow-up experiment, but I don't know how many people got turned off by the same follow-up.

But if there's one thing that I'm certain of - it's that a creative follow-up is lightyears better than a predictable one.

I've since come up with other creative follow-ups that are less...divided.

But still make for great conversation starters.

Now it's over to you. Genius or whacky?