Help with wording an email

[Murray]

I would like to interview some local businesses for a website I have

Do you think this email is suitable? would you reword anything?

"Hello, I’m contacting you from www.site.co.uk - a site made to showcase *area* and provide tourist information

I’m currently reaching out to local traders/shop owners/businesses to conduct interviews to publish on the website

I was wondering if you might have someone representing your business who would be happy to talk to us?; The interview itself would consist of a short set of questions which could be answered by email

Site.co.uk receives over *a number* unique visitors per month so hopefully would be a nice spotlight for your business

Thanks for your time

Regards

Murray
site.co.uk"
[

 

[martin-s]

As it happens, I have an email template for this - and I don't mind sharing. Mine is a slightly different scenario, as I'm emailing adventurers rather than local businesses, but still.

Very few people ever say no. Sir Ranulph Fiennes did, but even he was kind enough to call me to do so.

Subject: Interview-by-email series

Hi {name}

We're looking for the next outdoor adventurers to take part in our expert interview-by-email series and I wondered if you might be interested?

30,000+ subscribers to our Camping Insider newsletter enjoy the series, which has recently featured Dave Cornthwaite, Alastair Humphreys, Tim Moss and Chris Townsend among others.
campinginsider.co.uk/expert-interviews

It's a great opportunity to inspire people (at the same time as plugging something).

Takeaways:

• The subject sounds interesting and low on hassle factor
• The email is short
• It's immediately relevant, inside the first sentence
• It's got some social proof from their peer group
• It dangles the "what's in it for me" carrot - that they can plug something - and tickles their community spirit

The approach isn't dissimilar to how we tackled our ultimatecornwall.co.uk project - and that was for local businesses and related to tourism.

That email was a bit longer, but I'd probably do it differently next time.

Hi {name},

As part of a Cornwall promotion on *website*, we're looking for local experts to help us put together the most insightful Cornwall visitor guide available.

We're approaching Cornwall locals, bloggers, businesses, tourism organisations, celebrities, and other authorities to answer a handful of specific questions about their favourite Cornish attractions and activities.

All responses will be fully credited with name, photo, one sentence bio and web/social links.

As well as appearing on the website, the guide will be heavily promoted socially, to our 30,000+ email subscribers, and to everyone who uses our website to book a future trip to the county.

Would you be interested in getting involved with your *what they do* hat on?

You can respond to our survey here: *Surveymonkey link*

It should only take a few minutes to complete and you're welcome to skip any questions you don't want to answer.

Hope that helps?

 

[Murray]

Thanks Martin, very interesting

Maybe I need to add a short sentence for the reason I'm doing the interviews

I like some of the wording of yours better too, perhaps mind needs a bit more colourful language

I've managed to put together about 180 emails of businesses to reach out to, if I get 10 interviews I will be pretty happy, 20 very happy and anything over that would be wonderful

 

[martin-s]

I often customise the sentence about the plug from "something" to whatever they're involved with. That helps.

 

[Edwin]

Some fantastic advice offered here.

If you're really got 180 candidates, don't email too many at once just in case most of them say yes! (unlikely, but you don't want to end up having to turn them down)

 

[Murray]

If you're really got 180 candidates, don't email too many at once just in case most of them say yes! (unlikely, but you don't want to end up having to turn them down)

It wouldn't be too much of a problem if a lot respond, id like to interview every single trader in the area ideally, there's probably 200 more people I could find to try and talk to

A lot of the dealers there sell antiques and have different focuses, clocks, cameras, jewelry, crystal, books etc so every interview should be pretty unique

My biggest problem is pictures, id like pictures of their shop/stall included along with some of the items they sell

Probably going to have to end up hiring a photographer

 

[aZooZa]

@Murray showing some great initiative. Love it.

 

[martin-s]

Edwin is right though - if you email them in batches, you'll have a better opportunity to tweak what you send.

I usually send a follow up email after a week for stuff like this, but can't seem to find this one.

Murray - if you pm me your email address, I don't mind sending our list of interview questions over. They're obviously different to what you'll need, but we've collated them from reading some excellent interviews over the years, so they might be useful inspiration.

Would prefer not to post those publicly, sorry!

 

[Murray]

I sent out a batch this morning, 7 people have replied saying they would be happy to so very pleased so far

Hopefully they all complete interviews

 

[Domaintial]

@Murray showing some great initiative. Love it.

And when @Murray builds a large network of high traffic, authoritative websites, that rank across multiple terms, and sells them for 6 figures, n00bs will jump on with "well xyz-info-site.tld sold for xxxxxx so my crappy domain should fetch that too".

Keep on pushing dude