Day Two: Bootstrapping Emails

Posted by Bonny Albo Jan 5, 2007

If this is your first time visiting the thirty-day Make Money without Spending a Dime Challenge - Welcome! If you want to start from the beginning, you'll find the first posting here, and a list of all of the challenges to date here. Also, don't forget to join in the discussions and let me know what you think.

I'm not terribly familiar with email marketing techniques other than the autoresponder copy I've written for clients in the past. In fact, I've shied away from email marketing work in the past, mostly because I didn't feel great about adding more to the spam pileup in most of our mailboxes.

After doing a bit of reading late last night and most of today however, I've changed my tune somewhat. Email marketing is a tough business, but when done ethically (such as opt-in newsletters), can be extremely effective (provided you've got a great copywriting and design team on your side).

Well, I'm an seo copywriter - a writer who creates advertisements, sales letters, ghostwritten articles and any other online, search engine optimized content that a business may require. So it stands to reason I'd excel at this type of money making challenge, right?

After a few butterflies flitted off, I decided I wouldn't "cold" email anyone - yet - (i.e. contacting someone out of the blue who I had no previous interaction with to advise them of my services). Instead, I'd review online postings for copywriters, responding to each and every one with an easily customizable piece to let them know I had the skills and knowledge to get the job done.

[Note: This is a tactic that can be used by any business owner, although some may have more success than others depending on their business structure. Wholesalers and retailers can review auction postings where many large companies post their URLs (where you can find their contact information and send a quick note about a product they've been looking for), and consultants and service providers can review free classified postings.]

Before looking online for "warm" email recipients, I crafted my cover letter, ensured my webpage was in tiptop shape, and vamped up my business resume so all I'd have to do was change the specifics in the cover letter and send the entire package immediately.

My cover letter took the most amount of time, yet ended up being only a measly two paragraphs in length. I opened with leading questions that explained the benefits of using me as their copywriter, left the middle for a sentence about my experience, and ended with urgency and a call to action such as, "If you need a writer now, contact me and we can get started immediately".

Then I went looking for local, national and international websites that offered free classifieds. After determining that there were too many to visit (several thousand just on Craigslist alone!), I took the suggestion of one of the Six Figure Writers and used Indeed instead. Indeed (which incidentally also has a smaller, Canadian version) searches your keywords for job postings and presents them in order of date or relevancy. The fact that it searches Craigslist is a huge time saver, especially for those businesses like my own that potentially cater to a national or international audience.

I took a couple of minutes to search their database for "freelance writer" and "freelance copywriter" which did an okay (but not excellent) job of providing me with potential leads - one of which I applied for. Incidentally, I received a request for a quote from that person less than three hours later. Mind you it was the only lead from hundreds of results...

Well, kind of. I noticed several postings were from the same website, so I visited that site too. It was job posting site exclusively for bloggers, so I reviewed their listings and sent off a couple of emails. Next I hit Deborah Ing's daily list of freelance writing jobs, found a couple more leads, and decided it was time to move on, but not before adding a couple of Google Alerts for similar keywords.

My last money making email was sent to a local college department head asking for continuing education instructors. I was told the person in charge of the writing programs is on holidays, but will get back to me shortly.

Then I took a break. I had spent over five hours on the computer already!

Upon my return to the computer monitor several hours later, I had a surprising number of emails in my mailbox. One was from an individual I contacted on the blogging recruitment site offering me an ongoing gig, starting immediately. One (previously mentioned) asked for a quote, and two for additional samples.

Two days and sixteen "warm" emails later, the Making Money Without Spending a Dime Challenge is already a success. I've got one ongoing blogging project, and a response rate of just over 3%!

I can't wait for tomorrow!

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