You’ve got the handwritten note and the personal greeting in an online version, express-mailed to a blog they’re already reading and interested in, but remember #3? No business card.

I think online, especially, you have to be careful about seeming too self-promoting. These days a lot of blogs have CommentLuv so you can switch the link to an older one if it’s more relevant, but if I were someone you’d noticed might be a prospect, I’d respond better to “when I work with clients who have exactly that issue I … [quick, half-sentence glimpse at solution].” That’s “Here are a few ideas for you to take a look at” in comment-form. Just one quiet sentence, not “look at me” in someone else’s virtual living room. The other commenter will get it, if they do feel that pain.

Your name’s always a homepage link, and if the blog’s got CommentLuv that’s a second link. Any more than that is like shoving your business card at the prospect and asking for a meeting—a little too much, in my opinion.

Good idea, wanting to convert it to an online version. I do think it’s possible, but it would take even more subtlety than Thom used.

Until later,

Kelly

Actually that’s a good idea – instead of reading blogs to leave comments, I could read blog comments and people who seem to suffer from Someday Syndrome, I could go to their websites and send them a link to a relevant Someday Syndrome blog post or other resource that might be helpful.

That reaches people directly and gets my name out there, one person at a time, but it would be much more directed than hoping someone will read my own comment on a blog and follow through to me site.

Must go add this into my schedule now…
Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome´s latest blog… Getting Time on Your Side: The Creating Time Contest

These days, any mail that doesn’t feel like it rolled off a printing press is a good thing, but yes— You had to get it to me fast? I must be cool.

Works like a charm!

Until later,

Kelly

It’s visceral, isn’t? Everyone loves to get a package. I still feel a bit “important” when I open a FedEx mailer. The real question is how Thom learned that Gerald goes by Jerry.

Would it work on me? Yes. It’s in a different class than all the other junk mail.
Todd Smith´s latest blog… The Golden Hills of California Photos

Oh, yes. The lumpy mailer is one of my favorite secrets!! I hope everyone enjoys that link. Good one.

Friar,

Aha! Now I know what to get you for… the holiday season.

Hehehe. Good jokes and good-natured ribbing never die.

Regards,

Kelly

Ahhh…FINALLY, someone who knows what I like!

Here’s a bonus secret: the “lumpy mailer”. Tom Chandler writes about it here:
http://copywriterunderground.com/2006/10/23/pitch-magic-the-lumpy-mailer/

Like Thom’s handwritten note, a lumpy mailer gets attention and is less likely to be tossed. He raises a good point in this post too: people want to feel special. Lumpy mailers: special. Priority, overnight package: special. Another screaming-yellow envelope with “…or current occupant” tacked onto the end: definitely not special.

(And a package with a self-inflating, 40′ gorilla with optional banana: priceless…)

~Graham