How Many Words Long Should My Outreach Emails Be?

[tufSosa]

When reaching out to businesses in an attempt to get them to approve you to work for them (promote their items on your site, etc) should you keep your email short and brief or detailed? After cutting and editing my email to a potential company it still stands at 1000 words.

Without giving anything away, my email consisted of an introduction, the skills and expertise I bring to the table, how I will provide value for that business, and a few requests that I made that I can't talk about.

Is this appropriate? Or would it be glossed over and not even read?

Keep in mind, this is small businesses i'm talking about. Not big businesses that wouldn't think twice about someone like me.

 

[Potatoe]

@tufSosa That's wayyyyyyyyyy too long. Keep it really short. Something they can actually reply to quickly if they're waiting for dinner and they see your email on their phone, not something that becomes a "to-do" for them.

It's borderline disrespectful (of their time) to send someone 1000 words like that especially if it's unsolicited and hyping yourself up, keep it short and sweet and then elaborate once you've got a dialogue going.

You should be able to get your point across in 5-10 sentences. If you need any help trimming the fat, feel free to PM me, I can look it over for you.

 

[tufSosa]

That's wayyyyyyyyyy too long. Keep it really short. Something they can actually reply to quickly if they're waiting for dinner and they see your email on their phone, not something that becomes a "to-do" for them.

Got it, I appreciate that.

It's borderline disrespectful (of their time) to send someone 1000 words like that especially if it's unsolicited and hyping yourself up

The bulk of it consisted of me telling them how I could bring them more business. Even when talking about myself, I worded it in a way that came back to their needs and goals.

That being said, I'll definitely shorten it.

You should be able to get your point across in 5-10 sentences.

I think I get it. So tell them the main idea about what I can do for them and then leave my contact information?

If you need any help trimming the fat, feel free to PM me, I can look it over for you.

Much appreciated, i'll let you know if i get stuck.

 

[propipper]

When reaching out to businesses in an attempt to get them to approve you to work for them (promote their items on your site, etc) should you keep your email short and brief or detailed? After cutting and editing my email to a potential company it still stands at 1000 words.

Without giving anything away, my email consisted of an introduction, the skills and expertise I bring to the table, how I will provide value for that business, and a few requests that I made that I can't talk about.

Is this appropriate? Or would it be glossed over and not even read?

Keep in mind, this is small businesses i'm talking about. Not big businesses that wouldn't think twice about someone like me.

One thing to keep in mind is businesses get solicitations daily. All the "methods" from other forums back in the day are way too played out. Soliciting small businesses is harder then going after big business because the small business owners (like many of us here) are wearing multiple hats and doing everything for the business - so when you're the 3rd or 4th person contacting them to sell them something, you're most likely going to get overlooked.

In addition to a strong, short, concise outreach email, you may want to think of doing something more out of the box. Differentiate yourself from all your competitors that are too lazy to do anything else but just send out an email. You put some effort, time and money into it, you'll see better results.

Good luck.