Rant: Why Your Emails Get Deleted and Unanswered

Rant: Why Your Emails Get Deleted and Unanswered

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

This is something that has been bothering me immensely since I opened Rock Me Fabulous to guest post submissions. When I started accepting guest post submissions I wanted it to give other bloggers a chance to widen their audience as well as give my readers a new perspective on different topics. So I said I'll take submissions from other bloggers as well as people who don't blog but just like to write. However I noticed that most of the emails I received were from big name companies wanting free advertising. So the posts were watered down with no real content and I didn't want to rob my readers of the quality of content they deserve. When I noticed that, I revised my submission guidelines to point that out in a way I thought would be crystal clear however I wrong so wrong, the emails just kept coming. I would receive an email that went a little something like this:
Hi Rock Me Fabulous,
I'm Jane Doe and I came across your blog and I fell in love with it. I even forwarded the link to my husband and he loves it too. I've been a silent reader for quite sometime now and I finally decided to contact you because I wanted to write a guest post for your blog. I'll make sure the post is beauty related and of 500+ words.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Jane
Sounds nice enough right? Here's the thing though, if Jane has really been reading my blog "for quite sometime" and loved it so much that she even sent it to her husband don't you think she'd have started off the email saying Hi Mia instead of Hi Rock Me Fabulous?
But I put that aside and  responded, sending her a link to the submission guideline and stating that she read it carefully because I may not be able to publish any content that does not meet my guidelines. Jane will then respond saying thanks so much for this opportunity and I will see her post within three days to a week.
Then one day I will receive an email from Jane with the completed post, I will read it and love it  then when I get to the byline I realize that Jane is actually a content writer for Vidal Sassoon or some other brand. "insert eye roll here" Which means that Jane didn't read my guidelines she just decided to send me the article either hoping that I'm too dumb to pick up on what she did or thinking that I would just shrug it off and publish it anyway. But guess what Jane I don't do either, I just delete your email.
My biggest thing with this whole thing is that people like Jane contact me all the time under false pretenses. Instead of being honest and upfront to me and saying that they are a content writer for X company and would like to be featured on the blog then I would've actually let them publish their content. But because they feel the need to lie and act like they've been reading my blog for so long and shower me with praises about the blog and then do everything I requested not to do in my guidelines, then I have no choice but to ignore your email. This has made it hard for other content writers that would've been honest from the jump. Because now I'm not even going to give their email a response, it'll just end up getting deleted.
Why will your email get deleted or answered:

• Because you call me Rock Me Fabulous
• Because you call me nothing at all
• Because you shower me with praise for my blog but can't get my name right.
• Because you tell me you've read my guidelines and yet you still insist on contacting me.
• Because you actually have read my guidelines, quote from it, and request anyway.

So how can you ensure that your email doesn't get deleted or unanswered?

• Get my name right. It's all over my blog. That's why I created an about me page in the first place so there's no reason why you should be calling me Rock Me Fabulous
• Don't lie to me. It's a bad foot to get off on. And I will know if you're lying. It will be heinously obvious.
• Take me off of your mass emailing list
• Don't read my submission guidelines and decide you're so super awesome that you should still request a review. You're not. Your tactic will fail.

Quite frankly, I really don't care that my submission guidelines and it's update posts are a little lengthy. If you want any iota of hope of me publishing your content , you'll read it and follow it as closely as possible or I will delete your email.  Do it right and save yourself a lot of time. I respond to all of my emails. If you don't get a response from me, even if it's a nice decline, it means you sent me an email when you shouldn't have because you couldn't be bothered to actually read my guidelines. Which, in turn, means I couldn't be bothered to consider your email.
 READ MY GUIDELINES. I didn't create it because I was bored. If you can't bother, neither can I. And for the love of f--- don't think you're better than it and attempt to request a post submission anyway. You'll only anger me immensely and I might be so inclined to respond. Trust me. In that instance, that's the last thing you want. At this point, I'm just f------ tired of people not being able to follow directions. As seemingly educated adults, it really shouldn't be this big of a problem.