I’m not one to wait to be chosen. I’ve told you about how I asked my husband out on our first date. If you wait to be plucked from the crowd very few interesting things are likely to happen to you. Be an active player in your own success. This means dreaming up ideas and drumming up business.
At some point in making your ideas a reality you’re going to need to pitch them to someone via email. You might need to send out pitch email if you’d like to:
- Get a review copy of a newly released craft book
- Guest post on someone’s blog.
- Collaborate with another artist on a project
- Ask if you can interview someone for your blog
- Seek out sponsors for your blog
- Ask a company to donate products for a giveaway
- Get a book deal
- License your artwork
Truly the ideas are endless. You’ve got think big, think creatively, and most of all, always be thinking. What could you do that would go beyond the obvious, that would be interesting, valuable, and mutually beneficial? These are the kinds of things that I’m always mulling over.
Photo by MissChatter on Flickr
My Recent Pitch
A few weeks ago I came up with an idea of a way to work together with Spoonflower, the print-on-demand fabric
company, for a blog post. I did some research to make sure my idea would work and honed it to make it valuable to my readership, interesting and fun for me, and beneficial to the company. And then I wrote a pitch email.
This type of email is something that you need to get right in the first shot. If the recipient opens the email and they’re intrigued enough to read it through and respond, you’ve done it well. Take your time, but not too much time because, like most things in life, it doesn’t have to be perfect to be effective.
Contact the right person.
It can take some digging to find whom exactly you should address your pitch letter to and writing to the wrong person can mean the death of your good idea. Search and ask around until you’ve got the right name and the right email address. For my Spoonflower pitch I reached out to a friend who has written some guest posts on the Spoonflower blog and asked if she might share the contact person’s name and email with me. She was glad to help out. (And, conversely, I think it’s a good idea to be generous in sharing contact names when people ask. There’s lots of work out there and lots of room for good ideas.)
Write a descriptive subject line.
“Hi” is not a descriptive subject line. I used, “Softies blog post with Spoonflower” for this email. Use the subject line to state in five words what you have in mind.
Address the person by name.
I don’t think you need to be formal in this type of email. “Dear Darci” is just fine, or “Hi Darci”. No need for “Dear Ms. Moyers” and certainly not “Dear Sir or Madam”. You want the recipient to know right off the bat that this is not some kind of mass email they’re getting. This is a personalized pitch letter you’re sending just to them.
Explain briefly who you are.
“My name is Abby Glassenberg and I am a craft book author, pattern designer, and sewing teacher in Boston, Massachusetts” is my go-to first sentence. One or two more sentences explaining your credentials. Include links that back up your qualifications (a link to your blog or website, your Etsy shop or a magazine article you wrote would all serve to show you are who you say you are).
State your idea.
In three sentences explain what you have in mind. Make each sentence count. Don’t be wishy washy. If you can’t describe your idea succinctly, you aren’t ready to pitch it. Show that you’ve done your research, you know what this person or company makes and you’re ready to work with them. If you’ve done this kind of work before, send a link to an example. And in crafting, visuals pack a big punch. Two or three great pictures can make your email memorable.
Here’s my statement to Spoonflower:
“I’m interested in creating a blog post about the impressive selection of pre-printed softies available as
Spoonflower fabric. One of the things I love most about Spoonflower is the ability to create softie patterns with templates and instructions printed right on the fabric. The creative possibilities for a stuffed animal designer are so exciting!”
“My plan for this post would be to sew up 3 softies from cut-and-sew softie fabrics from Spoonflower (a girl doll, an animal or play food, and a robot or monster that would appeal to boys) and then write about them. I’d do a short interview within the post with a designer who has created a softie pattern as Spoonflower fabric to find out
more about the design and printing process, and then choose ten more of my favorites of this sort of fabric from the Spoonflower shop as a link list.”
Ask for what you want.
I think as a woman it can be difficult at times to ask directly for what I want. As a business person I’ve had to get over this fear and learn to be direct. Create an action step you’d like the recipient to take because, frankly, at this point in
reading your email they’re saying, “Okay, what does she want?” Here’s my action step: “Would it be possible for you to send me three 1/2 yard cuts of this type of softie cut-and-sew fabrics to work with?”
Be polite.
“Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.” That’s my usual ending, along with “Sincerely” as the closing.
Make it easy for them to find out more about you.
Your email signature should include links to your blog, Twitter, Facebook, or wherever you’re business is active and present. Assume that the recipient might want to poke around a bit to see who you are, how wide your reach is, what your work looks like, or what your writing style sounds like.
Follow up.
Emails get lost. People get overwhelmed. Everyone is busy. It is your job to follow up on your pitch.
That Spoonflower email? I sent it on February 18 and didn’t hear anything back. I follow Spoonflower on Twitter and saw that they had some staff members at QuiltCon in Austin from February 21-24. They posted a few photos and in one of them was Darci Moyers, the person I had contacted, working at the Spoonflower booth. Ah ha!
By March 1 I figured everyone was probably back at work so I sent a polite follow-up email restating my pitch. Here was the response, “Hi, Abby! I’m so sorry I didn’t respond to the message you sent in February, we were very consumed with QuiltCon and I must have missed it! That sounds like a terrific post idea, we are happy to send you some softie cut and sew fabrics for your project. Thank you!”
Success. Like writing to the wrong person, failure to follow up can easily be the death of a good idea.
Photo by MissChatter on Flickr
So look out in a few weeks for my post about softies and Spoonflower. I’m excited! And turn some of your big ideas into real experiences that will enrich your business and your life. Pitch them and see what happens!
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Have you written pitch emails? Received any good ones (or bad ones)? Please share your experiences and any tips, too!
I too asked my husband out and as we will have been married for 25 years in a couple of months I think it was the best pitch I ever made!
I have recently started working in collaboration with another local Mum running her own business and we have run some successful events together – if you ask you often get what you want.
Thank you for this sound advice, I am going to use it to craft the email to accompany the book proposal I have written- gulp!
You really have moved up a gear and the change in your blogging/tweeting etc over the last year or so must be doing wonders for your business and is certainly benefiting many of us too. Jo.
Great post. It’s funny to think about the things that you do all of the time but that no one really teaches you how to do them. There is so much bad email manners out there that your guidelines are sure to help people get noticed.
Meanwhile, I can’t wait to see how your Spoonflower trial goes. I agree that the printed pattern pieces are a brilliant idea but I suspect that some will sew up more successfully than others. It’s been on my to do list for a long time!
Oh WOW! Thanks for this post. As a business major sometimes you never really know the right structure for these types of emails. I have been writing some like this but the outline of what and how to say these types of things is something that I don’t think we covered in class. With your permission can I share this with my class? I’m looking forward to your post!
Hooray for girls asking boys out 🙂 And good luck with your book proposal!
I'm excited about it. I think pre-printed softie fabric would be a great gift for a child just learning to sew. Instant gratification!
Of course, Megan, please feel free to share. Thank you.
Great post.
I hope you will take all these wonderful posts about developing and growing a business and write a book. It would reach a wide audience and I believe it would be a best seller!
Hi Joyce, That's very nice of you to say. I enjoy writing about these topics here on the blog and I'm so glad they are interesting to you!
Abby
Great post. This is a really helpful post, because you speak about all the parts of a pitch. From telling about yourself, the recipient, the question and ending polite. It’s good that you explain the importance of a follow up, I feel a little pushy to follow up, don’t what to claim to much time from someone else.
I’m not a native English speaker, so it’s difficult to find the right tone. Not to stiff or to free. So reading your pitch was very educational.
This couple of weeks I have had great response to my questions, and now I have been interviewed, got a boot at museum night, and got beautifully free fabric from a curtain shop. Who Who
Wow congratulations Abby!! I love Spoonflower! Thanks for sharing and your advice has come very timely! As usual 🙂 I really see you as an inspiration!
In less than two weeks i am will host my first ever market stall selling some of my softies at a creative handmade market in Sydney (dreamersmarket.blogspot.com). I am very nervous yet extremely proud to have gone through with the selection process. i am excited about the opportunity to showcase my toys in a commercial capacity and I am learning so much including having to promote (a type of pitching, right?) myself from the time I submitted the stall application to now. I am really out of the comfort zone but I am also thriving because I have this goal. I love reading about your experiences as you tell them in such a genuine and encouraging way.
I can’t wait to see your finished softies from the Spoonflower fabrics!! xx
Thank you so much, Manda, and good luck with your market stall!
cool thanks for the helpful info I look forward to your spoonflower softie post.
Do you think you will create and sell fabric patterns this way in the future?
Hi Kim, I don't have plans to design fabrics right now, but I'm looking forward to the experience of sewing with them!
Good blog post!
In my experience I’ve learned something really similar.
The main 3 points are:
-clear subject line
-state what do you want shortly, before who you are or what you do
-be extremely brief
Each of this point has increased my chances of getting a reply.
Thanks for sharing these tips! I think you've hit the nail on the head. Being brief and being clear are both so important!
Fantastic post!!!Really very useful, especially for the non-native English people.
Regarding Spoonflower plushies, I just can’t wait to read your post. I think that you could also e-mail SF designers directly and ask about this wonderful collaboration and opportunity to have the pattern review. I would be honored to do that and would really love to send you some of my templates, if you might like them. (and I do have templates for all of the three categories you mentioned)
xxx
Hi Katarina,
Thank you for your offer. I'd be happy to hear about your experience designing doll and softie patterns using Spoonflower. I've already got the fabrics so it's tool late for that, but I do want to learn more about your process in designing these types of cut-and-sew fabrics, along with any tips you might have for other people thinking of giving it a try. Please email me at abbyglassenberg at comcast dot net. Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you!
Hi Abby,
I can’t tell you how much I needed to see this post. I think I follow much the same format for my pitch emails as you have outlined ( and I have written so many of those in the two years I have been blogging). It has proved very successful in the past. However, I had written a couple of emails last month which didn’t get any response and I was just wondering whether/how to follow up. Now I know what to do. Thanks for putting it out for all of us who feel clueless.
Thanks,
Anshu
http://bloomsnbugs.blogspot.com/
Ps: found you via Craftypod and am going to subscribe this blog now.
Thank you so much, Anshu, and welcome! I do think follow-up is key with pitch emails. All of us have become buried under piles of emails at one point or another. It's helpful to the recipient if you follow up, once, with a friendly email reminding them of your idea. At the same time, if you hear nothing back (and that happens to me plenty, trust me) it may be that your idea just isn't the right fit at that time. It doesn't mean they don't like your work, though. You may be able to pitch again, with a new idea, down the road and have success.
Dear Abbyjane
I wanted to thank you for the advices you give us, to bring our blogs to move on. I’m writing now book reviews, “meet” some interesting people for interviews. My blog improved and i found out about interesting stuff and inspiring people, witch i wouldn’t have without trying out your guideline.
Best Regards Natalie
Youre welcome! Thank you for visiting.
Another great post Abby, thanks for all of the great information. Straightforward and to the point!
I found my tribe! I asked my husband out too 🙂 Or maybe this is common now a days…
Anyway, i have only had the guts to send out one proposal for one pattern. i don’t know why i am being so nervous, the first one was bought. i guess it is because I want to design a whole book and not just a single knitting pattern. Gotta get my behind in gear and my ideas out to the masses!
I don’t know how common it is, but cheers to us!
Very helpful as always….thank you.