A Perfect Example of A Terrible Prospecting Email

by Nathan W. Burke on April 13, 2012

It’s rare that I’ll get an email that so perfectly shows how NOT to attract a prospect. But this morning I received an email from an SEO company:

Dear Sir,

We are writing this letter to change your website design to a new look as its very old one and layers of conflicting technology that inhibits the site speed and ability to make required updates and outdated look and navigation interface, which does not properly communicate to your target audience. The new site will incorporate with several accessibility considerations and will support multiple languages for your targeted International regions, including English, French, German, and Spanish.

When to Redesign Your Website

There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to how often you should redesign your website. HubSpot did some research and published that 39% of marketers feel that a company should redesign their website every 13-24 months. They also found that another 29% of marketers feel that a website should be redesigned every 25-36 months. So to sum it up, a large percent of marketers (68%) feel that a website should be redesigned every 1-3 years.

Why Redesign Your Website

There are many reasons why companies want to redesign their website. Some of the more popular reasons are as follows:
* If you want a website that is more user friendly
* If you want to look more professional
* If you want to stay in check with their competitors
* If you want to improve branding or positioning
* If you want more freedom to customize their website without all the hassle
* If you want to better optimize for lead generation or sales
If you are ready to talk and to know more then we are here to help you now and ready to take care of your problem and Question…

Let’s start with the first sentence:

We are writing this letter to change your website design to a new look as its very old one and layers of conflicting technology that inhibits the site speed and ability to make required updates and outdated look and navigation interface, which does not properly communicate to your target audience.

So they’re telling me that my web site stinks, the design is “very old”, it is far too slow, I can’t make updates to it, and it doesn’t properly communicate to my target audience. Interesting way to start a conversation via unsolicited email.

Moving on:

The new site will incorporate with several accessibility considerations and will support multiple languages for your targeted International regions, including English, French, German, and Spanish.

If the email is an example of this company’s mastery of the English language, I have very little confidence in their ability to translate copy into multiple languages.

I kind of loved the audacity of a company that pitches SEO services by insulting their potential customers using broken English, so I had to check out their website. It stands to reason that their site would be:

  • Beautifully designed and polished
  • Incredibly fast
  • Easy to navigate
  • Grammar and spelling error free

And here’s what it looks like:

Clicking on the above image will show you that their banner image is a woman pointing to a Google SERP for the keyphrase “SEO Company India” with this site being the top result. Of course, a quick search shows that the site in question isn’t even in the top 100 results.

The Takeaways

  1. Don’t spam potential customers with an insulting message
  2. Don’t offer translation services in broken English
  3. Don’t have a terribly slow web site with multiple grammatical errors and false rankings claims if you hope to win business

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