5 Mistakes You're Making in your LOIs and Pitches
Here's why you *might* not be getting responses to your pitches
Freelance Friday
For the past year and a half, I’ve gotten all of my clients exclusively using letters of introductions (LOIs) and email cold pitches.
I’ve gotten so good at them that I actually have too many people replying to hire me (25-30% conversion rate).
My network has gotten so robust that I don’t even need to connect with new potential clients anymore. I simply follow up with LOIs I’ve sent previously and within a week or two, I’ve got my next gig.
Plus, monthly, because I’ve optimized my LinkedIn and gotten recommendations from my network, I even have clients coming to me.
So, how do I do it? I use a template every time to make sure I’m not making any of these mistakes!
1. You’re not using personalization.
It’s okay to use a template, but make sure you customize at least 30% of it! Acknowledge that the people you’re connecting with are just that: people!
Unless you’re doing email marketing for a company or a product you’re selling, don’t ever ask for something in a mass email. For services, every email should be sent individually and customized.
2. You didn’t do any research about the person or organization you’re trying to connect with.
To make people feel like you truly care about them and their company, aka your potential client, you need to actively demonstrate that you know something about them. If you didn’t do any research for your customized cold pitch email or LOI, it’ll show.
It portrays a lack of effort on your part. If you’re not even willing to get to know the company enough to send them a pitch, you’ll be seen as someone who probably won’t put in the work later if you were to land the gig.
3. You aren’t being respectful of busy peoples’ time.
With emails, it’s best to keep it short and sweet. The people you are pitching are busy or else they wouldn’t need your help! Asking them to read thorugh a long email is not going to help you get the gig. Keep it to 3, 2-3 sentence paragraphs and leave some white space!
When it comes to your portfolio, link a few specific pieces after your signature that are the most relevant to their specific company so that they don’t have to search through your whole portfolio. Again, imagine they have exactly 2 minutes to read your pitch.
Fortunately with LOIs it’s pretty easy to keep them short since you have to fit within a character limit.
4. Asking too much.
Don’t ask them out on the first date! As I always say when I talk about sending LOIs and cold pitches, you’re making a connection with them and starting a conversation. You’re not pitching your services right away. You’re not giving them pricing. You’re not asking for any more of their time than a response to your message.
You can let them know what you do without asking them to hire you. You can provide a scheduling link so that they can easily make a time to meet with you if they want to. Basically you want to say:
“I’m me. You’re you. Here’s why I’m contacting you. K Thanks Byeeee… P.S. I’m here for you if you need support in this way!”
5. Not including a call to action.
If you don’t include a call to action, you can almost guarantee you won’t be hearing back from them. With LOIs, this is easy: “I’d love to connect with you.” With email cold pitches, you want to offer them a way to get back to you. I like to provide them with a link to my scheduling app, Calendly (you can use something similar like Acuity, up to you!).
Head down to try this to make sure your email and LinkedIn are ready for your ideal clients to see them!
Try This
Optimizing Your LinkedIn
Make sure you optimize your LinkedIn BEFORE you send any LOIs. Your portfolio does not need to be complete to start sending LOIs!!
Fill in ALL work experience from your past (and I mean everything, mine goes back to 2010...), any volunteer stuff, and your eduction
Write your "About Section" – you can edit it later, I recommend updating it every 3-6 months.
Optimize your headline with keywords your clients might use like "content writer" or "copywriter" or "freelance writer" and your industry
Upload a nice headshot for your profile picture and create a simple graphic in Canva for the banner behind your profile picture (It can just be your whole name or a business name if you already have one in mind.
On the homepage, share any work you've already done as a post (you can do them all in one day at first, timing doesn't matter that much) OR upload your portfolio pieces as "article"s. Then, add your work to the "Featured" section on your profile.
Add a work experience with the title "Freelance Writer". Fill in your services (hint hint, use the description you made in your pricing guide – but don't put your prices). Then, under that experience link your portfolio pieces
Connect with me and request a recommendation from me! (P.S. I will only give you a recommendation if you have portfolio pieces or work you've already written shared on your profile. I cannot give you a recommendation if I haven't seen your writing.)
**YOU CAN TOTALLY UPDATE YOUR LINKEDIN (or create one) BEFORE YOU FINISH YOUR PORTFOLIO and I recommend you do. Remember, you can ALWAYS change/update your LinkedIn later. Just get it started. You need to start gathering your "arcade" coins ASAP.
Here's my LinkedIn for an example: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rmeltzer/
Feel free to connect with me!
Optimizing Your Email
Your email address and your email signature MATTER. Not only does optimizing these make you look more professional, executing these tasks will also help your emails avoid landing in the spam folder. Do This BEFORE you send any cold pitches!
Step 1: Create a professional email address:
Use your full name or business name. Do not use numbers!! If you have a domain name you can get a custom address at your own domain (that's ideal but not everyone can afford it! Honestly, I've got my own domain and still only use gmail...).
Step 2: Create an email signature with:
A small headshot
Your full name
Your “title”
A logo if you have one (no worries if you don’t!)
Links (business social, LinkedIn, portfolio, website, whatever but at least 1)
Phone Number (you can use an app like sideline to get a free number that isn’t your personal cellphone)
You can include the most relevant portfolio pieces after your signature or just links to your portfolio pieces.
Like this:
