Hello!

As a Blogger, I am always looking for opportunities and I probably check my emails a hundred times a day and when you want to review products and work with brands, they send you emails and they are always nice BUT I received an email yesterday from a brand which I will not name but I wanted to show you what they said and if you get an email like this, why you should not accept it and how awful this made me feel.

DISCLAIMER: I am not slandering the company, I wanted to show you guys an email I got and how you can deal with this.

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So I was at home just writing a post up for this week and a new email popped into my inbox and this is what it said:

Now whenever I get an email from a brand with the caption being “Collaboration Invitation” or similar, I am intrigued as to what the brand is and what I would be doing.

I don’t know if you can put two and two together but they addressed me as @KatyMackenzie19 which is my Twitter username. I was already regretting this email reading just that line. If you are approached and spoken to you like that, don’t bother reading the email. Yes, maybe it is automated but still, you should be spoken to as a person, not as a Twitter account.

Next is this part of the email. If you follow me on social media and my blog, you probably won’t see fashion posts because I don’t find myself fashionable at this time and I do not have the funds to buy them. I mean I feel flattered they said “high-quality blog” cause I am trying!

Anyway, this is another thing that I immediately thought “nope” to. They said, “The following is one of the ways we hope to collaborate ;).” WHY A WINKY FACE? Like okay a happy face at the end of a brand email, that’s cool. BUT A WINKY FACE? What are you hoping to get from me cause by this point, nada! If a brand puts a winky face in an email, delete it.

“What we can offer you” regarding this part is not what I get from the brand. Yes, it’s engagement but I don’t get anything but be on an Instagram story, in a Facebook group and meet “talented individuals” There is no mention of if there are products involved or if there is a payment. Now I do accept products in return for reviews but if you’ve got this far down my post and have read the email, do you know what the brand is? Or what their products are? Nope? Neither do I.

If you get an email from a brand, you can’t just be told what you can be offered and what you will do if you don’t know what the brand is, what products they sell and some background of the company. It would be like I approached a brand, said I wanted to collaborate, what I could offer them and then sign off. I haven’t told them about me or my blog or what I do.

By this point, I was just reading this email for fun and I had to go search the brand myself. I admit they have a lot of followers on Instagram but their photos don’t even cover the number of people they follow. Oh, and I found out what products they offer.

If you “liked the style and image” of my blog, then why haven’t you seen that I don’t do fashion on my blog and I am a woman? I’m not saying females can’t do this but I personally don’t feel it fits into what I write about on my blog, therefore, the brand has not obviously seen my blog. Also, I am a big grammar person so the bio is annoying for me.

I’m not trying to slander the brand, that is why I have taken their name out of this post but I am just appaled, to be honest with you all.

Okay, onto the last part of the email and already I am about to delete it. Grammar is key whether emailing influencers or brands and I feel it is key to getting somewhere. They say if I promote their products then it will “inspire more people”. The thing is though;

you sell gentlemen’s clothes

my demographic is mostly women

I don’t get how you want me to inspire more people if my demographic is mostly women. By this point, I knew they hadn’t read my content or even asked me about what my blog is about.

Right the thing that pisses me off the most about this is “We will need you to put 6 links into 2 different articles whether the articles are new or old posted.” That’s 3 links per article. I don’t know about you but I don’t class my posts as articles and I don’t promote brands into posts that have nothing to do with one another. If I put a link in for this brand into my Bullet Journal posts, I would look insane.

They did send best regards so I applaud them for that but for the rest of the email, I am just shocked this ended up in my inbox.

If you get an email from a brand wanting to collaborate, make sure you look up the brand because if you don’t write about that specific subject, they obviously have not looked at the content you post.

If you get an email starting with a username you use for social media, delete it. They obviously are too lazy to address you with your name and haven’t taken the time to write an email to you personally. I feel brands and influencers must have a close relationship and if that’s not present then there is no point in collaborating.

If they say nothing about their brand or the products they offer in the email, you can ask but then again why? If a brand contacts you, you shouldn’t have to go searching their brand on social media.

If they don’t offer you anything except engagement and to be in some Facebook groups, don’t bother with the email. Your time is worth either a product for a review or for a post on their brand to be sponsored.

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I know this isn’t my normal day to post but I wanted to get this off my chest and hopefully help those out there who may get these emails.

If you have, let me know what you did with them!

Till Next Time