Am I approaching YouTubers just plain wrong?
To increase my user base, I would like to partner up with YouTubers and have my site featured. So far, I have approached four individuals via email. I sent the following email in hopes to start a conversation.
Hi {first name},
I am the founder of {my site}, a small business based in Los Angeles.
We recently launched our website aimed at Japanese-learners to improve literacy.
We think that your audience might like our product. Would you be willing to test and review {my site}?With kind regards,
Matthias
Unfortunately, no one has replied just yet. My email signature includes even my phone number.
The subject line is: "Business Inquiry - Yomi.ai"
What could I have done better initially and how and when can I turn the situation around and make it work for me and them?
I get a ton of emails from random companies asking if I'll put a link to their site somewhere on Indie Hackers, so they can rank higher in Google. None of them consider whether it's worth my time to bother doing this, and few if any offer anything meaningful in return. Perhaps they assume I'm just sitting around with an empty schedule all day, doing random chores for random people. In fact, I doubt they're thinking about me at all. They're just thinking about what they want. Needless to say, I delete all of these emails reflexively, usually without reading more than a sentence or two.
If you're going to "sell" someone over email, you can't just one-sidedly ask for what you want. You have to give them what they want, too. There needs to be a mutual exchange of value. That's how business relationships work. You want something of immense value (free advertising), but what value are you providing in return?
Finding out what people value might require lots of research and some genuine empathy. Then actually delivering that value to them typically requires hard work and skill, otherwise they'd just get it themselves.
For example, when I emailed people in the marketing departments of large companies to pay for ads on IH in the early days, I didn't simply ask for money in return for publishing their ads. Advertisers want numbers and conversions. So I had to do the hard work of creating something that could give their ads the reach and conversion rates they wanted. After that, the deals were always mutually beneficial.
The vast majority of people don't want to go through this process, and instead send lazy mass-copied emails hoping to get lucky. If your emails look and feel like all of these people's emails, it's going to be deleted 9 times out of 10.
Thank you for your reply. I was not under the impression that I asked them to do free advertising for me, but to get a conversation started. Negotiations, I thought, were a separate step. Under the light that YouTubers get a lot of spam from random companies, I guess it makes sense to be ignored.
When you say…
That comes across to me as you asking the following:
Maybe they'll read it differently than I do, but to me I'd interpret that as you asking me to do a whole bunch of work to advertise your website for free. You've asked me to do work, but haven't offered me anything of value in return. As a YouTuber, I'd probably rather make videos of my own choosing for my audience, or at least get paid if I'm going to do someone else's bidding.
I see. I am in fact asking for a lot of labor without even an explicit invitation to talk about how they would like to be compensated, other than the "Business Inquiry" part of the subject line.
I was actually thinking of offering to share revenue, a flat fee, or a combination. I guess I should send a follow-up email.
Exactly. IMO you're being very explicit about what you want from them, while being very silent and vague about what they'll get from you. That's probably not a super attractive arrangement for the other party. If you're lucky you'll get an aggressive negotiator who will proactively tell you what they expect from you, but for most people it'd be more pleasant just to delete your email.
There's also lots of non-transactional stuff to consider. YouTubers work hard to build their audiences. They typically don't want to ruin that trust and make crappy videos just to make a quick buck. I'm sure they have many other concerns as well. If you don't understand those and take them into account, people may be wary to work with you. As I said earlier: learning and empathy.
My advice here is limited — I'm not an expert at sales or cold emails. You should check out materials from experts. People have figured all of this stuff out the hard way for decades, and written many books and blog posts about it. I'd bet you that YouTubers have even made videos about how to approach them correctly, and explaining what they want.
If these sales are a core aspect of your business, I recommend doing a few days of reading and learning. That's probably the highest-leverage thing you can do. Steli Efti had a great episode on the IH podcast where he walks through some of the basics: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/119-steli-efti-of-close
I appreciate the time and effort it took to deliver this advice. The content itself of course, too. I just listened to the podcast episode, which helped me get some concrete ideas on what I should do regarding this issue that I created for myself, but also on how to approach sales in general. Thank you so much!
This comment was deleted 3 years ago.
Wait -- you sell ads on IH? Where can I give you all my money??
Not anymore, this years ago.
I'd definitely start with some personalization— make the first sentence about them (right now it's all about you).
For example:
Hey ____, just saw your latest video on ___. It was great! Really got me thinking about ___.
Wondering if you'd be interested in a partnership? I am the founder of ...
Thank you for your suggestion. I might have gone from one extreme to the other. When my business was still just an idea and I reached out to other and some of the same YouTubers, I made it more about them - with the same lackluster result. But I think you are right in adding personalization would help. Any ideas on how and when to best reapproach these people?
Don't start talking about yourself, everyone only cares about themselves. Always start by talking about them and how this is advantageous for them, not how it helps you.