Can We Stop with the Stupidity Please?!

Look, I’m a nice guy.

Seriously, I am.

But there comes a point where you have to throw your hands up in the air and say, “Can we stop with the stupidity please?!” That’s basically what happened after receiving (yet again) another pitch from someone at an agency trying to get their clients content and a backlink published on my fashion blog.

Again, I’m not trying to be mean here, but I’m going to share the email exchange just so you can see how this plays out and hopefully NEVER do this – especially what was done in the person’s final email to me.

Here we go.

Email 1

Hello there,

I hope you are well. I represent [Company Name Taken Out] who specialise in sock designs.

I am enquiring about writing a guest post for your site, which would provide relevant, non-promotional information for your readers and contain a link back to our client’s website.

The article will be a high quality, informative, well researched piece between 300 – 500 words. The article itself would be written by our expert content team, and of course be unique.

Does this sound like something you’d be interested in?

Response 1

Yes I’m interested, but there is a fee associated with this type of campaign.

Let me know if you’re interested in moving forward. Fashables is a well ranking site that can provide much needed Google juice by way of backlinks.

Email 2

Thanks for getting back to me.

What is the fee usually for this?

Response 2

Agencies that have reached out have paid [$ amount deleted for privacy] on behalf of clients… and that seems to be the going rate for a post that stays up for one year.

Email 3 (this is the kicker)

Unfortunately that is over our clients’ budget as we look to spend around $30/post.

I do have another 4 clients so 5 in total in which would be a good fit for your site. Maybe we could arrange a bulk order?

Response 3

No, a bulk order isn’t possible.

Just because I order an item from each of your clients, that doesn’t mean they are all going to work together and give me all of the items for one low price. Business doesn’t work that way.

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I’m not trying to make a gazillion dollars off this fashion blog, and in fact, it was started for fun, but I’m also not stupid when it comes to the value of backlinks to other websites.

Businesses, and the agencies working on their behalf, have to understand that they are coming to bloggers for a service, no matter if it’s a backlink or an article, and in general… services aren’t free.

It takes time to develop an audience and it is absurd for anyone to think a blogger wants to share unsolicited third party content (and backlinks) with their audience for free.

If you don’t want to pay bloggers for this type of content, feel free to start your own blog and build an audience/web presence to cater to your needs. You’ll quickly see why fee’s, even if they are nominal, are put in place.