How not to ask for samples to review (bloggers and youtubers, please take note)
Most of you will know that alongside this blog and Unfurling Your Wings, I also run a stationery subscription company and online boutique, Ink Drops, with my friend and business partner Annastasia.
Now, as bloggers ourselves (I have been blogging for just over a decade now so am hardly a newbie), we are no strangers to freebies, PR collaborations and reviews. Though neither of us have been brave enough to venture onto YouTube yet. I think these are in principle a brilliant way to spread the word about companies and products without being at the mercy of enormous corporations.
And I’d like to point out here that we have worked with (and continue to work with) some AMAZING blogs and writers – who we love.
I get, on average across Ink Drops and my own sites, between ten and fifty requests a month for free samples to review on a blog or a YouTube channel. I keep track of every single one of these, reply personally to each one, and maintain a spreadsheet of requests, so that when we do have samples to send out, we have a list of people who we’d like to work with on each site.
However. In between the wonderful collaborations we have, I am heartily sick of receiving ‘requests’ that look like this:
That is not a request for a collaboration that could be mutually beneficial to the blogger and to our company – that is a lazy, rude and frankly offensive way of asking for free stuff from a small company.
Aside from the tone, there’s no link to the channel it would supposedly be reviewed on, the grammar is bad and the address has no capital letters. Not the greatest of adverts for us if we were to work with them.
If that was a one off, I wouldn’t be writing this post. But I would say 70% of the requests we get are much like this.
No link or stats, a demand for free stuff, an address to post things to and (crucially) no personalisation, even though we more or less ARE our companies and our names and personalities are splashed all over our websites.
I’ll let you into a secret.
I keep notes on the requests we get for free samples (because to a company, especially a small one, they’re not free – we have to account for them and we do need to see some kind of return on our investment).
We have lots of lovely people who get in touch, who have bothered to read our about page, address the email “Dear Carla and Annastasia” or “Hi Carla” and who are clearly genuine stationery lovers or tarot enthusiasts with a real interest in what we are doing. They don’t just want to grab anything free they can get their hands on, but want to create something that both they and we will benefit from.
Guess what? These are the people who get the slots when they become available, the people we want to work with and the people we want to build ongoing relationships with as we grow.
The ones whose emails scream that they can’t be bothered to even read our website, the ones who forward the same emails every few months without trying to build any kind of relationship with us and the ones who are clearly out to get every freebie they can (and believe me, when you get twenty emails a week asking for the same thing, you get to recognise these pretty damn quick) – those get a note which says “don’t send”.
Because why should we send you a part of the company we love, when you haven’t even read our website or bothered to find out our names?
I believe wholeheartedly in blogging and the power of independent bloggers working with small companies and solopreneurs to advertise in a way that is different from all that has gone before. You won’t find a more enthusiastic ambassador for blogging and social media (and, yes, vlogging though I don’t do it myself yet) than me. I’ve been championing it for ten years.
But for the love of all that’s cat shaped on the internet, if you want samples to review, PLEASE put some effort into reading the website first and don’t just send badly written emails to the first few companies you can find.
With love, unicorns and a little bit of weariness,
My kind of happy
Curled up with a book and a cat. Taking pictures. Writing. Making and eating good food. Time with friends. Pottering, making my home my own. Househunting. Doodling. Dressing up. Daydreaming. Crafting. Learning. Dancing. Collecting. Believing in unicorns.
Your happy doesn’t have to match anyone else’s expectations or what anyone else does. Each of us has our own unique combination of things that we love to do, things we quite enjoy and things we’ll tolerate if we absolutely must.
What’s your happy?
52 Project, week 10: indescribable
Week 10 of 2015. In which I embarked on an epic road trip through my soul home of Texas (hopping over into Louisiana the following week), and fulfilled one of my longest-held dreams – to see Alan Jackson live in concert. I haven’t finished editing the 3000 photos I took over the fortnight, so here are a few tasters:
(fuzzy because we were only allowed mobiles, not proper cameras)
The gig was the main reason for our visit, and oh, how utterly glorious it was. I cried most of the way through it with sheer emotion at being there after more than 20 years of waiting to see him on stage. AND he played all my favourites from the early days.
I also found time to…
Have the traditional breakfast-with-beer at the airport:
Drive my fellow passengers mad by taking photos of the pretty clouds on the plane:
Wake up on Wednesday morning to four inches of snow. In Texas.
Fall in love with Jon Pardi, who was supporting Alan Jackson (and he’s currently single. Reckon he’d fall for that accent all American men seem to inexplicably find super cute?! Though is it just me whose speech becomes half pure Southern belle and half female Hugh Grant the moment I set foot over the border into the States?)
Eat ridiculous amounts of the best fried chicken, mash and creamed corn in the world at Babe’s in Roanoake, TX:
Try a DQ Blizzard on our drive to Fredericksburg:
Make a pilgrimage to my Dad’s spiritual home in Luckenbach, Texas and added a charm to my talisman necklace while playing at practising for being a cowgirl:
Have a makeover before the gig, which was lovely and pampering:
to be continued…
52 Project: Weeks 7 – 9
Oops. I’ve been taking as many photos as ever, but somehow have completely failed to choose a photograph every week and put it on the blog. The first three and a half months of 2015 have flown past with indecent haste!
I can’t choose just one so the 52 Project will be more of a my year in pictures type project…
Week 7 (9-15 February): Creativity
Assisting Louise Rose Couture with a shoot at Retro Photo Studio – which was so much fun! I have a whole stash of shots from my behind the scenes documenting of the day, but I’ll share them in a separate post. This was a quick snap with my mobile.
Collaging and creating and giving myself permission to rip up old magazines. A lovely way of spending an afternoon.
Week 8 (16-22 February) Birthday joyfulness
Obviously I’m struggling to pick just one for each week. 16-22nd February involved birthday chilling, an amazing photo treasure hunt with a wonderfully eclectic selection of friends, and most importantly, my fluffy Clover-kitty was back to her usual silly self after a poison scare involving a stay at the vet.
Week 9 (23 February – 1 March): Preparation
Getting ready to head off on holiday, I had a calming and colourful Lush bubble bath, got woken by the Nose-Biting Kitten Alarm (TM), finally cracked off-camera flash for product photography and found a stowaway while packing my suitcase.
Pomophily
What do you get if you cross 38 balls of wool, 14 women, 12 weeks and 1 serious piece of research in a TED talk?
An art piece made of pompoms, featuring Campus Cat.
Obviously.
Over a year ago, I met the lovely Sarah by chance when she bought something from a classified ad I’d placed and we got talking about her crochet flower brooch. We decided, as you do, that what we really should do instead of going for coffee was start a craft club at the day job. And Crafty Coffee was born.
When the university we work at then launched an art competition to celebrate 50 years and our campus spirit, we had a mad idea that became reality – and I went to see it in the gallery last week. It was rather a lovely experience, actually – it’s been a while since I’ve seen my work in a public place, and I believe this is the first time something I’ve collaborated on has been exhibited in an art gallery.
So without further ado, let me present… Pomophily. (Because the design was based on Professor Maria Fasli’s TEDx talk on Homophily. But we made ours from pom poms.)
(not as sad as it used to be, as the Hex is now in use as a gallery. But a quirky and often unnoticed part of the uni, anyway)
Tiny Lifechangers: colour coded keys DIY
It can’t be just me who finds my tray of keys and spare change a constant muddle, and has more than once picked up the wrong one to house sit or feed a friend’s cat. (I often try to blame being creative, but in this case I am just hopeless at keeping the keys organised).
After the third time I tried to let myself into my parents’ house with my business partner’s house key, I decided I needed to do something drastic.
Enter the 10-minute fix for easy, pretty and un-mix-uppable keys: nail varnish.
I have three sets of house keys besides my own, all of which are similar enough to make it difficult in a hurry (or the early morning) to see which is which.
So I raided my (embarrassingly extensive, for someone who paints her nails maybe three times a year) nail varnish stash and chose four colours.
Glittery blue, for my own key.
Pool blue because it’s pretty.
Burnt sparkling gold because it matched the one gold-coloured key in the set.
Bright green because it makes me smile.
(Sneaky tip, I chose all of these for their heavy coverage too, to reduce the number of coats).
Steps to making your gorgeous new keys:
Remove all keys from keyring, and wipe with white spirit or similar to remove any residue from fingers and handbags.
Arrange on a non-stick surface which you don’t mind having bits of nail varnish on (I used a box file)
Paint one side of your keys in your chosen colours.
Let dry, and add another coat. Repeat until it’s as bright as you’d like – but be careful not to paint any of the actual key mechanism!
Turn over and repeat on the other side.
Once dry, re-attach to keyrings and admire.
(optional) 7. Write initials on keys with permanent marker for extra identification.
Definitely one of the simplest projects I’ve ever done, but it’s had an amazing effect on the part of my life that involves me turning up at the right house at the right time and actually being able to let myself in…
I'm Carla, a quirky thirtysomething with a penchant for unicorns and glitter. I believe in magic and make-believe, and the gorgeous rebellion of making your life absolutely your own. And I'm a proud multipod!
I am a photographer and catalyst for small business owners, and a real life mermaid. I photograph people as they truly are, help women see and step into their brightest and best selves, add a sprinkling of magic to the mundane, and am a happy ambassador for stationery and slow living.
Proud to be both girly and geeky, when I’m not writing, photographing or daydreaming, you can find me dancing burlesque, riding my bicycle Bluebell, growing herbs and collecting typewriters.