What would you think if, you came to this blog, expecting some beautiful, empowering, inspiring love letters written from Mother To Child…

And you got a blog post about sex toys?

Here’s a story about an offer I got from a media company…

that’s proud of their premium client list and “expertise” in digital marketing.

I’ve been reviewing, managing and responding to the email enquiries for y Travel Blog and Mojito Mother for almost two months now.

This is part of the service I provide to them as their Blogger’s Agent.

The vast majority of companies contacting them, just want something…

Usually in return for nothing, or very little.

The ones who are a little more professional and understand how to approach someone cold, will make more effort to offer something of value.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I was responding to an email from a “Content Publishing Manager” who manages “highly experienced travel writers”.

She gave me a very impressive portfolio and asked about guest writing for y Travel Blog.

I also liked that she approached us with a very respectful and thoughtful email, and expressed my gratitude to her for that.

While I declined her offer for guest posting (her particular proposal didn’t quite suit my client’s vision), I thought I’d explore what else she wanted to achieve and whether she had other campaigns I could help her with.

She gave me an acceptable offer for a paid post with contextual linking, targeting health/beauty/women’s lifestyle.

So, I offered her Mojito Mother and Mother’s Love Letters for consideration.

Here’s the subsequent email exchange:

“Hi Lina,

The blogger in me felt a twinge of being offended and evoked a sense of “How dare she!” within me.

Then, within a couple of seconds I saw the hilariousness of it all…

And of course, the golden blog post opportunity (I hadn’t posted in a week, so this was the universe’s perfect delivery of some much-needed inspiration).

The Blogger’s Agent in me then replied with this:

You definitely don’t need a Marketing degree to get this. It’s common sense and commercial sense.

But in a world where common sense is not so common…

Or where people are in such a hurry, they don’t even bother to check the most obvious and important of details…

This is the kind of thing that can happen.

I expect this nonsense from spammers. Not professionals who approach bloggers with a proposal to work together, collaboratively.

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I did reply by the way, to let her know that if she has more appropriate campaigns, that I would consider them (Any thoughts if you would’ve handled that differently?).

The purpose of this blog post is to demonstrate:

How you can make a great first impression… and then totally destroy that when acting in haste or just being an idiot.

Why bloggers should not get upset with this stuff. Just laugh.

As a blogger, don’t then get all diva about it and use your online reach and audience to publicly shame the individual who stuffed up. If you’re going to share the story, think twice about disclosing identifying information. We all make mistakes.

If you do identify the brand, do it for a useful purpose and be prepared to deal with the backlash.

(Mrs Woog did such a good job of it, she made me use the “F” word in public AND in writing: An Unsponsored Post About A Sponsored Post)

Any thoughts?

Written by Lina Nguyen

Mother’s Love Letters © 2011

See also: 7 Steps To Securing Blog Sponsorship As A Smaller Blogger

See also: Click Here For Immediate Perspective

See also: y Travel Blog is Finalist In Asia-Pacific Blog Awards 2011