I wrote a previous article on Using templates in your brand, but today's article goes into a little more detail on content templates, because I noticed a lot of this going around, especially around Black Friday and the Holidays last year.
Firstly, templates can be used for pretty much every single part of your brand and business that repeats. This can include your social media posts, your contracts, your pitches, your blog posts, your newsletters, your proposals, and so much more. Basically, I want you to think about every single part of your brand touchpoints (you can read more about touchpoints here) that is seen by more than one person.
In this case, I want to talk about content templates and pitches in particular!
Now, a template is NOT a copy/paste item. If you're having a sale and want to send private messages to people to let them know, using the exact same message and copy/pasting it to everyone, does not make it a template. It makes it a copy/paste message that your readers will most likely catch right away is not meant only for them. And yes, that is the case even if you change the name at the top of the message.
Here is an example of what I meant (details removed because I don't want to bash anyone)...
Hey girl!
I'm not sure if you saw, but we are hosting our Meet & Greet next week!
During this time, we'll be covering [list of items related to the met and greet].
I wanted to personally invite you because you have been such a supportive part of our community and would love to support you back!
Here's a link for you to join [insert link here] and hope to see you there!
[sender's name]
Now, I actually received this message from a person that I have talked to before that actually knew of my struggles in my business and had helped me with them in the past. If this was sent via email, completely different story because we all know that newsletters are sent to multiple people. But a private message? It looks copy/paste and it feels so impersonal that I automatically dismissed it. And then I realized who sent it and went back to respond because I still want to support her even if this event was not at all useful for me (and none of the points outlined related to my issues).
(PS. Even with the service details, link, and name removed, you should be able to tell who this message is from. The fact that I have received various iterations of the above message over the past year tells me that everyone found one template online, modified it for their service, and then copy/pasted it to their audience.)
Now, what if you tried to modify this and turned it into a template you can personalize? Yes, it will take much longer to do it, but it will send a completely different feeling across (even with the same message).
Here is an example (ps. keep in mind I am not a pitch expert, I don't like to do it, so I do look for online templates of how others do them and then modify them to fit my service, product, and who I am talking to, but here is the base template I used for a private sale I launched last year).
Hey [change the name],
How have you been? It's been a while since we last talked! What ended up happening with your [topic from your last conversation]?
OR
I know we chatted recently, but I wanted to send you something on a more professional basis.
I am reaching out today because I am doing a sale this Friday that may help you out if you're still struggling with [topic]. I am going to be putting up my [service/product] on sale and I think this would be perfect for you since we/you can [list some of the benefits of this service/product related to their struggle].
Let me know if you're interested and I'll send you a private link for booking/purchasing!
You can see right away that this is personalized and the person reading it will know it was meant for them because how likely is it that you talked to someone else about this topic that long ago? On top of that, you are referring to an issue that this person already has and then you're linking your service or product to that specific issue.
Keep in mind, this is pitching somebody that you already have discourse with! I will never recommend pitching out of the blue and the main reason for that is because I have no idea how to fill out this template without having talked to the person beforehand. The more personal the message is, the more likely you are to make a deep connection with that someone!
Now, one other thing I want to note with this specific template. There is no link, no price, no discount, no numbers, and only one date (deadline for the sale). This prompts a conversation because if the person is interested, they will ask for this information!
From the above template, I sent it to nine people (it was a private sale) and all of them responded! In fact, five of them asked me for the details and four of them purchased! the previous example? It was a FREE service, and I still didn't want to join nor did I even care about when it was.
And I get it, if you want to send your sale to 50 people or 500 people, it's going to be a lot harder to customize and personalize every single message. But in that case, there are other ways to contact them! Everybody knows that newsletters don't go out to a single person, so those make more sense to be more generalized. But if you're having a one-on-one conversation with a person, consider how they will read it!
If anything, here is an example of another pitch I got, and this is one that I know was copy/paste but actually worked much better than the previous example...
Hey Kristina, I know we haven't talked in a while and this may seem out of the blue but I wanted to let you know I am doing a sale on my coaching package this week. Let me know if you want more details!
Simple, quick, not a lot of details and asking for my permission to pitch me. I loved it! And this was from a person who I talked to previously about their coaching packages and ended up not purchasing because I didn't have the budget for it. In fact, if this pitch had come two months earlier (when I was struggling with a launch schedule), I would have jumped on it so fast!
So, at the end of the day, I want to say one thing here! Think about how the person that is receiving your message will feel when they read it. Templates are a good starting point to figure out what to send, but personalizing them is where the power is at!