Pitching Fails #2: Content Sponsor Wants to Cover Business, Tech, Fashion, and Crypto on Music Business Website

This is what it means to be oblivious…

Welcome again to pitching fails, where we dissect awful pitches that never had a chance of leading to a positive response.

Failures tend to be funny, sure, but they can also be instructive. They can teach us a lot about what not to do when we’re trying to create successful pitches.

So, here’s our pitch of the day:

This pitch is an epic failure on just about every level. Here’s why:

Fail #1: Opening with “Hi”

Sure, it’s better than opening with “Hey f**ker.” But not by much.

I don’t see my name anywhere in the email. Which, as you may know by now, indicates a lack of effort on the part of the sender. It usually means they haven’t done their research, or it’s a templated email, making a win-win proposition dubious at best.

Of course, there’s no mention of a win-win proposition anywhere, to begin with… but we’ll get to that.

Fail #2: Zero Compliments

This came up last time as well (have you noticed how bad pitches tend to follow a pattern?).

I want to be clear that you don’t include a compliment in a pitch just because you want to butter someone up (although you might)…

A relevant compliment immediately shows the recipient that you care enough to do your homework and that you might have something of value to say.

There is no indication whatsoever that our eager sponsor did any work in this regard, and it shows.

Fail #3: “Looking for the Best Websites…”

Here our opportunity-hungry weasel sniffer shows just how self-interested he is.

At this point in the pitch (and really at any point in the pitch), he has given us zero reason to help him. So, why would we?