How many emails did you have in your inbox when you came back after this holiday weekend? Mine wasn't too bad - only 2,784 messages, mainly from eretailers promoting 'Black Monday' offers and from readers outside the US who didn't have Thanksgiving off.

No fewer than 16 LinkedIn requests to connect were also in the pile.

(LinkedIn is one of those social networking systems online, where you can swap personal connections with other members. It has its uses, mainly for biz dev and some recruiting. I use it, albeit rarely, when researching story sources.)

I have this gargantuan pet peeve about people using social networking services... networking wanna-bes who hope to tap into my personal (and closely guarded) network of connections shouldn't send me a form letter.

Yet, roughly 85% of the 'requests to connect' I get use the default message LinkedIn provides for the writing-challenged:

"Anne,

I noticed that you are also using LinkedIn. I'd be happy to recommend you to the people I know. If you feel the same, please accept my invitation to connect networks. I'll only pass requests on to you from people I trust, and I hope you'll do the same for me."

It's not such a bad letter really. It's just that it's a form letter.

Why should I bother to connect personally with you, if you can't be bothered to write me a personal note? Plus, because the average businessperson has more than 3,000 connections; you should probably include a description of how you know me if you're not 100% sure I'll remember your name.

Here are three examples of LinkedIn notes where the authors took 30 seconds to write a real note instead of lazily sending the form letter. Yes, I added each to my network immediately. In each case, it wasn't about the cleverness of the writing, it was about the fact that it was honestly personally-written:

"Hi Anne,

I'm taking advantage of this rainy, Friday afternoon to reconnect with old friends and colleagues via LinkedIn. But we aren't in each other's networks at this point. Maybe you could add me to yours?

Good luck on the upcoming show! I have no doubt it will be a success as always...

Take care,
- Andrew Bourland


"Ahoy thar pirate Holland! Hope all is well in Sherpaland.
Connectez vous? :)
- Aaron Dragushan"


"Hey Anne,

We met @ the BMA meeting in Denver last month, and we talked about doing case studies together.

Anyway, I found you while I was searching my network at LinkedIn. Let's connect directly, so we can help each other with referrals. If we connect, both of our networks will grow. To add me as your connection, just follow the link below. - Natascha Lee"


Anyway, I'm not writing this as an endorsement of LinkedIn over other systems, nor as a request for anyone else to request linking to me. I just figured, if you (or your biz dev reps) are using social networking you might want to improve the odds that someone will want to network with you.

Good luck!

Anne Holland - Publisher
MarketingSherpa
feedback@marketingsherpa.com

P.S. As always, our Case Studies and articles are open access for about 10 days. Then they go into SherpaLibrary where you can research for a small fee. The links always remain the same.

#2. Business Holiday Card Tactics to Update Your Prospect Database and Delight Your Marketplace

Every year up to 50% of the names on your business prospecting files and networking rolodex go bad because people change jobs, titles, emails... So when you send out holiday cards (or anything else), it's a wasted effort.

Check out this MarketingSherpa classic Case Study to learn about a creative "help me clean my records" email campaign that got marvelous results. Also includes samples of some fabulous holiday cards.
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2550
(Open access until Dec 3rd)

#3. Eretail Merchandise Page Design - Before & After Test Results

Merchandise page design is constantly debated by eretailers. On one hand you want to increase the number of shoppers on a particular page who add that item to their carts. On the other hand, you want to cross-sell related merchandise.

This year Baseball Express tested moving around add-to-cart buttons versus "items you might also like" cross-sell links. Conversions leapt. Get the data plus before-and-after design samples in this quick Case Study:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=3127
(Open access until Dec 2nd)

#4. Brooks Brothers Email Test Results -- "Letterhead" Style Wins

Venerable apparel retailer Brooks Brothers has been running a bucket load of email tests for the past 18 months... and we've got the results (and creative samples) for you on:

How to gain more opt-ins
HTML vs text-only vs "Letterhead" style email formats
Subject lines

Also, strangely dissimilar ecommerce versus print catalog conversion rates for men's ties. Who knew?
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=3126
(Open access until Dec 1st)

#5. Help Wanteds: 22 New Jobs & 5 Seekers Available

The past week's new posts include positions from ACLU, Charles Schwab, CollegeSports.com, Symantec, and Pitney Bowes. Plus, learn how to post your own opening (complimentary service).
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2522
(Open access = permanent)

#6. New Giveaway: Search Engine Marketing, Inc. - Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web Site

What we absolutely adore about this new book by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt, is that it's about managing internal company politics.

That's right. Most search campaign failures we know of were failures not because the SEM team did a rotten job, but because politics screwed the campaign up. Most egregious example: the IT department failed to load new optimized pages.

Weighing in at 560-pages, 'Search Engine Marketing Inc' is a fat paperback devoted to helping marketers for large Web sites with hundreds or thousands of pages:

• Create a business case for SEM that will impress your CEO
• Avoid the most common SEO mistakes
• Educate your Web department in basic SEM tactics

Mike and Bill have donated five copies to Sherpa's giveaway. Want one of them? Toss your name in the hat:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=93070279812
(Ends 12/04/05)


+ Winners of last week's giveaway are...

These five lucky marketers will get their own copies of "Don't Just Relate - Advocate" by Glen Urban.

• Edward Kelleher, Kiplinger Washington Editors, Washington DC
• Valerie Lee, Wells Fargo, Walnut Creek CA
• Norm Shea, Scharffen Berger Chocolate, Berkeley CA
• Carol Sanders, Misys Healthcare Systems, Raleigh NC
• Sebastien Chorney, Podzapper Inc., Toronto, ON Canada