A single email can land you a new client that can be worth $10,000 or even more over the long haul.  All it takes is a few lines of text to catch the interest of a client that may be paying your mortgage for years. But a poorly written letter can land you in the Trash folder and miss out on a high paying gig. And since many of you are dusting off your LOI as part of my January Marketing Contest (I thought now would be a great time to talk about LOI’s again. For each marketing task you complete, you earn one entry into a drawing for a $50 Amazon Gift Card. The contest closes on Monday, Feb. 1 at 9 pm. EST so be sure to post your marketing efforts in the comments before the deadline.

A LOI isn’t just a letter you send to potential clients, it’s your first writing sample. And the main difference when sending an LOI as opposed to a query or pitch letter is that you are selling yourself not an idea. Since most content marketing clients want a writer with experience in their industry, I have been told over and over that most editors are looking for an LOI that emphasizes the writer’s niche and industry experience and often pass over LOI’s marketing a writer that is a generalist.

Straight from an editor’s mouth

A few years ago I moderated a panel with Amy VanStee from StayWell, a health content marketing agency, where we talked about LOI’s. She gave the following general tips:

• Friendly, conversational, personable tone—that’s the kind of writing we seek for the majority of our content
• Obvious knowledge of our publications and content—no long descriptions of experience (clinical, academic, etc.) that doesn’t apply to our needs
• In addition to writing skills/experience, touting client service, reliability, etc.—in our deadline-driven, client-centric workplace, these are hugely important
• Clean, clear, tight writing—no misspellings, grammatical errors, or clunky sentences
• Other interesting touches: including client testimonials, mentioning or attaching recent work, injecting some humor!

Other points to keep in mind

Here are a few other tips that I have collected over the years:

• Shorter is better – My biggest take away from the ASJA 2015 National Conference in NYC was that editors prefer shorter LOI’s. I repeatedly heard between five to seven sentences was ideal.
• The subject line matters – You can’t get a gig if the editor doesn’t open up your email. Check my post from last year on LOI subject lines and take time to thoughtfully craft a subject line.
• What’s in it for the client – Mridu Khullar Relph makes this important point in her article “How to Write a Letter of Introduction for Landing Content Marketing Clients.”  Make sure that your LOI answers that question for the client, demonstrates your understanding of their business as the business problem that they are trying to solve with their content marketing. As an aside, if you are interested in taking a content marketing course, I highly recommend Mridu’s course on content marketing.
• Links to your website or clips – In her blog post “Introduce yourself to land work: why freelance LOI’s matter” on her excellent blog Word Count Michelle Rafter recommends linking to relevant clips or your website. Clips back up the claims in your LOI and give the editor all of the information that they need. Since I have multiple niches and hundreds clips at this point, I usually include direct links to the most relevant writing samples for the particular client.

Michelle Rafter’s Sample Letter of Introduction

Michelle Rafter generously agreed to let me share an LOI that she included in her blog post that she used for a gig writing about workplace issues. She has two other LOI samples on her blog that are helpful as well. However, please use these to get ideas for your own and not use this as a template for your own letter.

My name is Michelle Rafter and I specialize in covering careers, work and benefits for consumer and b2b publications. I’m an experienced blogger with a strong social media following. I have a proven track record as a reporter and editor who can deliver clean copy in a variety of formats on topic and on time. I’m experienced working with Fortune 500-level clients.

A little more background:

I’m a contributing editor at Workforce Management, the HR business publication, where I’ve written extensively about benefits, including a September 2014 feature package on perks, plus stories on employee wellness programs, online therapy and porting employee benefits info to smartphones.

Since November 2013, I’ve written a twice-monthly column for the Orange County Register called On the Job, where I’ve covered benefits-related topics such as paid time off, open enrollment season, paternity leave, the myRA retirement savings plan, and companies are upgrading kitchens into designer chic gathering places.

In 2013-14, I did a six-month stint as an editor for Great Place to Work Institute. During my time there, I was trained on GPTW’s methodology for analyzing workplace benefits, supervised writers for the firm’s GreatRated.com website, and wrote posts on topics such as health and wellness benefits, flexible work options, and companies that help employees save for retirement.

 My social presence is strongest on Twitter, where I’m just shy of 7,000 followers, and LinkedIn, where I have more than 1,100 connections. My current Klout score is 54.

I can share additional clips and references if you need them.  If you want to follow up by phone, I’m available between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Pacific time.

Thanks, I look forward to hearing from you.

Michelle

What have you found to be effective in your LOI? Post any LOI questions here and we will help you out!