The following is an email response I sent to “Liyonala” this morning while I was sitting on the toilet. She was following up to a previous inquiry about my interest in posting some content she was “excited” to see on my blog.
Liyonala,
The infographic you are asking me to share on my blog is about marketing, and my blog is about beer. I didn’t respond to your first email that suggested “readers of my blog enjoy posts on similar topics” because the claim is patently false and anyone who had taken even a cursory glance at my writing would be able to glean that. I assumed that you were either just spamming me or were a person who had suffered major head trauma. Either way, I decided no response at all was the best approach.
Now that you have sent this second email, I feel compelled to respond.
I understand that it has become popular for advertising and marketing companies to enlist people to create “infographics” in an attempt to draw web traffic. They are short, pithy, and image-based ways to get people to click links and, to anyone who wasted their life getting a degree in marketing, they might seem like a perfect approach to ensnaring “millenials,” a largely-fictional demographic invented by these same marketing people who ridiculously presume that humans born around the same year must share inherent purchasing and consumption habits. I get that. I’ve accepted it. Infographics are a “thing” now and, as a result, and I get a handful of requests like yours every week.
Here’s what I don’t get.
Why are you trying to solicit traffic to a website about marketing from a guy who writes a beer blog?
You seem intelligent enough. You’ve spelled all the words in both your emails correctly and you’ve even employed proper grammar and diction. You are capable of sending emails so you’re at least semi-computer-literate. So why are you wasting your time sending spam emails–presumably to scores of writers whose blogs you’ve never even read–in order to draw traffic to a shitty website you can’t possibly actually care about?
Is this really what you envisioned yourself doing with your life?
I don’t imagine it is, Liyonala.
Please, for my sake, the sake of other blog writers, and–most importantly–for yourself, please take some time in the next day or two to be alone and really consider your choices. Look at the path that has taken you here and the future you’re building and consider making some real, significant, and immediate changes. You’re better than this, Liyonala, and we both know it.
Good luck.
Ben's Beer Blog 
Jesus Christ man, was this really warranted? Take it easy.
Maybe not, but after a hundred of these emails, I needed to answer one. Don’t worry, I’m sure no one even read my response.
I did and it made my evening. Then again, I am a psychopathic sadist who sits in front of his computer all day in his underwear imagining he’s got a life, waiting for someone to request that I host an infographic tat on my tweet.
The number of these emails is a bit ridiculous, especially since nearly all of them are simply copy/paste with a new name at the top. I realize the ease of just throwing something against 100 walls and hoping something sticks, but it’s also PR 101 to *not* alienate people by sending them worthless content that isn’t relevant.
Is it bad that I never get requests to host an infographic? Should I just stop blogging for everyone’s sake? Who reads beer reviews anymore anyway??!
Now that you wrote an article that contains the keyword infographic you should expect plenty more requests. These sites aren’t really seeking referral traffic but want a linkback to up their clout with google. Ps These emails are mostly sent by bots.
This is a funny situation. Clearly Liyonala didn’t realize you were reading and responding while on the toilet. Perhaps while using your toilet, you would envision your blog with cute pictures of bunny rabbits that play music at Easter time, or the latest scrap booking trend because that’s what we want to see when we read about beer, EFF-ing bunnies and scrapbooks. I say this due to I recently having a “Liyonala” approach me for advertising opportunities she called it, photos with embedded links that wouldn’t be disclosed until after the fact and were on a rotating basis. I thought this was hilarious. Someone would come to my site, see a picture relating to what they were previously searching for on their computer and be directed to the latest book club in some overseas fisherman’s garage.
I have no problems with marketing that is in good taste and targeted properly. However, these “Liyonala’s” that seem to look for a quick alternate when their previous marketing sucks need to sit on the toilet and recalculate their goals.
If she emails you again, tell her I said HI.
Cheers