This is kind of fascinating. There’s a business in the local area that was trying to get people to try out some of their new products. For the most part, they were literally giving away free meals, and all they were asking in return was for people to post about it online, on social media. That was pretty much the only catch.
You’d think there would be people lining up for it, especially food influencers, but for some reason, not many people actually took the offer. It looked like a great deal — they were using high-quality ingredients, and it was a proper event. So why wouldn’t you do it?
The only thing I could think of is that the invitation they sent out was very generic. It was basically a mass email that required people to book a slot. Because it felt so impersonal, most people probably thought, “There’s no point, someone else will do it anyway,” or they just didn’t care enough to respond.
It really shows the importance of making your pitch personal, even if it’s something as simple as mentioning the person’s name and saying you’d love for them to try your product. That small touch makes someone feel like you specifically chose them, which makes them way more likely to say yes. When you’re just blasting a generic message to everyone, you usually only attract the people who are more desperate for opportunities.
It just goes to show how important that personal touch is. I know a lot of spam emails start with your name, but the rest is clearly a template. Still, even that tiny bit of personalization works better than nothing. In this case, it wasn’t even about the offer itself — it was that the business didn’t show they cared enough to value that specific person. That’s a really interesting lesson from a business point of view.