In so many cases, not getting an email response is taken for a no. However, that is not always true. While not getting an answer is certainly not a good sign, it doesn’t necessary mean that your offer is bad or is denied. There are so many different reasons that could explain why you didn’t hear back from your recipient.

If you’re working with celebrities, you’d probably know that you can’t afford a pending request. A failed contact attempt is frustrating, stressful and would fatally slow down and harm your booking process. If a celebrity agent isn’t responsive, you have no option but to figure out why and fix it.

There are so many factors that could impact the responsiveness of an agent. Some of these factors depend on the agent themselves, but a lot of them are actually related to your email.

Agents’ work consists primarily of answering promising emails; the ones that look like a good opportunity for their clients. Your job is to make sure your email fits the criteria.

So before pointing a finger at the agent, you should make sure that you are doing it all right on your side. And to do that, you should start by figuring out where it went wrong exactly.

There are three possible scenarios that could explain why you didn’t receive an email response form an agent:

1. Your email never reached the agent’s inbox.
2. The agent received yet didn’t open your email.
3. The agent opened the email but didn’t answer it.

If you’ve been unlucky reaching out to an agent, chances are your email got lost at one of these stages. So let’s take a look at each of these scenarios, and explore what you could improve or change to avoid them.

1. Your email never reached the agent’s inbox.

To answer your email, the agent must receive it first, right? If you don’t hear back from an agent, there are considerable chances that they have never received your message in the first place. So to aspire to get a response from an agent, you ought to make sure your email successfully reaches their inbox. There are a couple of factors that, if not considered, may hinder the deliverability of your email:

• Your sender reputation: The sender reputation is a score that ISPs assign to your email based on your email activity. It sets how trustworthy your emails are, and how likely they could be a spam. If your sender reputation goes down, it is very likely that your emails never reach their intended destination. They could be blocked by ISPs (Internet Service Providers) or spam filters on the way.

• The contact information: Before rushing into hitting the send button, make sure you have the right and correct contact information. A slight typo in the email would fatally lead to a delivery failure. Another element to consider is getting the contact information of the right representative. Sending a booking request to a celebrity’s publicist will probably result in a no answer.

You can use our verified celebrity contact info database to have access to accurate contact information of the different representatives of the celebrity you’d want to reach.

2. The agent received yet didn’t open your email

Getting the above elements right doesn’t guarantee you a definite reply. It is still possible that an agent doesn’t get back to you although your email reaches their inbox. There are various reasons why you wouldn’t get a response although the email reached its destination. Let’s just assume that the agent didn’t get a chance to open and read your email. We’ll explore all the possible reasons that might lead to that.

• Poor Subject line: Your subject line doesn’t need to be extraordinary to get an agent to open your email. When reaching out for celebrities’ bookings or endorsements, the subject line just needs to be straightforward, and as informative as possible. Stating the core details of your offer in the subject line makes the agent’s life easier, and they definitely appreciate that. To not go wrong with that, we suggest you the following subject line formats that would work anytime:

For bookings: [Celebrity Name] Booking [City, State, Country (if outside US] [Date Optional]
For endorsements: [Celebrity] [Platform] Partnership Inquiry

Platform = Instagram, Twitter, etc

• The agent was busy and didn’t see it: If you didn’t get a response, there are high chances that the agent simply missed your email. Agents are constantly busy, they have so many things to do, and get distracted. It’s only human if they miss your email in the bunch of email they daily get. Think of sending them a follow up email to make sure they got their hands on your message.

Emails can get overwhelming sometimes, especially to busy people like agents. They are probably receiving hundreds of emails similar to yours everyday. So it’s important to be considerate of that when contacting them. We suggest you follow a couple of tips that would make it easier for them to get to your email and respond to it. First, write a concise and informative subject line that clearly states your value proposition. It should convey a clear message using specific wording. And second, master the art of the follow up. It’s crucial to send a follow up email to make sure your email didn’t get lost in the inbox, however it could be dangerous if done excessively. We suggest you refer to our article about how to follow up with celebrity representatives to make sure you’re doing it the right way.

3. The agent opened the email but didn’t answer it

Celebrity agents usually get a lot of queries every day. They would often respond to the promising ones, and simply ignore the rest. If you’ve done everything mentioned above, and still didn’t get a word back, then your email content was probably not convincing enough to the agent, or simply the agent just wasn’t interested. Here are some factors that would make an agent hesitate before writing you back:

• The email doesn’t consider the agent’s busy schedule: Some people think that sending a pushy or stressful email creates a feeling of urgency, which would make the agent answer faster. That is totally wrong. A stressful email is simply skipped. On the other hand, a respectful and considerate email has more retention and responsiveness potential.
• Your email content was unclear: The agent won’t make an effort to guess what you’re trying to say. If your message isn’t crystal clear and to the point, you lose their interest. Be specific and concise in your email. Give your recipient enough information, and ask pertinent questions. That would prove to the agent that you’re professional, serious and a potential good partner.

• A poorly written/formatted email: Equally important to the content are the format and grammar of your email. Sending an email full of typos or using abbreviation might look unprofessional and childish. Agents – or sometimes their assistants- usually eliminate poorly constructed, and unclear emails at first sight. Make sure you read your email multiple times before sending it. Use proper language, and try to sound as professional as possible.

• The agent read and forgot to answer: I’m sure this has happened to all of us at least once. We all forget to call or text back sometimes. Agents, who are probably much busier, could forget, get distracted, or unintentionally skip that response they intended to write. Again, this is when a follow up email proves its efficiency. Write up a kind and understanding follow up email that brings back the conversation, and reminds the agent in case they overlooked your email.

Bottom line, to increase your chances of getting a response, your email should be well written and thoroughly constructed. An email is a decisive element to a potential deal. It establishes a first opinion about you and your work. So make sure your email is respectful and understanding, double check your spelling and grammar and finally ensure it includes all the necessary information about your offer. You can learn more about the best practices of writing an email to agents in our blog article here for more tips and insights.

Dealing with celebrities or their representatives is a very delicate job. Because of their busy schedule and the amount of emails they daily get, contacting them might be a real challenge. However, when done correctly, an email could successfully grab the agent’s attention, and eventually help you close a deal. Remember that your email to the agent establishes the first impression, and you cannot afford to ruin that. So before hitting the send button, keep in mind to check all the elements we went through in this article. Make sure your email successfully lands in the agent’s inbox first, also that your subject line is straightforward and informative, and finally that the content of the email is clear and to the point. Following those tips would for sure guarantee you a great kickoff of your relationship with the agent.

Thinking about some other reasons why your emails are ignored? Share with us your thought!