Should we answer generic letters?

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We responded to every email.  Mostly just a polite thanks for the information, we are unable to attend your camp due to conflicts/distance/etc.  We would then include his athletic resume, which included his measurables, coaches email addresses, etc as well as a link to his recruiting video.

Most of the times (75%??) the emails went into the blackhole.  On the other 25% we would receive some type of reply. Sometimes it was just a thank you, other times it was a follow up request for more information (summer schedule, phone call, etc).  

Its all part of the game of marketing your son.  IMO it does not take long to answer the emails.  You can put together a generic email in which you swap out the proper info for the reply, so it only really takes 2 minutes to reply.  At the end of the day you don't know who is going to bite, but someone may.  If you never reply you will never know and may have missed an opportunity to open a door.

joes87 posted:

We responded to every email.  Mostly just a polite thanks for the information, we are unable to attend your camp due to conflicts/distance/etc.  We would then include his athletic resume, which included his measurables, coaches email addresses, etc as well as a link to his recruiting video.

Most of the times (75%??) the emails went into the blackhole.  On the other 25% we would receive some type of reply. Sometimes it was just a thank you, other times it was a follow up request for more information (summer schedule, phone call, etc).  

Its all part of the game of marketing your son.  IMO it does not take long to answer the emails.  You can put together a generic email in which you swap out the proper info for the reply, so it only really takes 2 minutes to reply.  At the end of the day you don't know who is going to bite, but someone may.  If you never reply you will never know and may have missed an opportunity to open a door.

I am of a similar mindset based on past experience (in another field). My greater thought was that it would be a good experience for my son to become accountable for his process and incorporate some life/communication skills that he will need outside of baseball. 

Thanks for the suggestions as to what he could include in a response. Very helpful. And to clarify, I do recognize this as a true form letter that is sent to a mailing list probably from PG. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My 2020 is still uncommitted, so we may be doing it wrong, but:  Your son will get a LOT of emailed camp invites.  It can't hurt to respond to all of them, but my son hasn't tried to do that for mass mailings from schools he knows he is not interested in.  (Son is casting a wide net, but he's not going to play baseball at a school he wouldn't want to attend for academics if baseball were not in the picture.) 

For schools in which he has any realistic interest, Chico Jr. has been doing what Joes87 recommends above:  sending a short "thanks for the invite" message that includes his key info.  

If a school saw son play and sends a camp invite that is personalized at all, then son responds--even to schools he's not interested in.  That seems like basic courtesy.  Those schools get a "thank you very much, but I won't be able to attend your camp" message and no additional info.  

Elijah posted:

Upcoming 15u is starting to get form letters from camps. I was thinking it might be good practice to have my son answer them. For instance, today we received a form letter from UVA that have emails for specific coaches on the form. Being a newbie to this stage of the process, is it proper etiquette to answer them while including actual information about my son? His travel team? Head coach information?

As a rising 15u, he will not be attending camps this fall, but do you respond? My thought was this would be a good, no pressure exercise for my son to begin taking ownership of his journey while teaching him how to properly correspond with adults; start a database of legitimate emails, etc. 

Any advice would be appreciated. 

Respond to every email. 

You will find these letters will increase over time.  I would be realistic where your son could play and focus on those.  UVA, for example, is a top notch school.  If your son is a total stud, then yes that is right up your alley (and good for you/him).  But if he's realistically not on that level, nor expected to be, I'm not sure a response is even warranted.

We ignored many of these emails, and coaches wouldn't even know it, as they're spam in a lot of regards.

CTbballDad posted:

You will find these letters will increase over time.  I would be realistic where your son could play and focus on those.  UVA, for example, is a top notch school.  If your son is a total stud, then yes that is right up your alley (and good for you/him).  But if he's realistically not on that level, nor expected to be, I'm not sure a response is even warranted.

We ignored many of these emails, and coaches wouldn't even know it, as they're spam in a lot of regards.

As a 15U, I think it is very realistic to respond to all of the emails.  Besides, you never know when the assistant at a big name school gets a head coaching job at a smaller school that is in your son's range (academically and athletically)

redbird5 posted:

CTbballDad posted:

You will find these letters will increase over time.  I would be realistic where your son could play and focus on those.  UVA, for example, is a top notch school.  If your son is a total stud, then yes that is right up your alley (and good for you/him).  But if he's realistically not on that level, nor expected to be, I'm not sure a response is even warranted.

We ignored many of these emails, and coaches wouldn't even know it, as they're spam in a lot of regards.

As a 15U, I think it is very realistic to respond to all of the emails.  Besides, you never know when the assistant at a big name school gets a head coaching job at a smaller school that is in your son's range (academically and athletically)

To each his own, certainly no harm in that, and you bring up a good point about coaches moving on.  On the other hand, I have had coaches tell us they get hundreds of emails a day and they delete them without opening, because they know who they're watching and no way they can keep up.  You also have families, that have unrealistic expectations for their kids.  You see that at many camps/showcases.

I would have loved to have my son play for UCONN, and there was some dialogue.  But he's just not at that level yet, and even if he was offered, there would have been concerns about being a spring cut, etc.  Therefore, we didn't really give them much attention or attend their camps.

I agree with some parts of several of the responses.  If for example your son gets a camp invite from Florida....and you know he's not now, or ever going to be capable of playing there, I don't think it's an issue to just disregard it.   Now if it's from a mid-major and you think that that caliber of team is your son's best option....then yes respond to those.  If it's a bottom dweller in a Power 5....sure, go ahead....but if you don't see him playing for Vandy, there's really no reason to waste time sending them a response.  

That being said,  if it's a more personalized letter....even from a school he isn't interested in, I would reply....just for the reason mentioned above...that you never know where the guy who is a RC now will be a HC in the next year or two.  He'll take the info he knows with him in a lot of cases....especially if he knows the player isn't a fit for his original school.   Also, coaches are friends with other coaches.  A bigger D1 school may have a former assistant who is an HC at a mid-major.  He may keep in contact with the big school and ask for "cast offs"....kids that the big school knows about but maybe just doesn't fit their needs.   As they say....don't burn any bridges. 

good point

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Elijah posted:

Upcoming 15u is starting to get form letters from camps. I was thinking it might be good practice to have my son answer them. For instance, today we received a form letter from UVA that have emails for specific coaches on the form. Being a newbie to this stage of the process, is it proper etiquette to answer them while including actual information about my son? His travel team? Head coach information?

As a rising 15u, he will not be attending camps this fall, but do you respond? My thought was this would be a good, no pressure exercise for my son to begin taking ownership of his journey while teaching him how to properly correspond with adults; start a database of legitimate emails, etc. 

Any advice would be appreciated. 

I had not been on Perfect Game's website in years, but happened on it yesterday to look at something from 3 years ago.  But what struck me, was that a 2022 player has committed to UVA.   This player has not played high school ball yet.

Son answered all emails with a polite reply.  Some had more depth than others.  I would answer UVA's.  If UVA is your son's first letter, it will be excellent practice from what may be ahead. 

Many of the big camps my 2018 attended hosted smaller schools from their area at their camps. Everyone knew it was the big school that got the kids to come, but the surrounding D2s, D3s and JUCOs got to see a lot of kids that wayl. So if it's a camp near schools your kid might be interested in, you can always ask if other coaches will be there. Might make them more worthwhile. And I think answering every email, even if it's with your own form response, is good business.

joes87 posted:

We responded to every email.  Mostly just a polite thanks for the information, we are unable to attend your camp due to conflicts/distance/etc.  We would then include his athletic resume, which included his measurables, coaches email addresses, etc as well as a link to his recruiting video.

Most of the times (75%??) the emails went into the blackhole.  On the other 25% we would receive some type of reply. Sometimes it was just a thank you, other times it was a follow up request for more information (summer schedule, phone call, etc).  

Its all part of the game of marketing your son.  IMO it does not take long to answer the emails.  You can put together a generic email in which you swap out the proper info for the reply, so it only really takes 2 minutes to reply.  At the end of the day you don't know who is going to bite, but someone may.  If you never reply you will never know and may have missed an opportunity to open a door.

@joes87 do you have an example of what your letter looks like that you can post here or send me in DM?  Something I was thinking about was with me being a techy kinda guy was building my son a website with all his video's, a contact page, links to his PG and PBR profiles, etc. to send Coaches a link to the website instead of individual links to video's, etc... thoughts?

Coach_TV posted:

joes87 posted:

We responded to every email.  Mostly just a polite thanks for the information, we are unable to attend your camp due to conflicts/distance/etc.  We would then include his athletic resume, which included his measurables, coaches email addresses, etc as well as a link to his recruiting video.

Most of the times (75%??) the emails went into the blackhole.  On the other 25% we would receive some type of reply. Sometimes it was just a thank you, other times it was a follow up request for more information (summer schedule, phone call, etc).  

Its all part of the game of marketing your son.  IMO it does not take long to answer the emails.  You can put together a generic email in which you swap out the proper info for the reply, so it only really takes 2 minutes to reply.  At the end of the day you don't know who is going to bite, but someone may.  If you never reply you will never know and may have missed an opportunity to open a door.

@joes87 do you have an example of what your letter looks like that you can post here or send me in DM?  Something I was thinking about was with me being a techy kinda guy was building my son a website with all his video's, a contact page, links to his PG and PBR profiles, etc. to send Coaches a link to the website instead of individual links to video's, etc... thoughts?

I'd be careful with the high tech approach.  There are a lot of old school coaches out there and they get hundreds of emails a week.  Not sure they want an email with a link to a web page, which then has links within it for the videos, etc.  They typically want concise emails with short video clips.

In our experience, coaches open most of the emails my son son has sent. He is running at about 80% on the videos being watched. Here is a trick so you can test it.  Create a new video on YouTube.  Send out an introduction email with the YouTube link, but only send it out to one coaching staff per state.  Go to your YouTube analytics page and you can see how many people watched the video, how many times, the date, and which state they were in.  It’s about a 1-2 day delay on the analytics so give it a few days.  If you have multiple schools in one state, just send a video to a different school each week.  I was shocked at how many times he’d send a video and it would be watched within 15-30 minutes of it being sent.  I don’t think anyone watched it after 48 hours of it being sent.  I’d also make sure the YouTube page is only baseball highlights.  My kid has 4 videos on his page and it is common for him to send one video and then they watch all 4.  

Coach_TV posted:

joes87 posted:

We responded to every email.  Mostly just a polite thanks for the information, we are unable to attend your camp due to conflicts/distance/etc.  We would then include his athletic resume, which included his measurables, coaches email addresses, etc as well as a link to his recruiting video.

Most of the times (75%??) the emails went into the blackhole.  On the other 25% we would receive some type of reply. Sometimes it was just a thank you, other times it was a follow up request for more information (summer schedule, phone call, etc).  

Its all part of the game of marketing your son.  IMO it does not take long to answer the emails.  You can put together a generic email in which you swap out the proper info for the reply, so it only really takes 2 minutes to reply.  At the end of the day you don't know who is going to bite, but someone may.  If you never reply you will never know and may have missed an opportunity to open a door.

@joes87 do you have an example of what your letter looks like that you can post here or send me in DM?  Something I was thinking about was with me being a techy kinda guy was building my son a website with all his video's, a contact page, links to his PG and PBR profiles, etc. to send Coaches a link to the website instead of individual links to video's, etc... thoughts?

Son sent a ink to his web site, which included his videos, HS transcript, honors and stats, but he also sent the direct link to videos. All of us want to see what we want on the internet right away, without click through a bunch of stuff. I assume coaches are the same.

Iowamom23 posted:

Coach_TV posted:

joes87 posted:

We responded to every email.  Mostly just a polite thanks for the information, we are unable to attend your camp due to conflicts/distance/etc.  We would then include his athletic resume, which included his measurables, coaches email addresses, etc as well as a link to his recruiting video.

Most of the times (75%??) the emails went into the blackhole.  On the other 25% we would receive some type of reply. Sometimes it was just a thank you, other times it was a follow up request for more information (summer schedule, phone call, etc).  

Its all part of the game of marketing your son.  IMO it does not take long to answer the emails.  You can put together a generic email in which you swap out the proper info for the reply, so it only really takes 2 minutes to reply.  At the end of the day you don't know who is going to bite, but someone may.  If you never reply you will never know and may have missed an opportunity to open a door.

@joes87 do you have an example of what your letter looks like that you can post here or send me in DM?  Something I was thinking about was with me being a techy kinda guy was building my son a website with all his video's, a contact page, links to his PG and PBR profiles, etc. to send Coaches a link to the website instead of individual links to video's, etc... thoughts?

Son sent a ink to his web site, which included his videos, HS transcript, honors and stats, but he also sent the direct link to videos. All of us want to see what we want on the internet right away, without click through a bunch of stuff. I assume coaches are the same.

And that was my thought as well... not just the website, but the link to his Youtube channel for the directly click to the videos.

DId you track any analytics on hits on the Website?  And could you possible DM me the URL?  Just to see how it's laid out.

Thank you..