By PenPals.Buzz Staff
When you or your loved one spends their hard-earned money on our website, it’s for so much more than just a prison pen pal profile. It’s an investment in themselves, their future, and their happiness. But will the investment pay off?
We receive hundreds of letters praising our service, from people who have found great friendships, love, and even marriage through our service. However, we occasionally get some not-so-happy letters from members claiming our site must be no good because they “haven’t gotten any good hits through our site.” Some even assume if they don’t get responses from pen pals, they must have been scammed.
Think of it this way – when you are trying to get that dream job, it’s not the piece of paper that the resume is printed on that will dictate whether or not you get hired. You’ll get the job (or not) based on what you wrote on the resume, how well you presented yourself during the interview, and whether or not the interviewer had a good feeling about. It’s the same with a pen pal profile. While it’s our job to bring prospective pen pals to our website, and to your profile page, it’s your job to “close the deal”. Sometimes, just a small little change can make a huge difference in your success or failure.
We wanted to take some time to share some DO’s and DONT’s, based on years of experience, for what you should and shouldn’t include in a pen pal profile. If you have 30 minutes, you can also listen to a more thorough discussion on our Prison Pen Pal Podcast episode, Good Profile, Bad Profile.
Let’s start with the things you SHOULD do:
Far too often, people will waste valuable space at the begging of their profile with a sentence like, “First of all, I wanted to thank everyone for taking the time out of their day to read my profile.” Often, at this point, people will move onto the next profile without learning anything about who you are. We suggest making the first sentence count.
If you can get your prospective pen pal smiling at the beginning of your profile, he or she will be more likely to want to read it until the end, and view your entire profile more favorably.
While we have a limit of 400 words, some of the most successful profiles have fewer than 100 words. We’ve even seen profiles work great when they only have a few sentences. This seems counterintuitive, right? But we did some research and found that over 95% of our users browse profiles on their phones. People get tired of scrolling and scrolling to get through a profile. They’d prefer to see a brief snapshot of who you and and what you’re about, and then be able to message you through our site without endless scrolling. In addition, Daisy, our Office manager who processes thousands of profiles each year, notes that shorter profiles add mystery and make people want to learn more about the person. If you tell your entire life story in a profile, many people will feel like they already know everything about you and have no need to learn anything further.
This gives people a better chance of finding you when they search for those same hobbies and interests.
People regularly search for people in these categories, and if you’ve left this blank, you might not be found.
Negativity generally doesn’t motivate pen pals to write
Realize that letters might not come instantly. Securus, GettingOut, and other systems all have glitches and challenges. Sometimes people aren’t initially comfortable entering their credit card info or scanning their drivers license. Sometimes people will write half of a letter, not have time to finish it, and continue writing it for a week or two. Eventually it will get mailed. Don’t decide to change your profile or pictures just because nobody wrote for the first few weeks. We recommend giving it at least one month before making any changes.
Now, here are all the things you SHOULDN’T do:
Daisy recommends using just 1 or 2 clear and good-quality pictures in your profile. Often, just one good picture is all you need. You might be thinking, “But I have 15 pictures, why shouldn’t I just post all of them?” Here’s why. For one, if people need to scroll through 15 pictures before they can find your contact info, they will often get tired and move on. It can feel overwhelming. It only takes one bad picture to turn people off. And our stats have shown that profiles with fewer pictures, on average, perform better. So ask your friends or cellmates which pictures they think are best. Eliminate any photos that look blurry, are very small, or are very old. We also suggest not ever using pictures where a female was standing next to you and was cropped out, or photos with your children, or group photos with other inmates.
This seems self-explanatory, but pen pals generally aren’t looking for people who are still in that lifestyle. Most feel that this screams immaturity and selfishness. Plus, most of those “money shots” aren’t even real money. So what’s the point?
You’ll be much more likely to receive money if you don’t ask for it right away.
We often see things like, “I know I’m handsome,” or “I look like I should be on the cover of GQ.” This scares most women away, especially those with insecurities. They decide they would feel too intimidated writing to someone so confident or cocky.
DON’T write that you’re just waiting on your appeal and you will be out in a few more months. Appeals are very rarely successful, and 99% of the time this just gives your pen pal false hope, and they ultimate feel like you deceived them to get them to write you. It’s always something you can discuss in your letters, the possibility of an appeal, but don’t include it in your introduction.
Even if it’s true, it will discourage people from writing, as they will instantly assume you’re lying or in denial. Tell them your story in a future letter, once they’ve gotten to know you better, but not in the initial profile.
Many women won’t feel comfortable sending a photo before they’ve exchanged any letters. Asking or demanding this in your initial profile comes off as very controlling and rude. Avoid it.
“I shot two people in one week and I know that sounds bad but nobody died,” wrote one of our members in his profile. Others who are convicted of murder say their crime was non-violent. You can find anything and everything in Google, and most people will research your crime before they write. If you lie about it, they just won’t write. Nobody wants to start out a friendship with a lie, right? But on the flip side, people are on our site specifically looking for prison inmates, so they have to know that you have made some poor choices, and that you’re in prison for a reason. You don’t need to make them think you’re perfect. Nobody is.
Stay open-minded. Sometimes, you might connect the best with a person you would never have gotten to know prior to prison. You can always be picky later in the process, but at least give yourself a chance to get to know a wide variety of people.
In fact, don’t even hint at it until you’ve actually gotten to know the person. We know this is what many prison inmates want — but most women are here looking for pen pals and friendships. The romance and marriage will come later.
It comes across like it’s a pitch to the parole board, or like you’re trying too hard to convince someone to write. It’s so much more personal if you give them the opportunity to let them know who you are as a person, on the inside. Not the tangible certificates you’ve received.
We hope you’ve found these tips useful, and we hope they’ll help you (or your incarcerated loved one) achieve success on our platform. If you’d like to re-write your profile, order our Change to Written Profile for just $12. Or, if you’d prefer to have our professional copywriters write your profile for you, order our $55 Profile Rewrite upgrade. And remember, if you want to hear these suggestions discussed in greater detail, listen to Write a Pen Pal Profile that Gets Results. It’s episode 26 of our Prison Pen Pal Podcast.
