Is your newsletter too passive?

John Jantsch has an interesting post in the Duct Tape Marketing Blog about how many ads fail to ask the reader to do anything: By grabbing your reader, viewer or listener’s attention and making them do something, you stand a much better chance of them following through to the ultimate step of buying or becoming…

Continue Reading →

Tips for choosing the right paper

A useful post from Rob Kirby appeared on the always interesting Duct Tape Marketing blog today about choosing the right paper for your printing job. Good,basic advice for any printing work, including newsletters. Link: Printing Part 2: Choose the right paper

Continue Reading →

Elements of a successful newsletter: 7 – Pictures

This is the seventh in a series of posts about the elements of a successful newsletter.  7. Pictures While a picture may say a thousand words, the pictures you see in some newsletters — unfortunately — say a thousand words of gibberish. Why are so many pictures not up to scratch? First, it’s difficult to…

Continue Reading →

Fun ad for good-old print

Boing Boing posted today this ad for books. It’s true. Print doesn’t have the kind of technical problems faced by the web. That’s why the extra expense of a print newsletter is often worth it.

Continue Reading →

Web Increasingly Is the Place to Reach Small Businesses

Small businesses are increasingly using the web to prospect, according to a survey by Warrillow  & Co. Take a look at the link below. I think the smartest businesses are using email and the web alongside other, non-web methods. That’s very powerful. Link: Web Increasingly Is the Place to Reach Small Businesses, Says Warrillow Survey…

Continue Reading →

Elements of a successful newsletter: 6 – Writing Style

This is the sixth in a series of posts about the elements of a successful newsletter.  6. Writing Style Your main task as a newsletter writer is to get your newsletter read. Period. So that means  your writing should not get in the way of what you are trying to say. What do I mean…

Continue Reading →

Elements of a successful newsletter: 5 – The Design

This is the fifth in a series of posts about the elements of a successful newsletter.  5. The Design This is an overview of newsletter design. I’ll go into more detail in later posts. There are 2 key things to remember: 1) Your design should make your newsletter easy to read 2) Your design should…

Continue Reading →

Elements of a successful newsletter: 4 – Offers

This is the fourth in a series of posts about the elements of a successful newsletter. 4. Offers If your newsletter is going to work for you — in other words, if it’s going to increase your income — you’ve got to find a way to encourage people to buy something from you. It’s all…

Continue Reading →

Getting your words read

There’s a very interesting discussion over at Michael Stelzner’s Writing White Papers Blog about tips to make sure your writing gets read. Michael found 5 tips from CopyDiva’s blog that I agree are excellent pointers for getting your writing read. Worth sticking up on the wall by your desk. Take a look at the post…

Continue Reading →

How to Grow Your Business

Take a look at this post from Trizle. Just what I’ve been saying about the value of existing clients over new clients. And why building on your existing clients is the best way to grow your business. Just that Trizle says it in, err, a different way. Link: How to Grow Your Business.

Continue Reading →

Elements of a successful newsletter: 3 – Personality

This is the third in a series of posts about the elements of a successful newsletter. 3. Personality For the most part, people buy from people and not from companies. That’s something  many salespeople (and many people who don’t consider themselves salespeople but nevertheless run a business) already know. After all, isn’t it true that…

Continue Reading →

What is a Loyal Customer?

Just found a post on the Human Being Curious blog, called What is a Loyal Customer. It defines a loyal customer as having the following characteristics: A loyal customer will buy what you’re currently selling, and whatever else you come up with. A loyal customer feels more like a partner than a transactional buyer. Loyal…

Continue Reading →

Great Resource: Online document conversion

I just tried out Zamzar.com, which converts documents of one type into an other. You just upload your document, select what format you want to convert it to and then wait. The site emails you back with a link you can use to download your document. It took about 30 minutes to receive a 4-page…

Continue Reading →

Newsletters – not just for clients

Kiss3 made a great point in a comment on a previous post:  that newsletters should be sent to prospects as well as to existing clients. Of course, I agree. While sending newsletters to clients is a great way to grow your business – because the greatest potential extra income comes from your existing clients –…

Continue Reading →

Elements of a successful newsletter: 2 – The Content

This is the second in a series of posts about the elements of a successful newsletter. 2. The Content You’ll remember from my first post in this series that I said it was very important to focus on what interests the reader rather than what interests you. Then you’ll make it more likely your client…

Continue Reading →

Under New Management

Just had to link to this post from Seth Godin, as he illustrates so vividly what he calls the ‘ego-centric nature of most marketing’. That’s what I was saying in my last post, about why your newsletter must be about your reader, not you.

Continue Reading →

Elements of a successful newsletter: 1 – The Reader

This is the first in a serious of posts about the elements of a successful newsletter. 1. The Reader. Probably the most common mistake novice company newsletter publishers make is this: writing about the wrong person. What do I mean by that? Simply, that it’s not enough (and it’s not effective) to write about you,…

Continue Reading →