Could a Customer Newsletter Actually Make You Money?
People tend to think of newsletters as a marketing expense. (Of course, marketing shouldn’t be thought of as an expense at all. It’s an investment – at least it is if you do the kind of marketing that allows you to track the results.) But it is possible to create a customer newsletter that actually…
The Best Kind of Newsletter
I lost a newsletter client today. Nothing new about that. The one-month free trial for my real estate newsletter encourages people to sign up and kick the tires, and some decide not to continue. Others take what they can for free and never have any intention of paying. Quite normal when you make an offer…
How to Use Customer Newsletters to Nurture the People Who Really Matter
Seth wrote an interesting post today about targeted traffic to websites versus untargeted traffic: it’s the focused traffic you want to capture; the rest you don’t care about. Quite right. And it’s useful to show how customer newsletters can achieve the same goal: bringing targeted buyers into your business. Let’s face it, although newsletters are…
Make Your Newsletter Captions Work For You
If you use pictures in your newsletter, don’t neglect their captions. Captions are one of the most-read elements on the page, and you don’t need to restrict them to just identifying people and places. Because captions are so frequently read by people browsing your newsletter, they can also help entice readers to tackle the article…
Calling all Printers: Are You a Commodity?
One of the subscribers to my general customer newsletter is a commercial printer. He says his customers love getting the newsletter he sends out. Now, the printing industry is in danger of becoming – if it hasn’t already – a commodity. People shop for printers by price, for the most part. And as we know,…
A Goldmine of Headline Inspiration
I’ve said many times before that headlines are one of the most important elements in your newsletter because they act as salesmen for your articles. Writing a good headline will increase the chances of your article being read. Newspapers spend a lot of effort on headlines. They have editors who specialize in writing them. The…
Building a Stalagmite
Something I’ve learned since I started this blog – and also since I started my real estate newsletters business – is that building trust takes time. But taking the time to build that trust has enormous rewards. As Seth says today, in his post Drip, drip, drip goes the Twit: “Publishing your ideas… in books,…
Is Your Newsletter Hanging Out With the Right People?
If you’ve got children, you’re no doubt anxious to make sure they aren’t hanging out with a bad crowd. And if you are buying a house, you want to be certain it’s not in a bad neighborhood. The same goes for your newsletter: is it hanging out with the right people? When every newsletter costs…
How to Cut Through the Noise and Connect with Customers
If you send out a newsletter, take a good look at the content. What are the themes of your articles? Who is the focus of your articles? What are you trying to achieve with your articles? Are you providing value in your articles that will improve your subscribers’ lives? That final question is the most…
Issuu: A Way to Put Your Print Newsletter Online
If you’ve visited the website belonging to a glossy magazine, you’ve probably seen an online facsimile of the magazine – a little widget they use to allow you to “flip” pages of the real magazine…but online. That kind of technology was quite expensive. But now there’s a website, called Issuu, that is doing the same…
Seth’s Advice to Realtors
As a lot of readers of this blog are real estate agents, I thought I’d pass along the advice of marketing guru Seth Godin. (I reviewed his excellent book The Dip here, and recommend all his work.) He gives two bits of advice. The first is kinda harsh. But the second is spot on. He…
4 Ways to Tell if Your Real Estate Newsletter is Boring
I’m going to ask a blunt question: is your real estate newsletter boring? Because if your newsletter is boring, you’ll be losing thousands of dollars in business because…to put it bluntly… no one will be reading! And if no one is reading, you’re not going to be able to build that essential relationship with your…
2 Easy Ways to Write Newsletter Articles (Even if You Hate Writing)
Many people are put off sending out a customer newsletter because of the amount of writing they think is involved. After all, a blank page can be pretty daunting. So here are 2 ways to make article writing easier. These aren’t new ideas – I’ve heard them mentioned several times before by several people –…
Real Estate Newsletters: 5 Essential Tips to Make Clients Adore You
Sending a real estate newsletter to your farm isn’t about getting a client or a listing right there and then. Unless you hit their mailbox at precisely the right time – just when they are looking for an agent or wanting to list their house – you’re in the business of building a relationship rather…
5 Elements Every Real Estate Newsletter Must Have
Here’s what I hope is a useful list for any Realtor putting together their own newsletter. 1) Clear Contact Information Make it easy for your clients to contact you. Put your name and contact information on the front and back, and consider adding your website URL or phone number at the bottom of every other…
Are Printed Newsletters Bad for the Climate?
One of the arguments against printed newsletters and in favor of email is that because printed newsletters use paper, they are bad for the climate. Chris Anderson, he of The Long Tail and Wired magazine, has done an analysis that finds “dead-tree magazines have a smaller net carbon footprint than web media.” I don’t know…
The Canadian Tire Flyer
For many years, Canadian Tire has delivered a pretty thick flyer to people’s mailboxes every week. (For people who aren’t familiar with Canadian Tire, it’s a soup-to-nuts — or lightbulbs to auto parts — store that’s one of the most famous brands in Canada.) Canadian Tire also produces an email version. Yet despite what must…
The 22 Best Newsletter Tips Ever
Follow these and you won’t go far wrong with your newsletter. Some are old, some are new, some are borrowed…you get the picture. Remember who you are writing for. Your newsletter must be about your intended audience, not about yourself. Every client is tuned to WIIFM – What’s In It For Me. Make it useful.…
Real Estate Agents: What Would You Do to Justify a 7% Commission?
A lot of my newsletter subscribers are real estate agents, so this post, The 7% Solution, from Seth Godin is particularly interesting. But it’s relevant for any business. Quote: The challenge is… what if you had to charge 7%. What if you had to charge more when everyone else was charging less? What would you…
A Brand You World
I’ve been using my mp3 player the past few days to catch up on the teleseminars from A Brand You World – the global summit celebrating a decade of personal branding. From the site: In 1997, Tom Peters wrote his now iconic article “The Brand Called You” in Fast Company. Now ten years later, the…