Show that You’re Real In a Few Simple Words
Check out this post on the 37Signals blog. It shows an automated “thank you” message that a particular website sends after someone has made an online order. Big deal, you might think. Why is the wording of this email (and others like it) so important? Here’s the thing: people like to do business with people,…
Announcing…The First Newsletter Marketer of the Year
I’m delighted to announce that Patty Wagner, of MAS Insurance LLC, in Colorado, has won our first Newsletter Marketer of the Year contest. She wins an Apple iPad. Patty won for three reasons: Excellent results from her newsletters Excellent use of the customization features – she really made the newsletters hers Excellent and innovative marketing…
The Personal Paragraph: An Easy Way to Boost Response to Your Newsletter
One of my best clients called the other day to report something that made a big difference to the response to his wife’s real estate newsletter. At the top of every email newsletter he sent out, he added a personal paragraph about something that was going on in their lives. Just a tidbit. He tells…
The Business Owner’s Dirty, Little Secret
Maybe I’m just a screw-up. You see, I find the biggest battle I?face in business isn’t with competitors, or finding new clients, or customer service. It’s the battle that is waging right between my ears. It’s the voice that says “sales are terrible this week, you’re going to fail.” Or the voice that says “my…
Newsletters with Passion
Sometimes I?get this overwhelming urge. I?want to grab a business owner by the shoulders and give him a good, hard shake. “Why the heck,” I’d say through clenched teeth, “are you in this business anyway?” Once they’ve got over their shock (and probably called their lawyer), they might start to answer the question. Because deep down, hidden…
Is the Harvard Business Review Claiming You Can Spam Other Businesses?
The blog over at the Harvard Business Review is jumping. A recent post by Ruth P. Stevens stirred up that old hornet’s nest of “opt-in” versus “opt-out” marketing email. Here’s what she said: It’s OK to send unsolicited emails (newsletters and the like) to businesses with the expectation that they can opt out if they…
Who Are Your 1,000 True Fans?
It would be nice if you were a blockbuster, wouldn’t it? If you were Avatar. Or Martha Stewart. Or The Simpsons. But that probably isn’t going to happen. Which means that you are probably further down the famous “Long Tail”. There’s the blockbusters there on the left, and then you’re one of the gazillions fighting…
One way to put video in your newsletter
I was at Infusionsoft’s annual user conference in Scottsdale last week, and a straw poll among the audience found that people were split 50-50 over whether they preferred reading text or watching videos online (particularly when it came to sales websites). What’s clear is that you cannot afford to ignore video when half your audience…
The Back-to-Front Secret to Getting ‘More’
I’ve been thinking a lot about giving recently. And not just because I’m still recovering from the holidays. The thing is, you get more by giving . Let me explain. Take a look at this post by Hugh MacLeod . It talks about how many well-known (and not so well-known) marketers are “selling by…
Giving and Getting
I was re-reading Flight Plan, by Brian Tracy, last night. It’s a book about goal-setting (and sticking to those goals). This is, after all, the traditional season of goals – 2010 planning around the Christmas tree and all that. But goal setting isn’t what this message is about. Near the start of this book is…
Print newsletters and Canada’s second currency
OK, let me get the wisecracks about the title of this post over with right away – in case I lose my residency in Ontario. No, Canada’s second currency isn’t the US dollar. And it’s not the euro either, as an earnest store associate suggested to a friend last week in upstate New York. “Would…
How to make your newsletters interesting
About a year ago I got really into Twitter. Maybe a little too much into it. Huge timesuck. I’m still on it, but I ration myself. Now I waste time on Facebook. But I tell yer – it’s rough and tough in the Twitterverse! Some people on there really work it. They post many times…
Newsletters: the bar is pretty low. Really.
I got a call on Tuesday from someone who is thinking of joining my newsletter service for real estate agents. She’s been receiving emails from me. But she said something that disconcerted me. “The information is great, but it’s kind of putting me off doing a newsletter.” Hmmm, I thought…that’s not how it’s supposed to…
How to Get Your Newsletter Articles Read – the Easy Way
“Service journalism” is the reliable older sister of the newspaper world. If it wore clothes, it would wear a cardigan. With pockets. It sure ain’t glamorous. There are no scoops (such as they are these days), and there are no celebrity interviews or witty columns. Service journalism is the simple reporting of stuff that’s useful,…
How to Be Like Oprah
I got the shock of my life on the internet last night. There on my favorite news website was a big, blue headline: “Oprah Talk Show Going Off Air.” Now, I know she had Sarah Palin on this week, but it can’t have been that bad. I thought Oprah was stronger than that. +++ Turns…
The Perils of Newsletter Personalization
Yesterday I received a Facebook "be my friend" request. It went like this: "$Name$$, Facebook considered you as a friend. I enjoy meeting like minded people, hope you feel the same." Personalization is a wonderful thing. And so is technology. Mix them and you have a powerful cocktail – or a recipe for disaster. +++…
When 1 + 1 = 3
As someone smart enough to be reading this blog, you know math. So that means you understand that: 1 + 1 = 3 And 1 + 1 + 1 = 9 And 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = a-heck-of-a-lot This isn’t some kind of wacky math. It’s the power of groups. They work…
The efficient newsletter article
The chicken has 11 parts, I was told with huge authority by the 16-year-old KFC employee. That was why I would receive only two breasts – the rest of my order would be made up of the other nine parts of chicken. I guess that’s fair, although I’ve wondered ever since what constituted that odd…
Beware the Apostrophist – Your Newsletter and Those Pesky Typos
I’m glad the Apostrophist doesn’t read this blog. He’d be after me with his big, black Sharpie – and I’d be in trouble. More about this grammar vigilante in a sec. The thing is, when I re-read one of these messages a day or two after I’ve posted it, I always spot a typo or…
Newspaper columns, 17 kumquats, and a famous ‘you’
If you think some movie stars are prima donnas (“I requested 17 polished kumquats in the scarlet dish, not 16, not 18, you imbecile! You’re fired!”), then you haven’t met a newspaper columnist. There’s something about being charged will filling ten inches of virgin newsprint each week that does horrible things to the ego. Newspaper…