Why Hibernating in Tough Times is a Bad Strategy

Thankfully, it’s summer right now. But winters here in Ontario can be frigid. It’s no wonder the bears go to sleep and wait it out. Unlike the chickadees, which are busy hunting for food, even in blood-freezing temperatures. I’m here to tell you this: during tough times, be a chickadee, not a bear. This isn’t…

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Be Gently in their Face

I wasn’t going to write today, but I was inspired by Seth Godin’s post, “My tooth doesn’t hurt.” It’s about how a marketer can build a solid business, even when they think their target market doesn’t need them right now (like a dentist who is badly needed when a person has a toothache, but easily…

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What Not to Put in a Newsletter

Ding! Here arrives a new email. Ooh, a newsletter! I like those! It’s from a software company – A Letter from the CEO, no less. And that’s where things start to go wrong. Let me give you some quotes: “A New Corporate Strategy” “We have established a new corporate strategy designed to meet the continuously…

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Why Customer Service Beats Low Prices

If you wanted any more evidence that now – despite the rough economy – is not the time to go cutting price, look at the results of the latest poll published by Marketing Sherpa (see chart at end of this post). It shows that while vendors believe price is the most important factor in customer…

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Printed Newsletters and the Internet: Friends or Foes?

The other day I heard someone say, “Printed newsletters? That’s so 90s.” Let’s face it, when you compare them to email and blogs, printed newsletters do have – shall we say – a vintage feel. Dead trees and ink are hardly sexy in green-tinged, e-everything 2008. But this is the thing (actually, several things): 1)     …

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Shock: Some Good News about US Real Estate

If you watch enough CNN, you’ll be convinced that the American housing market – and the entire economy – is doomed. No hope. Just give up and wait. I’m not saying that things aren’t bad – that a lot of people are suffering, losing their homes and their jobs. The economy has changed and got…

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Customer Newsletters: The 7 Deadly Sins

If you’re about to create your newsletter or are having someone else do it for you (perhaps using a writer/designer or a newsletter company) check out the following mistakes you’ll want to avoid. 1) From Corporate HQ: Your newsletter doesn’t need to look like it was created by the design department of a Fortune 500…

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Why it’s Okay if Your Newsletter is Rough Around the Edges

One of the great things about newsletters as a marketing tool is that they can cut through the noise of advertising that bombards your clients. They do this by providing useful content – being of service rather than simply selling. They also help create a personal connection between you and your clients. And it’s for…

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Use Coupons to Boost Your Company Newsletter Response

A subscriber to my newsletter for mortgage brokers sent me her version of the newsletter today. She’d customized it to include a coupon that gives $100 off closing costs to any clients that conclude financing with her. Great idea. Not only do coupons make it more likely your client will keep the newsletter but they…

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Is Your Newsletter “Wall-able?”

You want your clients and prospects to keep your newsletter because the longer they keep it, the stronger your relationship. The best way to encourage them to keep your newsletter, of course, is to fill it with great content; articles that are aimed at your readers’ interests – content that makes their lives better. Jeff…

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A Clever, Timely Hook for an Offer in a Newsletter

Taking something that’s in the news and putting your own twist on it to make an offer to your customers is a great way to stand out from the crowd. By attaching your offer to something in the news you give the impression of immediacy, timeliness and relevance to your offer. Here’s an example I…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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,…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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