7 Ways to Boost Response to Your Newsletter

I know from experience one of your biggest questions is likely to be: How do I squeeze more out of my newsletter? How can I get more response? The good news is, there’s lots you can do. Just doing one extra thing will help. So here we go: 1. The personal paragraph. I’ve written about…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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,…

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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. +++…

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The trouble with ‘newsletters’

I hate it when people ask me the question: So what is it you do? A cocktail of adrenaline and tears rushes through my veins. Do I give my pitch speech? “I help businesses build profitable, long-term relationships with their clients.” That often works only in an elevator. Or do I just come out and…

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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…

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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…

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Email Newsletter Open Rates – and Your Mother

If you sent an email to your mother, would she open it? Probably. (I know a good Freudian analyst for those who said no.) That’s the point I make to clients when they question me about email newsletter open rates. The second thing I ask is: how can you make your newsletter as relevant to…

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A bear in the kitchen and your local newsletter

Most summers, the Haliburton Echo carries a story that goes something like this: A local homeowner wakes to the sound of crashing and rustling. On going to investigate, she discovers a large black bear – its head buried in a box of cornflakes. So with great derring-do, the homeowner shoos the bear out of her…

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The David Beckham of Punctuation

Next time you’re planning to book the Kennedy Center for a stand-up comedy show, remember one thing: you can use the F-word a maximum of 41 times. This isn’t my observation, of course. It belongs to comic Lewis Black, who says he wasn’t allowed to record an HBO special at the venue because someone at…

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The Newsletter Audacity of Hope

Today is the first anniversary of Barack Obama’s election victory. Now don’t worry. I’m not going to launch a political rant about President Obama’s qualities – or lack of them. But you remember his slogan: Yes We Can. It’s often said that the two most powerful motivators are fear and hope. Just think of all…

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Worst Parking Job and a ‘Random Act of Kindness’

At risk of sounding like one of those annoying people who bombard you with links to funny and cute stuff they’ve found around the Internet that you’ve “just gotta see…” …. Well, you’ve just gotta see the video at the bottom of this post. But don’t go there yet. Here’s the story. A security video…

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The Day of the Dead

The cemeteries of Spain will be busy today. I've always found Iberian graveyards curious places. I never visited one when I was living there, but I saw many from the outside. You see, in Spanish cemeteries, many graves are set in high walls. The dead are stacked on top of each other, with stones marking…

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30 Days in November, 30 Interesting Messages

Want to take part in an interesting experiment? Want to see me potentially humiliate myself in front of thousands? I’ve been challenged by copywriter John Fancher to hone my email writing skills. He has pledged to create one auto-responder message each day. What is an autoresponder? It’s computer software that automatically sends emails to your…

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Why Real Estate Agents (and Others) Need to Be Publishers

Once again, Seth Godin is speaking my language. In a post he draws our attention to the difference between renting eyeballs (the old media way, where you buy an ad that is shown to the readers of, for example, a magazine) and actually owning the platform – owning the magazine or other media. He gives…

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