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…
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…
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…
Why I’m Not Making ‘Newsletters’ Anymore
Listen up. I’m not making “newsletters” anymore. Let me tell you why. I guess I was bored. And I was boring. I was embarrassed when people asked me what I did for a living. “I make newsletters for real estate agents and other people,” I would tell the ground. Then silence. Well, there isn’t anything…
Give Before You Take: the Art of Nurturing Leads
So much of business is common sense, it pains me to write about it. Yet so much that business owners do goes against simple common sense that…well… I guess I just have to point out the obvious. Here’s today’s topic: give before you take. Imagine you meet someone for the first time and they say,…
ABC – Always Be Collecting (and Double Your Leads)
Always Be Closing – that’s the sales mantra made famous by the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. But I have another ABC. Always Be Collecting. Always be collecting contact info from your visitors so you can keep in touch. Because if you’re not always collecting, you’re seeing potential clients walk out the door. I’ve ramped up…
When Customers are ‘Just Looking’
“I’m just looking.” You’re probably heard that phrase many times. Indeed, it no doubt rolls off your own tongue when a salesperson approaches and you’re not ready for a conversation. While “I’m just looking” sometimes means “go away and leave me alone”, it more often means “I’m not ready to buy yet…but I will be…
A Big, Juicy Frog, Your Newsletter, and a Happy Day
One of my favorite time management secrets (if it’s really a secret) is the concept of “eating the frog”. (Some people say “licking the toad”, but I’d be afraid of hallucinating if I did that.) The concept (promoted by Brian Tracy in his book of the same name) goes like this: Identify your biggest, hairiest…
Permission Marketing and “Too Many Emails”
I got a curious comment yesterday from someone who has been receiving messages from me about marketing by newsletters. She said I’d talked her out of joining my real estate newsletters program because I’d said that you need permission to send email newsletters to people. That, she said, made her realize that people “don’t want…
How to Shoot Yourself in the Foot During a Recession
Ding! Here comes an email from a client. “We need to cancel our newsletter membership because business is slow.” Here’s the thing (and whack me if it sounds self-serving, because it’s not meant to be): Now’s not the time to be cutting back on your marketing. It’s time to be investing in your marketing –…
How to Use a Newsletter to Position a Neighborhood Bar as a Community Hub
I was was chatting on Twitter this week about what you would put in neighborhood bar’s newsletter. I said (in 140 characters or less, of course) that it’s about positioning the bar as a community hub. After all, that’s the role of many neighborhood bars. They’re the place where everyone knows your name. So that’s…
Why Even Funeral Homes Need a Customer Newsletter
Every business needs a newsletter. Even funeral homes. There are always eyebrows raised when I say that. What, for heaven's sake, can a funeral home put in a newsletter? Why would they need one? Imagine this: In town there are two funeral homes. Let's call them Dyer and Co. and Restinpeez Brothers. They're both as…
How to Hire Writers for Your Newsletter
I’ve always enjoyed working with freelance writers. I’ve done it pretty much all my career, and even now I use specialist freelancers for my ready-made newsletter products. Here are some tips for finding talented people to write for your newsletter. Where to find them I’ve found it’s something of a buyers’ market when it comes…
Typical Email Newsletter Open Rates – Two Answers
There are two answers to the question: what’s a typical email open rate? The first is correct but annoying; the second is a ball-park guess. For some reason, people tend to prefer the second. Answer 1: “It Depends” (Told you it was an annoying answer.) The thing is, it depends on who you are sending…
How to Use a Newsletter to Prove that a ‘Commodity’ Product Can Be Special
Here’s a fascinating case study from a company that sends out a newsletter in every box of eggs it produces. Yes, eggs that come with their own newsletter. I’ll give you what I see as the big takeaway first: You might think that eggs is eggs. But, as we’re told, some eggs are better than…
Newsletter Delivery: Local Newspaper vs. Direct Mail
Here’s an interesting anecdote from one of the members of my real estate newsletter service in Ontario, Canada. This real estate agent uses his newsletter for lead generation (by mass mailing it) and to keep in touch with past clients. For the first seven months he was a member, the newsletter was delivered in the…
How to Make Time to Send Out Your Newsletter
I know, sometimes doing the newsletter seems a bit of a chore. Even I feel that – and I’m The Newsletter Guy! Here’s how I make time. Maybe the same kind of thinking will work for you. Are you familiar with Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”? In that book, he talks…
How to Avoid Boring People with Your Newsletter
I went to my dentist this week. Great guy. Excellent dentist. Super team. He makes me want to floss. He also has a newsletter – at least he used to. I didn’t see it this time. I didn’t get to ask if it was working for him, but I suspect it wasn’t too well. Why?…
Your Clients Want Smiles not Frowns – an Antidote to CNN’s Doom and Gloom
A request from a new member of my real estate newsletters service came in yesterday. (As he’s new, he doesn’t know I do this already…but it’s always good to be reminded.) He said he is looking for newsletter articles as an antidote to his clients. For example, the headlines in the newspapers show doom and…
Why Most Content Producers are Thinking of the Wrong Person
Content marketing – and that includes sending print and email newsletters – is becoming an essential part of the marketing arsenal. But this new chart from Marketing Sherpa shows that most marketers are getting it all wrong. They’re breaking Rule #1 of newsletters, not writing with their customer in mind. The chart shows that content that…