Elements of eNewsletter Success [Infographic]


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25 Ways to Help Another Small Business Owner

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This list was inspired by 25 Ways to Help a Fellow Human Being Today and co-authored by my Twitter colleague @LinosVersion . When we help each other, we all grow stronger! Give them a testimonial. Make it social and do it on LinkedIn or Twitter. Tell someone about their business and products/services. Shop at their store, online or off. Offer some free advice or constructive feedback. Offer to mentor a newbie. Check out futurpreneur.ca . Welcome new business owners to your community - stop by with donuts. Send an inspirational or congratulatory card by snail mail. Introduce two business owners who may benefit from the connection. Promote 'Shop Local' and feature local small businesses. Write a blog about something you learned from another business owner and give them a shout-out. Put on a free learning event, such as a lunch and learn, and invite local business owners. On Facebook, share their business page with a shout-out. Retweet messages from small busine...
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Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

OK, so you might need 34 letters to say "I feel good!" in some circumstances. But I can't ever imagine needing 340 words to say "expect glitches". A client of mine received this email below from an online service provider. No, you won't want to read it anymore than she did. Want to know the short version? Scroll down. Salesforce.com is committed to providing a highly available service to our customers. We are committed to continued investments to increase the overall uptime of our service, to deliver optimal value to our customers. With that, we are excited to announce a major advancement in this area for our major releases, effective with our Spring '12 release. W hat is the change? We are happy to inform you that we are improving our major release upgrade process. This improvement means that your organization will be generally available during our major release upgrade windows. Note: The term "Generally Available" means that we are...
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7 Out Of 12 Small Business Bloggers Agree On This

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When I teach marketing courses, the group eventually tires of seeing this list come up on the screen in every class: Build relationships, community Grow your reputation, sphere of influence Be seen as an expert Share valuable info, products, services Increase your social media following Give value to your customers, prospects and colleagues on a regular basis Get found - SEO The items on this list are key reasons for publishing a blog or newsletter . Yes, of course, the ultimate goal is sometimes - but not always - an increase in sales. The problem is, you (and me) can't meet all the goals on that list at the same time. We'd become unfocused and demotivated. So I 'force' these small business folk to pick only two goals  to focus on. Last week I noted the two goals each person called out as we went around the room. I added my own two goals, as well, to round the group off at a dozen. Seven of us chose #2 - growing our reputation - as one of our two ...
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7 Tips for Communicating Details by eMail

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Email is an ideal way to communicate details , such as meeting minutes, action lists, project updates, instructions, reference data, decisions, event info, checklists and much more. Sending previously prepared information is a snap - just attach, or copy and paste. When I started specializing in enewsletters, I quickly discovered that there are a lot of details to discuss and make decisions about. Some clients like communicating by phone and others by email. But for some of this detailed communication, email is definitely the best method regardless of preference. It allows me to standardize the process, provide checklists, track action items, explain complex ideas, show examples, and document decisions. Here are some tips for communicating detailed information by email: Strive for clarity. Be brief, but not to the point of leaving out relevant information.   Use point-form numbered or bullet lists. This makes it easy for your reader to mentally check things off, or to ...
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Best Reading of 2012

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We took a vote to pick the best article from our newsletters for each month of the past year. Since there are two of us, it's a good thing that we agree a lot. We also decided to disqualify our own articles because the voting got awkward. Here it is: The Best Ideas and Tips for Busy Business Owners 2012 from the archives of Work Better, Not Harder January 9 Reasons to Blog by Janet Slack February Stabilize an Unstable Income by Stephanie Holmes-Winton March Don't Let Technology Stifle Your Message by Halina St. James April Why You Need to Monitor Social Media by Anita Hovey May Are You Trusted? by Lea Brovedani June 4 Tips to Enhance Your Next Presentation by Neil Everton July The Medium is the Message by Cara Lynn Garvock August Vacation Messages - It's Ugly Out There! by Mary Jane Copps September 50 Shades of Grey by Melanie Orr October Optimize Your Financial Relationships by Wendy Brookhouse November Take Your Lunch Br...
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What are Your Competitors Writing About?

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Whether it’s for your small business blog or newsletter, researching what your competition is writing about will benefit you in two important ways: You will have something with which to compare your own content strategy and your execution of it. It’ll trigger new content ideas and topics to write about. After you've assembled a list of blogs to inspect, these are the things to pay attention to: layout and design (look and feel) ease of reading and interaction keywords and topics covered writing style and formatting frequency and consistency the value offered Now consider: How does your content measure up? What holes do you need to fill? What can you do to improve? Make a plan. You don't have any competition, you say? OK follow this same process and research others in your industry or servicing the same target market. You'll get the same benefits. Click to Tweet this Article
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Click to Tweet

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You might think I am writing about social media but I'm not. I am writing about email marketing. Your newsletter is similar to your blog... you can write it but they may not come. You need to promote your newsletter and nothing works better for promotion than making it easy to share. I have been advocating including sharing icons in your newsletter for a very long time. But my recent discovery of Click to Tweet , used in the Daley Progress blog posts , has made me remember why this is so important. You see, I don't like Twitter. I am always logged in but I never go there. I will retweet what arrives in my email but signing on to read is just never going to happen for me. What I have noticed is that if anything arrives in my email with a double click option to share, I will share it. If I have to open a new window, logon to my social feeds and copy/paste a link. It will never happen! Including a way to easily share your newsletter WILL result in more shares. It really is t...
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eMail Marketing: Informational vs. Promotional

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I often become frustrated when reading email marketing advice online. Many times I've thought, “I wouldn't recommend THAT to my clients.” Of course, while there may be a few best practices, if you want to stand out, you can’t do the same thing as everyone else. I used to think there was a clear division between promotional and informational marketing – specific strategies that applied to one or the other. While that is certainly true, the line is somewhat blurred. After all, our inboxes are full of things we call newsletters, advertisements, announcements... and spam . What we call these things often reflects how we feel about them. I've defined a successful newsletter as being useful or interesting, or both . I admit to a negative attitude about blatant advertising, yet I’m happy to find out about a networking event, or see the latest shoe styles. Those are products I’m interested in hearing about. And THAT is what will make your email campaign effective: finding rea...
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My Essential Small Business Tools (Part 1)

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Whenever I get together with other business owners over lunch or coffee, the conversation often flows to a discussion of how to be more productive. What processes are we using? What contractors are helping? And what tools or apps are useful? I love this sharing of ideas and found out about many of the tools I use regularly from these chats. Those listed below are ones that I use at least weekly - often daily - and consider essential to managing my business. Google Calendar In the newsletter business, we have to keep track of a lot of dates - reminder dates, preparation dates and issue dates - for all our clients on varying schedules. Google Calendar has been invaluable, not only as an organizational and tracking tool, but also as a communication tool because it lets me share my calendars with work colleagues. I have my own calendar of appointments and events, plus a calendar to track all of the important newsletter dates. I use the email and pop-up reminders so I don’t forget a...
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Branding 101 Workbook

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When I start to work with new clients, it's imperative that I understand their brand. I can't do a good job for them if I don't understand what they do, who they do it for, and why it's so important. With some clients I'm even helping to define their brand. Click here to download a workbook that will give structure to your brand (.pdf). Once you have this completed, it will be a valuable document to share with consultants and others who help with your marketing. I also suggest revisiting it at least annually to capture changes as your business evolves.
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