Make Your Ideas Sticky


Click here to download this quick reference sheet by Chip and Dan Heath, authors of Made to Stick. It'll help you make your ideas and communication 'sticky'.

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Bragging Writes

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You'll see in this newsletter that success stories make great marketing content. There's positive emotion around a good story - we like to read them and share them. It's a bonus that they come in many different forms: testimonials, case studies, photos of happy customers or completed work, statistics, even video. Success stories can also be assembled in a lot of different ways. For example: written by you, or by your client spontaneous (such as on Twitter), or solicited about your products and services, or about your business itself (for example, a 10 year anniversary) short or long (useful for different purposes) numerical or graphic (such as statistics) Don't stop at collecting testimonials. There are many more ways to tell your story. originally published in Work Better, Not Harder March 30, 2016 Click to Tweet this Article
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Eliminating Waste and Ageism from My Writing

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In today's society... in today's busy world... our current technological society... and so on. I've written phrases like that more than once. And I've stopped because: 1. These phrases don't add any value to my writing. If I'm writing about the past, I'll say, "In the past..." or some such thing. Similarly if I'm writing about the future. Otherwise isn't the perception it's current? 2. Lots of people don't know a different society , don't remember a time before computers. Technology is hardly new. Anyone over 50 like me has actually been using it longer than anyone younger. Reserve space in your writing for words that really count, that add meaning to your writing. Eliminate what's left. Make sure every word works. Your readers will thank you for it and show you by coming back to read more. photo by Street matt / Flickr Click to Tweet this Article
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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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10 Signs this is Your First Newsletter

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photo by photosteve101 I'm such a newsletter critic. I think it makes me better at what I do - learning from others' good and bad examples. Here are the things that often stand out during my critiques: You didn't use a bulk email application. This is such a big mistake, it deserves its  own post  to list all the reasons why! You didn't include a  link to subscribe. If your newsletter is good, your readers will share it with their friends. Don’t make those friends have to hunt for your  sign-up form.  Not everyone is tenacious. You used a misleading  subject line. Perhaps you felt that you had to trick people into opening your newsletter. Don’t do this! Readers will feel like they've been duped if you don’t deliver on the promise in your subject line. I see  obvious errors. There are spelling errors and, oops, a hyperlink doesn't work. Always get another set of eyes to check your newsletter. Don’t forge...
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Make it Easy to Read Online

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A ‘read online’ link allows subscribers to click to view your campaign directly in their web browsers. There are two reasons that you want to include a ‘read online’ link in your newsletter. Most obviously, it’s helpful for subscribers who can't view the HTML version of your email or download images in their email programs. The ‘read online’ link provides a permanent url that you and your fans can use to share your newsletter, now and in the future. You can use this url to link back to your newsletter issue from your website and blog. This link is also a fallback option to social sharing links : readers can copy/paste the url to share on any social media platform regardless of what sharing buttons you include or don't. I receive a weekly newsletter from ColourLovers called Happy Huesday. It’s a wonderful newsletter filled with links to colourful, interesting articles. Every week I want to share it… and can’t. They don’t include social sharing buttons OR a rea...
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A Different Kind of Feedback

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Most of us would agree that feedback is generally a desirable thing and necessary for continuous improvement. Yet there seems to be a whole area of performance that gets ignored due to little or no feedback: internet marketing. If you are ignoring your feedback (in the form of statistics), you’re missing two important things: Without a baseline to measure ongoing performance against, how will you know if you’re getting better or worse? Without feedback about your performance and information about people’s interests, how will you know what to do to improve? Below are some suggestions to help you get the feedback you need. They can all be applied to an enewsletter campaign but certainly have broader applications. Tracking codes Online bulk email applications will have this built in. You can also use services like Bit.ly and other URL shorteners. Within the application you will be able to view overall statistics and trends. Plus you’ll get more useful things, like how m...
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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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