The Outrageously Simple Formula for eNewsletter Success



GOALS + VALUE = SUCCESS

Simple, right? As small business owners, our email marketing goals can be quite different and varied. Whatever your GOALS are, you won’t reach them if you don’t seriously consider the other side of the equation: giving VALUE to your subscribers.

If you don’t give value, you will lose your audience - whether you’re standing at the front of a room or sending out your newsletter.

What’s in it for your audience? Who are your readers and what would be useful to them? What can you give them that they can’t get anywhere else? Why would they take the time to read (and share!) your newsletter? You need to answer those questions very succinctly during the planning stage. Valuable content doesn’t happen by fluke.

You can execute flawlessly and put together a newsletter that looks awesome - and that no one wants to read. A good looking newsletter on its own won’t keep your subscribers engaged – give VALUE!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Home Office Holiday Party

Image
In preparation for our office party this year, I wrote a poem. Then I gathered together the things I would need to have a party with Romeo and Danielle. (The Temptations were for Romeo, the phone for Danielle, and the coffee for me.) Romeo, my cat, is used to hearing me talk out loud as I proofread and he was unusually excited about hearing the poem. Danielle, who lives several time zones away in Saskatchewan, also works alone (and helps me out lots) so I invited her to my office party by phone. It was a good move because she's a master at rhyming words. After much anticipation, I started to read the finished poem aloud to them. As you can see in the photos above, I had their full attention. Ode to a Midnight Blog Silent night, late at night, I've still got my blog to write. My laptop propped up on my bed, I'm hoping ideas will fill my head. Yawns escaping, eyelids drooping, Neck is stiff, my thoughts are looping. My brain is sore, I th...
Keep reading »

Quick Tip - Avoid Hidden Format Problems

Image
When you're inserting content into your newsletter, website or blog, you're often copying it from other documents.  I suggest you always compose in Word (or similar) to take advantage of its spelling and grammar-checking functionality. Your formatting in Word may not be the same as your default formatting in these various applications.  While there are a raft of applications that make it easy now to do your own newsletter, website and blog, most of them are converting your content to html code in the background.  When you copy in text that is already formatted, you're possibly creating problems behind the scenes .  As well, you'll end up with differing fonts and sizes that all have to be corrected before you publish. You can avoid the potential for problems by stripping off all formatting before you paste into the application.  An easy way to do this is to use Notepad (or similar).  You simply open a blank notepad document, paste your con...
Keep reading »

Is Your Canadian Small Business Compliant with CASL Yet?

Image
It's that year - the Canadian Anti Spam Legislation comes fully info effect on July 1, 2017. Wait, before you roll your eyes and click away, read the next paragraph. The average small business in Canada has nowhere near the list size to trigger an investigation under CASL. And the reality is most small businesses aren't yet CASL-compliant... and that probably includes yours (and even mine). There's no need to get alarmed. Here are the 4 most obvious ways businesses aren't yet fully compliant. #1. Subscription process is missing a description of what content the subscriber can expect to receive and how often You don't want to be misleading and you also can't be too vague. Simply "Sign up for my newsletter!" is not good enough. Besides, you want a killer call-to-action ; it makes good sense regardless of CASL. Offering a free download? If you plan to add the contact to your regular mailing list, you still need to say that. #2. Maili...
Keep reading »

3 Reasons Why Businesses Should Be Podcasting

Image
(guest post by Mike Tanner) To suggest that I’m a big fan of podcasts would be… a bit of an understatement. In addition to being the host of 3.5 podcasts (it’s a long story), I provide podcasting consulting, speak on podcasting panels and once had a dream that I was the host of a potato chip podcast called “Chip Off The Old Block” (That podcast should be coming out in the fall.) I started podcasting because I enjoyed it. But what I’ve discovered about podcasting as it relates to business has left me realizing that I made the absolute right decision when I decided to start broadcasting my thoughts on an audio medium. So here are three reasons why businesses should be podcasting. Passive Advertising I am a big fan of social media advertising. The targeting options available on major platforms are outstanding and things like analytics and retargeting make it a no-brainer to use social to promote your business, whether that’s through the use of paid ads or just a solid soc...
Keep reading »

2 Reasons to Share your Newsletter Archive

Image
Phew, your newsletter is done and sent. But that shouldn't be the last anyone sees of it. With the online version of your newsletter you can have readers anytime - not just when it gets published and not just those it gets emailed to. #1. Use it as a Resource If your newsletter is informational and useful beyond today, it can become a valuable resource, sort of like a blog. Occasionally share a link to your archive as a post on your social media platforms. Add it to the Resource page on your website if you have one. Put a link to it in each newsletter issue - "Read past issues." Place a call to action and link to your archive in your email signature. Some newsletters just aren't as useful as a resource; perhaps you already publish the info on your blog or website, or it is time-sensitive. There's still a good reason to share your newsletter archive. #2. Use it as an Example The more clearly someone understands what they are signing up for, the...
Keep reading »

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...
Keep reading »

10 Signs this is Your First Newsletter

Image
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...
Keep reading »

Three Words for 2017

Image
'Focus' has been my 'word of the year' since January 2010. When I did a little checking to figure out that date, I was surprised at how long I've been focussed on focus. Perhaps I'm as focussed as I'm going to get. This year I'm going to buck the 'one word' movement and go with three words: surprised by joy . It's a wish for how I want to be in 2017. The first line of William Wordsworth's poem of the same name is: "Surprised by joy - impatient as the Wind" I stumbled upon it recently while reading books by Canadian author Louise Penny . "Surprised by joy" is a recurring theme throughout her Inspector Gamache series. Maybe it stuck with me because patience sure isn't my best quality. Share your word (or words) of the year in the comments. Whatever they are, my wish is that you will be surprised by the joy of success this year. Click to Tweet this Article
Keep reading »

Research to Develop your Content Strategy

Image
Your content strategy wouldn't be complete without having a look at what others are doing. This is an important step because: it will trigger new ideas for you it will help keep you current with others in your industry you should know what your competitors are doing Here are some activities you can engage in regularly, perhaps quarterly, to develop your content strategy and keep it current. 1. Get online and check out: What are others in your industry doing? What are your competitors doing? Is what they're doing working for them? How can you tell? 2. Search keywords google.ca/trends adwords.google.com 3. Search for articles that have content ideas specific to your industry. For example, if you own a restaurant, search "content ideas for restaurants" or "newsletter ideas for restaurants". Make sure any new ideas you adopt are ultimately valuable to your subscribers  and meet your goals . 4. Sign up for newsletters - pay attenti...
Keep reading »

Your 'Thank You for Signing Up' Page

Image
A redirect page is a webpage where someone ends up after filling in your subscription form. This is something you have control over and it's worth putting a little effort into. After all, someone has just said they trust you enough to sign up for your newsletter - it's a good time to dazzle them with more of your brilliance and give them some value right away . Here is a screenshot of Anita Kirkbride's redirect page. When someone subscribes to Twirp's newsletter, this is where they end up. Here's why this page is great: It clearly describes what the subscriber signed up for. There's a free giveaway, which was promised in the call to action. There's a link to get immediate value by going to Twirp's blog. Also those cute little Twirplings at the bottom of the screen jump up and down... which made me feel kind of happy to have subscribed. Is it time to take a fresh look at your own redirect page? What is the most important message you want t...
Keep reading »