9 Ways to Personalize Your Newsletter [Infographic]

9 ways to personalize your newsletter



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Gift Certificates, Holiday Specials, and Stocking Stuffers

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If your business sells to consumers, you definitely should consider doing some extra promotional emails leading up to the holidays. This is something you need to plan now and start executing soon. You could simply add more targeted promotional messages to your regular newsletter. BUT you've worked hard all year to build your reputation and gain the attention of your readers. Now is the time to capitalize on that a bit. I'm not suggesting that you start blasting your readers with advertising. I am suggesting that a well-planned campaign can be very effective at this time of year. Here are some ideas to consider: If you sell gift certificates , you'll definitely want to promote them. Recommend who they will be suitable for. Insert Buy Now buttons directly into your newsletter with an immediate call to action. Do a holiday countdown with number of shopping days left. Create special offers or promotions only for your email subscribers. This can also help to get yo...
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Using Pinterest To Create Brand Moodboards: Part I

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(guest post by Alison Knott) So you’re starting the process of making a brand or logo for your new business. Or, you’re about to hire someone to do it for you. Congratulations! It’s now time for the daunting task of articulating whatever the hell is in your head into something concrete. Eep! I’m here to help you help yourself. It can seem difficult to put into words how you do (and do not) want to represent your brand that doesn’t exist yet. So… how do the pros do it? We do research and create moodboards, which are a visual collection of images, colours and graphics to illustrate a certain mood . Now, as a brand designer I use Adobe InDesign and Illustrator to put final mood boards together for my clients. But you want to know what has saved me and my clients so much time? Having clients send along their own little Pinterest brand modeboard collection to help me get inside their head. Yes! That thing you’ve been using to save 783 pictures of living room renos you’re nev...
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Customer Service in a Box

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photo by Gertrud K. You know when you land on a website and, before you've had a chance to take a breath, a box pops up over top of the text you were just reading? “Can I help you?” How does that make you feel? Startled? Annoyed? A little creeped out? I’m a fan of pop-up boxes, but only when I’m the one that can push the button to make them pop up. I've used them lots to solve all kinds of online problems fast. When they pop-up unexpectedly, it makes me feel like someone’s been watching me. And it’s always too soon... before I've even formed my first question. Recently I was searching for a list cleaning application and didn't have time for a long learning curve. After trying a couple of other sites, I went to ListWiseHQ . I was impressed to find all my options and the applicable prices laid out clearly on the home page. I was thinking, “This might be the one.” Then Gladys popped up. Gladys was in one of those pop-up boxes. Not in front of ...
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Design Colour Trends for Spring 2018

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excerpt from Pantone's NY Fashion Week Spring 2018 We're just getting back to serious work after summer vacations and the design world is already thinking about spring. I like what I see but then I'm a sucker for bright colours. You'll find these used online next year, too , not just in clothing stores. Pantone says: The Spring 2018 palette encourages a sense of fun and playful release. With an air of complexity and distinctiveness, we find ourselves in a sanctuary of color that is ideal for some more unique and dramatic color mixing. Click here to see all 12 colours in the Spring 2018 Collection on Pantone's website. Click to Tweet this Article
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Action and Email Don't Mix

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Reactionary Workflow – reacting to what’s coming in rather than being proactive. It’s a new term but a familiar feeling… and it sure did resonate with me. Being constantly connected means that it’s really easy for people to contact us. As a consequence, our ability to prioritize is crippled by the unending flow of communication. It has become harder to direct our work with intention. We’ve relinquished control over our focus. One of my own personal focus areas last year was to be, well, more focused. What I found was that just focusing on being focused didn’t cut it. I needed tactics… and discipline. Here are some things that I found useful: Blocking out time for specific tasks , especially tasks related to developing my own business. Turning off email for certain periods during the day – need I say more? Taking time to create , rather than just responding to emails. Yes, I might be suggesting taking more time. Adding value to my communications has resulted in many ben...
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Sudden Appearances and Why They May Not Work

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Have you noticed a sudden flurry of emails recently? Here are a few examples I've received: The nail technician who I haven't heard from since before the pandemic suddenly shows up telling me she's open for appointments. But not a word earlier about the interruption of service. The leadership consultant who I also haven't heard from since before the pandemic shows up with a newsy, here's-what's-been-happening-in-my-world email that didn't even ask how I'm doing. This was followed by an email every two days to promote her new program. And then, there are those people who have been collecting email addresses via online forms for years but have never sent a newsletter... until now. I've been hearing from people I'd long forgotten about. It's not suddenly a good idea to be sending newsletters! It's been a good idea for a long time. Respect your subscribers. Realize they are real people. Have an ongoing relationship with them. Give them some...
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Ideas for Your Holiday Email Campaign

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It’s that time of year when our email boxes quickly fill up each day with special promotions – Black Friday will kick it all off. Depending on your type of business and target market, you may be (should be?) considering doing some extra promotional emails leading up to the holidays. This is something you need to plan now and start executing very soon. I'm not encouraging you to start blasting your subscribers with advertising. I am suggesting that a well-planned email campaign can be very effective at this time of year. To get you going, here are some ideas to work into your plan: If you sell gift certificates , you'll definitely want to promote them. Recommend who they will be suitable for. Insert Buy Now buttons directly into your newsletter with an immediate call to action. Do a holiday countdown with the number of shopping days left and something special for each day. Create special offers or promotions only for your email subscribers . This can also help to get new subscr...
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Blacklisted!

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It feels like someone was messing with my credit score this week. My domain daleyprogress.com was blacklisted. There are a couple of things about this I'd like to share. How did it happen? Apparently, a link to an event in one of my newsletters pointed to a domain that was blacklisted. (Or at least that's my understanding based on the little info I've been able to get.) The immediate implication? Do I have to check every link in my newsletter against the blacklist to prevent this from happening again? I don't really know but, wow, what a pile of work that would be! How did I discover the problem? The hard way! I was sending test and regular emails that weren't arriving, even to myself. I initially thought the problem was with i-Contact . They were great about pointing me in the right direction. Then I had to contact Network Solutions which hosts my domain. They were quick to investigate and 'clear my name' for me. How can I know if...
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How to Make Smart Marketing Decisions

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Small business owners can spend a lot of time and money on marketing initiatives. Sometimes we're successful and sometimes not so much. I think of marketing as an experiment because - really - there are no magic bullets. There are best practices, there is good and bad advice, there are lots of experts and gurus. But we, the business owners, have to make the final decisions and... live with the results. Marketing isn't cheap (even if it's our own time) and poor decision-making can hurt more than our wallets - our reputation may also be at risk. So, how do we make decisions about things we have little experience with? How can we possibly know what all of our options might be when it comes to getting a new website? Or knowing which social media platforms will work best? Or building a content strategy? We can't... unless we put some extra effort into it. Step #1: Clearly identify the decision that needs to be made. Sometimes it'll be staring you in the face ...
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Tweet to Promote your Newsletter and Blog

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Sure you're doing lots of writing, but is anyone reading it? Social media is a great way to promote your newsletter and blog to get more reading and more subscriptions. Particularly on Twitter, you could post a different call-to-action as often as daily. And with the new saved templates functionality in Hootsuite, you can create them once and then schedule regularly. I've created this Excel spreadsheet with some newsletter promotional tweets already composed. You will need to fill in the blanks and make them your own, but it's a starting point. With a little more tweaking, you can also use these tweets to promote your blog. Note : Keep in mind that Twitter now counts all links as 20 characters regardless of actual length. photo by TPorter2006 / Flickr
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