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Hub You - The Five Deadly Fears of E-Newsletter Publishing
Its easy in life to continue doing things the same, what food you eat, what type of car you drive, how you spend your holiday time etc, etc.For many years carpet cleaning companies have used the same products and techniques, giving acceptable results, leaving the carpet and upholstery they have cleaned looking ok. Natural cleaning solutions have been on the market for many years now, but, unfortunately, people tend to view them with some scepticism, 'I have heard they do not work' is a comment we often hear, or 'it just water, is it not?'. No, not anymore, over the last two years, the development of truly effective carpet and upholstery cleaning products has seen a large shift from traditional products to natural ones.We changed over in 2005, we did meet with some resistance, but the proof of the pudding really is in the eating, we are regularly speaking to new clients specifically ask us now to use only Natural cleaning.What are the benefits? Firstly, we do not want
Second, create a publishing schedule and stick to it. First Tuesday of the month, third Friday, whatever. The important thing is that you bake it into your monthly work schedule. An E-Newsletter will never be today's top priority, and unless you explicitly determine when it will come out, you're more likely than not to keep pushing it to the back burner.
4. Fear Of Writing
I hear it every day from the small b
What do Bill Gates (Microsoft), Sam Walton (Wal-Mart), Roger Smith (General Motors), Roberto Goizueta (Coca-Cola), Ross Perot (Perot Systems) have in common?These men are some of the most celebrated chief executives of the past decade. They are according to Advertising Age magazine, “Marketers of the Year” from 1985 to 1994. Lou Gerstner of IBM said about Bill Gates and his company Microsoft, which is the most successful company of the past decade, “Our biggest competitor in software is not a very good technical company. But it is one of the best marketing companies I have ever seen, and I have spent twenty years in marketing.”A good way to illustrate and describe marketing and sales is like going fishing. Marketing is throwing all the fish food and baits to attract the fishes. When the fishes come to feed the baits and fish food, selling is casting the net so that the fishes can be hauled in.How did McDonalds make a success of the hamburgers? The s
As a small business owner, you know a lot more than you may realize. And although running out of material is the number one reason cited by small business owners for not launching an E-Newsletter in the first place, I have never come across anyone who knew enough about a particular industry or topic to start a business in it, who didn't also have a nearly endless supply of content to choose from.
Remember, your clients and others who have an interest in your area of specialty, don't work in it every day the way you do. The things that are second nature to you, whether it's how to purchase life insurance if you're a broker; how to write a press release if you're a marketing consultant; or how to troubleshoot a light switch if you're an electrician; are all news to those of us on the outside of your industry.
The people who are going to read your newsletter have questions. You on the other hand, have answers, opinions, experience, and perspective. When it comes to your industry, you understand what matters and what doesn't, and how all the pieces fit together. These brief, useful nuggets are the things you write about.
2. Fear Of Technology
An E-Newsletter has a lot of moving parts. There are mailing lists to manage; links to set up; images to lay out; responses to track; and dozens of other small pieces to coordinate and fine tune, all in the course of writing and publishing a newsletter month after month. Managing this process efficiently requires a fair amount of technology churning away in the background. That's the bad news.
The good news is that email marketing has finally evolved to the point where there are dozens of vendors out there who, for a very small fee, will take care of most of this for you (go to Google and search on “email marketing vendors” for a look at what's out there). So while it's true that you will have to go down a learning curve before you can switch your newsletter publishing into autopilot, you no longer need technical skill to get there.
Managing the logistics of a monthly newsletter can be tedious at times, no question. But if you've ever successfully assembled a gas grill, you're more than technically qualified to publish an E-Newsletter.
3. Fear Of Publishing On A Regular Basis
Although you may be sold on the value of a regularly published E-Newsletter, you may still be worried that once let out of its cage, this beast won't ever leave you alone. The truth is, you're right to be concerned. If I had to point to one factor that plays the most significant role in the failure of company E-Newsletters, it's that the people behind them stop publishing.
Like starting an exercise program, we all go great guns out of the gate: telling everybody we know, celebrating every issue. But (also like exercise), by month four or five the thrill is gone, and many people start to wonder how to quietly put the thing out of its misery.
I'm happy to say that I've discovered two solutions to this potential problem.
First, publish monthly. Although it may seem that dropping back to a less frequent schedule will reduce the burden, in practice the opposite is true. The less often you publish, the bigger a deal it is, and the more it seems to hang over your head. A monthly schedule however, means that the next issue is never more than 30 days away, and you will find yourself less concerned with achieving perfection each time.
Second, create a publishing schedule and stick to it. First Tuesday of the month, third Friday, whatever. The important thing is that you bake it into your monthly work schedule. An E-Newsletter will never be today's top priority, and unless you explicitly determine when it will come out, you're more likely than not to keep pushing it to the back burner.
4. Fear Of Writing
I hear it every day from the small bu
To find the right promotional product for your company can be time consuming and difficult. This is one of the reasons why some companies assign marketing agencies to do the work for them. Not all companies (especially the small business) have the budget to pay for these marketing agencies so they have to do all the work alone.What I have to do before I search for a promotional product ?The first step you should do is brainstorming. You have to ask yourself what you want to get printed on your promotional product and what you want to promote ?You want to promote 1. a product which your company sells to customers. 2. your company. 3. your homepage.The best way is to combine 2 of these 3 points to get the best afford. For example: Print your company address or logo(2) and the URL of your homepage(3) on the promotional product. Or you can print the name of one of your products(1) on it with a few describing words and the URL of the homepage(3)
The people who are going to read your newsletter have questions. You on the other hand, have answers, opinions, experience, and perspective. When it comes to your industry, you understand what matters and what doesn't, and how all the pieces fit together. These brief, useful nuggets are the things you write about.
2. Fear Of Technology
An E-Newsletter has a lot of moving parts. There are mailing lists to manage; links to set up; images to lay out; responses to track; and dozens of other small pieces to coordinate and fine tune, all in the course of writing and publishing a newsletter month after month. Managing this process efficiently requires a fair amount of technology churning away in the background. That's the bad news.
The good news is that email marketing has finally evolved to the point where there are dozens of vendors out there who, for a very small fee, will take care of most of this for you (go to Google and search on “email marketing vendors” for a look at what's out there). So while it's true that you will have to go down a learning curve before you can switch your newsletter publishing into autopilot, you no longer need technical skill to get there.
Managing the logistics of a monthly newsletter can be tedious at times, no question. But if you've ever successfully assembled a gas grill, you're more than technically qualified to publish an E-Newsletter.
3. Fear Of Publishing On A Regular Basis
Although you may be sold on the value of a regularly published E-Newsletter, you may still be worried that once let out of its cage, this beast won't ever leave you alone. The truth is, you're right to be concerned. If I had to point to one factor that plays the most significant role in the failure of company E-Newsletters, it's that the people behind them stop publishing.
Like starting an exercise program, we all go great guns out of the gate: telling everybody we know, celebrating every issue. But (also like exercise), by month four or five the thrill is gone, and many people start to wonder how to quietly put the thing out of its misery.
I'm happy to say that I've discovered two solutions to this potential problem.
First, publish monthly. Although it may seem that dropping back to a less frequent schedule will reduce the burden, in practice the opposite is true. The less often you publish, the bigger a deal it is, and the more it seems to hang over your head. A monthly schedule however, means that the next issue is never more than 30 days away, and you will find yourself less concerned with achieving perfection each time.
Second, create a publishing schedule and stick to it. First Tuesday of the month, third Friday, whatever. The important thing is that you bake it into your monthly work schedule. An E-Newsletter will never be today's top priority, and unless you explicitly determine when it will come out, you're more likely than not to keep pushing it to the back burner.
4. Fear Of Writing
I hear it every day from the small b
House and apartment cleaning services are gaining in popularity. The main reason for this is due to families that have 2 working adults/parents in the home. The overworked family has no time for cleaning their home. Their need to supplement the family income creates the opportunity for you to set up a lucrative business.Ten years ago, businesses of this kind were serving only the affluent - homes of the wealthy people where people didn't want to be bothered with the drudgery of house cleaning, and had the money to pay someone to do it for them. But times have changed, and today the market includes many middle-income families in every residential area across the entire country. The potential market among apartment dwellers is great also. All in all this is a business that has grown fast, and has as much real wealth building potential as any we can think of.Cleaning services are generally associated with women owners, however, men are finding that they can organize, start
The good news is that email marketing has finally evolved to the point where there are dozens of vendors out there who, for a very small fee, will take care of most of this for you (go to Google and search on “email marketing vendors” for a look at what's out there). So while it's true that you will have to go down a learning curve before you can switch your newsletter publishing into autopilot, you no longer need technical skill to get there.
Managing the logistics of a monthly newsletter can be tedious at times, no question. But if you've ever successfully assembled a gas grill, you're more than technically qualified to publish an E-Newsletter.
3. Fear Of Publishing On A Regular Basis
Although you may be sold on the value of a regularly published E-Newsletter, you may still be worried that once let out of its cage, this beast won't ever leave you alone. The truth is, you're right to be concerned. If I had to point to one factor that plays the most significant role in the failure of company E-Newsletters, it's that the people behind them stop publishing.
Like starting an exercise program, we all go great guns out of the gate: telling everybody we know, celebrating every issue. But (also like exercise), by month four or five the thrill is gone, and many people start to wonder how to quietly put the thing out of its misery.
I'm happy to say that I've discovered two solutions to this potential problem.
First, publish monthly. Although it may seem that dropping back to a less frequent schedule will reduce the burden, in practice the opposite is true. The less often you publish, the bigger a deal it is, and the more it seems to hang over your head. A monthly schedule however, means that the next issue is never more than 30 days away, and you will find yourself less concerned with achieving perfection each time.
Second, create a publishing schedule and stick to it. First Tuesday of the month, third Friday, whatever. The important thing is that you bake it into your monthly work schedule. An E-Newsletter will never be today's top priority, and unless you explicitly determine when it will come out, you're more likely than not to keep pushing it to the back burner.
4. Fear Of Writing
I hear it every day from the small b
Why not use video before your next sales presentation?There are several ways to implement a video self-check. Yes, you can shoot a video of yourself and then watch any obvious mistakes you are making. But there is a glaring problem with this approach. Namely, the mistakes you catch will only be gaffes that are obvious to you. We call these the “Errors Apparent”.But what about the other slip-ups you make? Well, you are going to miss those glitches. And that’s an image-killer.By the way, that’s your image we’re talking about.It’s like proofing an English paper or a sales letter. No matter how many times you pour over the document with a spellchecker or a dictionary, certain nuances of punctuation and form escape you time and again. Yet your friend can review your paper and in a couple of seconds uncover typos or misspelled words. You missed them because you were incapable of seeing them.You missed them not for lack of effo
Like starting an exercise program, we all go great guns out of the gate: telling everybody we know, celebrating every issue. But (also like exercise), by month four or five the thrill is gone, and many people start to wonder how to quietly put the thing out of its misery.
I'm happy to say that I've discovered two solutions to this potential problem.
First, publish monthly. Although it may seem that dropping back to a less frequent schedule will reduce the burden, in practice the opposite is true. The less often you publish, the bigger a deal it is, and the more it seems to hang over your head. A monthly schedule however, means that the next issue is never more than 30 days away, and you will find yourself less concerned with achieving perfection each time.
Second, create a publishing schedule and stick to it. First Tuesday of the month, third Friday, whatever. The important thing is that you bake it into your monthly work schedule. An E-Newsletter will never be today's top priority, and unless you explicitly determine when it will come out, you're more likely than not to keep pushing it to the back burner.
4. Fear Of Writing
I hear it every day from the small b
If you are one of the mesmerized millions who have tuned into the hit reality show American Inventor, you probably witnessed the importance of first impressions and the power of branding. It only took seconds for the panel of judges to start formulating opinions on the worth and merit of the inventions, often based on nothing more than the product name and a brief introduction.A good example was the child psychologist who created an invention she named a "Tizzy". These were inflatable/foam devices that kids could put on, and bounce around in, without hurting themselves or others. Right away the impression was that it was some form of punishment. The one female judge, Mary Lou Quinlin, took special offense to the "Tizzy" and used words like "suffocating" when describing her opinion of the idea. She took the aspiring inventor to task and questioned her credentials, asking how she could possibly create such a horrible thing. You could see she had formed that imp
Second, create a publishing schedule and stick to it. First Tuesday of the month, third Friday, whatever. The important thing is that you bake it into your monthly work schedule. An E-Newsletter will never be today's top priority, and unless you explicitly determine when it will come out, you're more likely than not to keep pushing it to the back burner.
4. Fear Of Writing
I hear it every day from the small business owners I work with: "I can't put out an E-Newsletter, I'm a lousy writer." Well, you'll be happy to learn that writing an E-Newsletter - like email in general - is a lot more like talking than writing.
People don't expect to read prose on screen, and they don't want something that reads like an article from a local business journal. They want a piece of you and your expertise. As a result, the most effective E-Newsletters are those that sound as if the company leader is just talking; filled with all the slang, run on sentences and joking around that comes out in person.
After all, E-Newsletters are simply glorified emails, and email is fundamentally a two-way conversation. The more you can write in an authentic, friendly, spoken manner, the more it will feel to readers like somebody (i.e. you) is really on the other end. So don't worry about something that your high school English teacher would be proud of. Focus on turning out something that breaks down the walls between your company and your customers. Something real.
5. Fear That SPAM Makes It All A Waste Of Time
There's no doubt about it, SPAM has decreased the effectiveness of E-Newsletters over the last 12 months, and we are all much more aggressive with the delete key than ever before.
But, let's put that into some perspective. A good E-Newsletter sent to your house list will still be opened by over 50% of the people it's sent to. That's 5?, 10?, 50? times better (you pick) than the percentage of people who read your newspaper ads; respond to your direct mail; or accept your unsolicited phone calls. The fact is, for the small business owner, an E-Newsletter represents the first time in history that she's ever been able to cost effectively communicate with her entire customer and prospect base over and over and over again. Not only that, but thanks to the inherently democratic nature of email (i.e. the big boys don't get any more space in the email inbox than the rest of us), an E-Newsletter gives us the opportunity to not just compete with, but outperform our much larger competitors for the attention of readers.
Yes, SPAM has taken some of the shine off of this diamond. But make no mistake, it's still a diamond.
A Final Comment
You may be waiting to launch your E-Newsletter until everything is "just right." Until your mailing list is large enough; until you've stockpiled enough columns so you'll never run out; until you've hired that new marketing person; etc., etc.
I've got news for you. No matter how much you plan and prepare, things are going to go wrong even then. I've been midwife at the birth of dozens of E-Newsletters, and every time we launch one (every time), something goes wrong. It's never the same something, but it's always there. So don't worry about it, just get in the game.
Three reasons: First, because the cost of error online is exceedingly low. If you make a mistake -- or simply change your mind! -- you can fix it. Nothing about your newsletter need be permanent, from the name to the look to the content. Every issue is an opportunity to start f
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