One of the most important parts of a newsletter that gets results is customer testimonials. The cold hard truth is that testimonials SELL! Testimonials “speak” to potential customers and prospects in an honest, believable way.

Most people are far more likely to believe a third party than to believe a salesperson. Think about it; I could spend all day telling you what a good decision it would be to hire Dynamic Communication to write or design your organization’s newsletter. By way of example, here is one customer testimonial that I have on my Web site. 

“We tried for two years to launch a newsletter and had no success. After one meeting, Dynamic Communication understood what we were looking for and created a great-looking newsletter that really enhanced the image of our company. The response has been terrific, from both clients and prospects.” – John Cipollone – John Cipollone and Associates  

Or I could tell you what a great deal it is to use my No Hassle Newsletter services. I could list all the benefits and on and on, or I could simply let my customer testimonials do the job. Here is a sample testimonial from the No Hassle Newsletter Web site.  “Every time we mail our mortgage newsletter, The Home Connection, we get at least one new client by way of referral!” – Ken Pitts – Sunset Mortgage 

A poorly written customer testimonial is ten times more effective than the most polished sales message from your marketing department. Amazingly, when people read testimonials they immediately feel more confident in your company, products, and services.

According to marketing guru Dan Kennedy, “What others say about you and your product, service, or business is at least 1000% more convincing than what you say, even if you are 1000% more eloquent.

”You see, most customers doubt what we say about ourselves, but they will believe other customers. And the more customers there are who say good things about us, the more prospective customers will believe them.

Mike Capuzzi, president of Persistent Marketing, created a very powerful marketing piece for one of his clients. Mike’s company put together and mailed a book to a prospect list called 58 Reasons Why People Do Business with SSI. The entire book consisted of 58 customer testimonials! The company got great results and they didn’t even have to write one single word!

So please remember, your newsletter is an extension of your company’s marketing efforts. Be sure to include some customer testimonials whenever possible.

Hello and happy Friday! I know… it’s been a week since I posted to this blog, but the past seven days have been very busy. With Stephanie now home recuperating from pneumonia, I’ve had to sharpen my cooking and housecleaning skills! Thankfully, some family and friends brought us a few meals because I think she was getting sick of French toast and macaroni and cheese! The good news is she is getting her strength back and I am getting things in the office back under control.

I am putting the finishing touches on my new e-book, Newsletter Secrets Revealed. I am excited to share this with you as it will be an incredible resource for anyone that wants to learn the secrets of producing a newsletter that gets great results. In fact, I will be announcing a new series of five books before the end of this month.

So, as just to tease you a bit, I am going to share a few passages with you over the next few weeks. The passage today is about the importance of good copy. I hope you enjoy it!  Newsletter Copy.  Good copy is the core of your newsletter. You can have great information, but if your newsletter is not well-written it won’t deliver value to your customers. Here are a few of the things that make good newsletter writing.

Good writing is readable writing.

Most of us learned to write by writing academic papers in stiff, formal language. That might be great for college, but it won’t get the job done in your newsletter.  People enjoy writing that uses a conversational tone and reminds them of conversation with a knowledgeable friend. Use words that you would use in conversation with your customer. Avoid jargon or special acronyms. Use words that you would use talking with a person who doesn’t know your side of the industry with its special language and shorthand. Don’t abbreviate except for the most common titles, names of states, etc.   Follow the guidelines for good, clear writing. Use simple sentences. Use common words. Keep your paragraphs short.  Here’s a tip. If you use Microsoft Word, there’s a feature built into the grammar checking function that can help you improve your writing.  

The importance of personality

Convey your personality in your writing. Your word choice should reflect you and your common way of talking and thinking. Readers value writing with a personality and they’ll keep reading your newsletter if you provide it. 

Good newsletter writing is scannable

Someone who picks up your newsletter should be able to get the key points in any of your articles by just scanning. Use simple sub-heads to highlight key points. That’s a technique we’re using in this book. Look at any chapter and the sub-heads will give you an outline of the key points. Use boldface to call attention to important words and phrases. Notice how your eye naturally is drawn to the boldface word in this paragraph. 

Good newsletter writing is short

Everything we’ve said so far is true for every kind of writing. Your newsletter writing should be all those things. But it should also be short. You’ve heard me mention previously that a person should be able to read your newsletter in ten minutes or less. No individual piece should take more than three or four minutes to read. In addition to short words, sentences and paragraphs your newsletter articles should be short. Ideally they should fit on part of a single page.