Newsletter writing does not have to be difficutl, if you know the secret!

No doubt about it, customers love stories. But don’t just describe what you do. There are certain times when you’re writing articles in your newsletter where you can be selling. After all, great newsletters are sales letters in disguise!

There’s a way to write so that it reads like a success story. Demonstrate your benefits for your customers by telling them a story about ‘someone like them’ who succeeded because they purchased your product or service. Here’s what I mean.

Instead of describing a product or service, paint a story that illustrates the benefits of the product or service. Instead of using the headline XYZ Insurance Company Announces New Coverage, say New Line of Coverage Saves Small Manufacturer $23,000 in Insurance Premiums. This is a much more effective headline. It grabs the readers’ attention. It allows you to share one of your success stories and gets readers thinking, “I wonder if this coverage would work for me?”

What you’re doing is you’re providing information. It’s all about good information. But you’re doing it in a way that’s going to cause people to think, “Hmm, I could benefit from that.”

See what I mean? Learn more about this strategy and many others in The Magic of Newsletter Marketing – The Secret to More Profits and Customers for Life. http://www.thenewsletterguru.com/nlmagic/

As Bill Glazer says, ignoring this book will cause undue risk to your business!

Check out my ‘Done-for-You’ newsletters at http://www.nohasslenewsletters.com.

This will be a quick posting – but well worth a two minutes of your time becuase I’m going to share a great customer relationship idea with you.

Last Friday I received a voice mail from someone I know that owns a consulting company. He told me that he purchased my book, The Magic of Newsletter Marketing – The Secret to More Profits and Customers for Life, and he liked it so much so that he wanted to send 60 copies to his best customers as surprise gifts! I was of course very flattered and UPS is picking up the case of books this morning (at a nice bulk purchase price!) but there is a good lesson here for every entrepreneur and business owner.

Sending your customers ‘unexpected’ gifts a great way to build appreciation, loyalty, and strengthen what is our most precious business asset – the relationships we have with our customers. Given the fragile economy, no business can afford to lose many customers. So, I suggest that if it’s been a while, or it you’ve never ‘gifted’ your best customers, now would be a great time to start. Makes a fantastic impression!

What customer relationship strategies are you using that are working well? Please share!

If you regularly publish a newsletter, the way that you write your newsletter is critical. Someone who picks up your monthly customer newsletter should be able to get the key points in any of your articles just by scanning.

Use simple subheads to highlight key points. If you have more than one key point in your text, you can use more than one subhead.  Use boldface to call attention to important words and phrases. Notice how your eye naturally is drawn to the boldfaced word in this paragraph. You want to stop a scanner dead in their tracks.

Because if a scanner scanning the newsletter doesn’t stop and read the articles, it’s not likely they’re going to get a lot out of it. The whole idea is you want them to read the newsletter.

There are also devices you can use to increase readability. Charts often make concepts clear. Bulleted lists are great for summarizing key points and make newsletters crisp, clear, and easy to read. I use all of these techniques when I design my Success Advantage No Hassle ‘done-for-you’ Newsletters.

The Secret to Selecting Typefaces

Headlines and body copy are the way that text is presented to the reader. You want your design to be both professional looking and readable. Start by fully understanding the following important terms.

A typeface is a style of type. This line is in a typeface called Times New Roman.

There are two basic kinds of typefaces that you’ll see in great newsletters.

1) There are “serif faces,” like Times New Roman. A “serif” is the little curl or footing on the letters. A book face is a typeface with both serifs and shading. Times New Roman is a book face.

2) There are also “sans-serif” typefaces. That means that there are no serifs on the letters. Arial, the typeface being used in this sentence, is a sans-serif typeface.

A font is the rendition of a letter or word in a typeface. This is Times New Roman 10-point font. Point is the size of the type. This is Times New Roman 10-point Bold.

Right now you’re probably thinking, “What does that have to do with me and my newsletter?” But this is important, so stay with me.

Pick up a major newspaper and look at it. You’ll notice that the newspapers all use similar typefaces. They use sans-serif typefaces for headlines. They use book faces for body copy. You should too. Sans-serif typefaces are good for headlines. The eye finds it easy to stop at the end of a line. Book faces are good for body copy. They encourage the eye to keep moving.

Read more about design techniques and strategies, and get some easy to use newsletter checklists in my book, The Magic of Newsletter Marketing – the Secret to More Profits and Customers for Life! It is available at Amazon.com or my Web site, www.TheNewsletterGuru.com.

Remember, newsletter writing is the most important part of great customer newsletters!

One of the greatest gifts an entrepreneur can have is a mentor, or multiple mentors. I was blessed to meet a good friend soon after I started my business, and he became a great source of inspiration, motivation, and when needed – a good kick in the pants! Earlier in John’s career he started and grew a very large appliance store chain and after selling that started a large tele-com business. He was an aggressive and smart man.

One lesson in particular has not only stuck with me for these years, but I have actually turned his lesson into one of my most popular entrepreneurial success strategies that I teach. I call it, the ‘Power of Zero,’ and essentially whatever your goal is, add a zero to it and then watch what happens to your thinking, planning, and ultimately your outcome.

For example, if you had a goal of adding 10 new clients next month, you would have a pretty clear picture of what you needed to do to accomplish that goal. However, if you add a zero and say that you want 100 new clients next month, more than not this would require a whole new strategy and plan. You mind would need to shift gears and think outside the box on many levels. The cool part is, just imagine ‘missing’ your new goal by 50% and ending up with 50 new clients, compared to achieving 100% of your previous goal, and ending up with 10, no doubt feeling proud of yourself!

So, the next time you set a goal, add a zero to it and then ask yourself, what has to happen to make this a reality and watch your brain go to work! You might be asking what brought this up today. Well, about a year ago, my friend John moved to the city and as my business has taken off we were both busy and lost touch, until a few weeks ago. John invited Stephanie and me to his daughter’s wedding, which was last night. During the reception I thanked John again for being a great friend and mentor to me also I also shared with him how his regular ‘butt-kicking’ of my early modest business goals has not only led me to greater heights of success, it is now something that I teach to other entrepreneurs, and as I said, I now call this the power of zero! Give it a try and let me know how you do. Also, please share any mentor stories you have.