Do you often struggle with what to write about in your monthly customer newsletter?  Well you’re not alone. We all suffer from writers block or blank screen syndrome occasionally. Relax, because I’m going to reveal a sure fire cure and this tip alone will give you enough content for two years!  Click the video to watch my newsletter marketing success tip!

Consistency is one of the most important ingredients of a successful newsletter. If you want to have a great newsletter, they must show up like clockwork every month, preferably the same day and never be late!

It’s important to understand that each newsletter should be filled with useful fun and informative content but being consistent trumps everything else, from the layout and color scheme to the quality of your content. One of the most common and worst mistakes in the newsletter business is inconsistency. Inconsistent newsletters can be seen as junk mail that no one wants to read and no one ever pays attention to.

In order to build a trusting relationship with your customers, your newsletters must be consistent. Knowing they can trust your newsletter to be on time goes leaps and bounds and does wonders for your business. You want your newsletter to be looked forward to, just like monthly magazines, and not received sporadically like other mail is.

Not only must your newsletter be sent the same time every month, they must be published every month. This allows you to get into the habit of making, writing, editing, and publishing the newsletter every month. Once you get into a rhythm, you will always be looking for good information and pictures and each time it will be quicker and easier to compose your newsletter.

This is also good for customer support, since it will get your customers used to receiving information from you every month and will start to look forward to reading it. Newsletters are also great to alert customers in advance of upcoming sales and special promotions. By the time your promotion actually arrives, your customers will be looking for it in their newsletters and this will increase the success of your promotion. Also, you can hand out your newsletters as flyers, telling people on the street about your great offers.

As stated before, consistency will always be the most important characteristic of your company newsletter. If you can remain consistent, you will build up a strong relationship with your customers that will increase business and bring new customers into your store.

Newsletter writing is a skill that once learned can reap huge dividend for your business. Many companies make the mistake of writing all about what I refer to as ‘work stuff’ – big mistake! Producing a newsletter that gets read requires you to write about what interests your customers, not you!

If your company newsletter informs, educates, and entertains your customers, with a special emphasis on entertains, your customers will read it month after month. If you give them a newsletter that focuses too much on your business, products, and services, they will not likely read it every month, and you will come to the conclusion that newsletters are not very effective.

So what makes good content for the “work stuff” part of your newsletter? Think about the questions your customers ask you. Those answers make great copy for your newsletter. Let’s say you have a chiropractic practice. Patients have heard about carpal tunnel syndrome and ask questions about it. Patients know that chiropractors deal with back pain, so they ask you all kinds of back pain questions when they come in the door. And if you’re a chiropractor, you get questions about general health issues like keeping kids healthy.

All of those questions and concerns can be turned into articles for your newsletter. Help your readers solve a problem. Answer their questions. Conversely, say you are an accountant. Each month you send a newsletter jammed with information—about tax laws or pending legislation that Congress is considering. As this accountant’s customer, would you read it? No! That’s what you pay your accountant for—to know the tax laws and follow his industry.

Don’t make your newsletter all about your business. No matter what business you’re in, you know your customers’ problems. You know the questions they ask. That’s what your newsletter should be about. The “other stuff” is so important, and so needed, it is the reason that I created what is my most popular product to date, Success Advantage 2.0.

Success Advantage 2.0 is my monthly ‘Done-for-You’ newsletter content and ready-to-use newsletter template program. To help people create and send their customer newsletters every month, I supply subscribers with at least twenty pages of my famous customer-loving content (the “other stuff”) covering a wide range of topics that they are free to use in their newsletters. I also provide subscribers with ready-to-use newsletter templates to remove the hassle of designing their newsletter. The newsletters are provided in MS Word so that they are quick and easy for anyone to edit. So, if you want to have your monthly newsletter about 90 percent ready to go even before you write a single word, go immediately to www.NoHassleNewsletters.com.

The secret to successful newsletter publishing is writing your newsletter correctly. When I speak live I often refer to this as ‘clean writing.’

Clean writing is writing that doesn’t call attention to itself. Clean writing is free of grammatical and spelling errors. Here are some tips on how to write clean copy. If you produce a customer or company newsletter I suggest following these five tips.

1. Write more than one draft. Professional writers almost always write more than one draft. Next, sleep on it, then when you come back to a piece, it’s easier to spot errors and rough phrases. It’s easier to see how to improve your work.

2. Use your spell check, but don’t make this your only spelling and grammar check. Spell-check programs are great, and you can even use them to improve your writing over time. But they can miss important things. Spell checking programs are excellent at finding words that are spelled incorrectly. But they can’t tell if a correctly spelled word is the word you meant or if it’s the right word for the situation.

3. Here’s a tip for Microsoft Word users. There’s a feature built into the grammar checking function that can help you improve your writing. Select the option that gives you readability statistics when you check spelling and grammar. Then every spell-check will give you two helpful statistics. 1) The Flesch Reading Ease Score gives you a measure of how easy your piece is to read. You want to make this number as high as possible. 2) The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level measures readability in a different way. It computes the lowest grade level that can read your piece and easily understand it. You want to get this below 10 and usually above 6 for newsletter copy. Fortunately, one of the best ways to judge the quality and readability of your writing is also one of the easiest.

4. Read your writing out loud. This is a critically important strategy. Don’t read your newsletter articles on your monitor. Instead, print them out and then read it. Even better, have someone else read your piece out loud to you. Reading aloud calls attention to every rough spot and unnatural phrasing. You’ll instantly discover that the way you talk out loud is not necessarily how you write, and your copy will swiftly improve. I suggest doing this for everything you write.

5. Get someone else to edit and proofread your articles. When we look at our own writing, we usually see what we intended to write. We’re likely to skip over phrasing problems and not spot errors in word usage, spelling, and typos. There’s an expression in the information marketing world: “Good is good enough, get it out there.” I believe that. I don’t necessarily strive for perfection. I strive for doing the best job I can.

To be honest with you, I use an outside proofing company. I can send them anything. I can send them PDFs, Word documents, whatever. For a very, very reasonable fee, two English majors read over it then send it back with their comments and suggestions. It’s very cheap. I think it’s either $9 or $11 for a page, which is 500 words, very cheap. One of the hardest things in the world is to proofread your own stuff.

Again, the secret to successful newsletter publishing is writing your newsletter correctly. The reason for this is fairly simple; the newsletters that get read are the ones that produce results.

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!

I’ve often been asked, “Is it wise to send the same newsletter to different customer groups?” For instance, perhaps you own a business that has both retail and wholesale customers. My answer: more than likely it’s not a good idea, and I’ll tell you why, but have no fear. Sending two newsletters is not as difficult as you may think. 

If you have two or more different customer groups (here we’ll use our example of a business that has both retail and wholesale customers), obviously you’re going to write a separate personal monthly message, because if you’re talking with wholesale customers you’re generally talking a different language. Wholesalers have a different language than retailers. You might use certain jargon or buzzwords. Any special offer, obviously, will need to be tailored two different ways.

And of course, if you’re going to do a customer profile, you’ll want to write about one of your wholesale customers in the newsletter that goes out to your wholesale customers, and you will profile a retail customer in the newsletter that goes out to your retail customers. If you do otherwise, people will be confused about what you’re doing. (Remember, know your customer and gear the newsletter toward him or her.)

Here’s how to make this fairly easy on yourself. You don’t need to customize each entire newsletter. The only place you really have to customize is the article on the front, which is usually your work stuff, and your article on the back page, which is usually your personal monthly message. Your other content as well as your contact information will probably remain the same. If you want your customer newsletter to arrive to you about 90% ready to go every month, then check out my wildly popular No Hassle ‘Done-for-You’ newsletter templates and content program, Success Advantage 2.0!

Clean writing is writing that doesn’t call attention to itself. Clean writing is free of grammatical and spelling errors. Here are some tips on how to write clean copy.

Write more than one draft. Even professional writers do this. Next, sleep on it, then when you come back to a piece, it’s easier to spot errors and rough phrases. It’s easier to see how to improve your work.

Use your spell check, but don’t make this your only spelling and grammar check. Spell-check programs are great, and you can even use them to improve your writing over time. But they can miss important things. Spell checking programs are excellent at finding words that are spelled incorrectly. But they can’t tell if a correctly spelled word is the word you meant or if it’s the right word for the situation.

Here’s an example of how that can get you into trouble. It comes from the humor column of a denominational magazine. The writer intended to say that people with specific business talents could “use those in the service of the church.” Alas, two letters were transposed. The spell-check didn’t catch the error because the transposition still spelled a valid word. Instead, the line that went out in a letter to thousands and later caused quite a chuckle was that those people could “sue those in the service of the church.”

Here’s a tip for Microsoft Word users. There’s a feature built into the grammar checking function that can help you improve your writing. Select the option that gives you readability statistics when you check spelling and grammar. Then every spell-check will give you two helpful statistics. 1) The Flesch Reading Ease Score gives you a measure of how easy your piece is to read. You want to make this number as high as possible. 2) The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level measures readability in a different way. It computes the lowest grade level that can read your piece and easily understand it. You want to get this below 10 and usually above 6 for newsletter copy.

Fortunately, one of the best ways to judge the quality and readability of your writing is also one of the easiest.

Read your writing out loud. Don’t read it on your monitor. Print it out and then read it. Even better, have someone else read your piece out loud to you. Reading aloud calls attention to every rough spot and unnatural phrasing. You’ll instantly discover that the way you talk out loud is not necessarily how you write, and your copy will swiftly improve. I suggest doing this for everything you write.

Get someone to edit and proofread your articles. When we look at our own writing, we usually see what we intended to write. We’re likely to skip over phrasing problems and not spot errors in word usage, spelling, and typos. There’s an expression in the information marketing world: “Good is good enough, get it out there.” I believe that. I don’t necessarily strive for perfection. I strive for doing the best job I can.

To be honest with you, I use an outside proofing company. I can send them anything. I can send them PDFs, Word documents, whatever. For a very, very reasonable fee, two English majors read over it then send it back with their comments and suggestions. It’s very cheap. I think it’s either $9 or $11 for a page, which is 500 words, very cheap. One of the hardest things in the world is to proofread your own stuff.

Based on my 28 years of experience producing great newsletters that get amazing results, I want to share five secrets with you on how to create a great company newsletter. 

Secret # 1 - Tell them what else you do. Many customers initially engage with a business by purchasing a single product or service. Over time they may do repeat business, usually reordering the same product or service, unaware of the other products or services that the company has to offer. How many times have you heard a client I didn’t know you did that,” or, “I didn’t know you also sold that”? Or, “I didn’t know you also sold that!” These are all missed opportunities to increase your revenue. 

Secret #2 - Tell them what’s new. As business owners, we are always coming up with new products and services. A newsletter is a great way to get the word out to people who already trust you and find value in what you sell. This can often be done quite effectively by way of customer success stories or testimonials. 

Secret #3 - It’s not about you. This is very important. Your newsletter is not about you or how many industry awards you have won. Your newsletter should be about what’s important and interesting to your customers and clients. Inform, educate, and entertain them, and they will look forward to your newsletter. It is also vitally important that your newsletter have the right ‘balance’ of content. Too much about your business and it will look and feel too much like a marketing piece. Learn more about the ‘proper balance’ by visiting www.successadvantage.net.

Secret #4 – Recognize the expensive real estate! The back page of your newsletter is not simply the mailing panel; it is the first thing your readers will see when the newsletter comes out of the mailbox. This is a great place to put important items that you want readers to see. 

Secret #5: – Frequency trumps everything. Frequency is more important than the size of a newsletter, whether it’s color or black and white, or even the quality of the content! Yes, you heard me right – I would actually prefer a homemade cheesy newsletter published monthly to a professionally designed newsletter done twice a year. You simply must have frequency to build trust and relationships.

To learn twelve more secrets of a great newsletter, get a copy of my book, The Magic of Newsletter Marketing – The Secret to More Profits and Customers for Life at www.SuccessAdvantagePublishing.com.

Do you struggle finding content (or finding the time to write it) for your newsletter? Does this prevent you publishing every issue on time? Has this “blank page syndrome” even prevented you from writing your first newsletter?! If you answered yes to any of these questions, I created Success Advantage just for you! Imagine every month getting 21 pages of great content that you are free to use in your newsletter! Now imagine that you also get my awesome ‘ready-to-use’ newsletter templates, my monthly coaching call, a monthly audio lesson and a don-for-you ezine! Subscribe today and let this amazing program become your Success Advantage – check it out at http://www.successadvantage.net

Blogging is a concept that started in late 90s. It used to be a way to comment on an existing webpage, an opportunity for visitors and readers to react or voice out one’s opinion on the said page. What started as a single-sentence commentary has evolved into pages of personal take on just about anything and everything under the sun. As it continues to move forward, online advertising has tapped into the blog’s potential. 

Here are 5 reasons why you should use blogging as an Internet marketing tool. 

1. Blogging is simple. The simplest way to get your piece on the net is through blogging.  No skills are necessary… an average adult can read and type, or at least click a mouse.  It’s like having a virtual piece of paper and you just write your ideas, experiences, new products, and hope that the truth behind your articles comes out and entice your reader to also try your product.  If you have a PC and an Internet connection (who doesn’t?) then you can blog and advertise.

2. Blogging is authentic. In this day and age where advertising saturate our lives, we question the credibility of promoters’ claims. However, in blogs, real people share their real-life experiences, unscathed by paid advertising. Reading blogs about first-hand product use is like talking to people about their first-hand experience. You definitely want to buy a tried and tested product.

3. Blogging is free. Because blogging is yet to be proven as a mainstream online advertising media, most sites see it as something to augment current marketing tools and thus offer it for free.  Any opportunity for free Web time is definitely a bonus especially to businesses that are starting up. Needless to say, paid blog pages can generate more income for your seriously growing business.

4. Blogging builds credibility. As you get more and more into writing your experiences on a particular product or industry, your readers come to realize that they can depend on your posts for their own information needs. As such, you become an expert on it; as a consequence, more readers visit your site and more bloggers link to your blogs. As companies and professional organizations notice the growth of your readership base, they may soon get in touch with you for advertising on your blog page, or make you an affiliate, which pays for every referral generated from your blog site.

5. Blogging builds your market. Unless you are a Hollywood star, chances are, only your Mom reads your posts. Mom has a lot of friends, so she lets her friends know how interesting your blog site is. But you need not depend on Mom to increase your readership base. Look into the following ways to build your market through blogging:

-By using your e-mail. Today, blogging is overcoming the e-mail’s popularity in quickly and effectively reaching and expanding a market. In this age of speed and quick access, logging in and downloading e-mail is simply taking longer than clicking into a blog site. Let them explore your site by using a short e-mail message as teaser to your blog site.  If your e-mail is on an entirely different subject, use your e-mail signature to give a link to the site.

-By using subscription. An easy way to get your readers e-mail is to give them an opportunity to subscribe to your blog site. Keep some exclusive information for your subscribers to entice readers to subscribe and give their e-mail address. Just be responsible in using their e-mail address, as the last thing you want is a comment on your blog that you are a spammer.

-By understanding your readers. Conduct a simple survey for your readers to understand their profile and advertising preferences. Ask consumers to give you feedback on a post, an ad link, or a trial that you shared. In this way, it is like interviewing your readers without the commitment and intrusion of a face-to-face interview.

-By joining a blog network. A network of blogs maybe a collection of blog sites that share the same industry, interest, readership base, payment mode, etc. Consumers find credibility and convenience in clicking one link to several real bloggers about a single subject. Clearly, more bloggers are better than one.

-By using RSS. RSS is the fastest growing technology on the Internet today. As such, having RSS feeds to your blog is definitely another means of generating awareness for your readership base. Having a variety of feeds can add interest to your blog site. 

Give your business a boost by effectively using blogging as an Internet marketing tool.

My business for almost 30 years has been writing and publishing newsletters. As you might imagine, I spend a great deal of time writing. Like most things, doing it a lot tends to make you better. As I have mentioned at least a few times in this blog, I read TONS of books. Reading also makes you a better writer.  As a blogger, I visit and read a lot of blogs and one of the things I notice is that many focus on what to do. In this entry I want to focus on some of the things that you should avoid as you produce a customer newsletter for your business. By the way, I think I will list some of the blogs that I visit in a future posting, so keep coming back.  Here are Four Critical Mistakes You MUST Avoid! 

1. Not providing contact information — It’s hard to believe, but I have seen this too many times! If you’re going to take the time to create a great marketing tool such as a customer newsletter, don’t forget to tell your readers how to contact you!
2. Forgetting it’s not about you — There is always a big temptation when you start writing your newsletter to write about what is in your mind or what’s important in your world. WRONG! If your customers are going to read and enjoy your newsletter, and therefore read it again and again, it must contain information and content that is important to them.
3. Not enough pictures — One of the quickest ways to get your newsletter NOT READ is to load it up with tons of text and no pictures. I often joke with my clients about my patented (just kidding) rule of thumb for readability. Here it is: if people look at your newsletter and quickly determine that it can be read in ten minutes or less, chances are it will probably get read — otherwise it won’t. It will likely go into the pile of things that someone intends to read but probably never will.
4. Lack of distinctive personality — For heaven’s sake, don’t be boring! People get enough boring marketing messages thrown at them every day. Give your newsletter some personality. Make your readers feel a part of something fun and unique. Trust me on this; your readers will look forward to every newsletter if they learn something, are entertained, and crack a smile!

To learn more secrets about writing and publishing a newsletter, get a copy of my book, The Magic of Newsletter Marketing, the Secret to More Profits and Customers for Life by clicking here.

If writing and publishing a newsletter seems like a daunting experience, then check out my wildly popular ‘Done-for-You’ newsletter program called Success Advantage. It is truly a No Hassle Newsletter!