Hello everyone! Recently I mentioned that I was making the final edits to my new book, Newsletter Secrets Revealed – How to Use Newsletters to Make Your Profits Soar, and that I was also assembling some awesome bonus items. Well – the wait is over! This truly one of a kind book is finished and I will be announcing it first to my loyal subscribers next Thursday – so watch for it!

I also want to let you know that I am going to be one of 30 entrepreneurs featured in the upcoming book, Dream, Inc. – Million Dollar Business Strategies from 30 Successful Philadelphia-Area Entrepreneurs. This book will be out in early January 2008.

There are many important pieces to a great newsletter that gets results. Right at the top of the list is the use of powerful attention-grabbing headlines.

Here are a couple ideas to use in your newsletter. 

Make your headline a startling, interesting, or provocative comment. Geico’s “Fifteen minutes could save your fifteen percent on car insurance” is an example. So is “Europe on $5 per day” and “At 60 miles per hour, the loudest sound in a new Rolls Royce comes from the electric clock.” 

Make your headline a question. The classic “Do you make these common mistakes in spelling?” is a good example.  

Use your headline to tell your readers who your piece is for. Engineers stop for headlines with the word “engineer” in them. Managers pay attention to headlines with the word “manager.” 

Promise a benefit in your headline. What’s a benefit? It’s a promise to make your reader rich or famous or powerful or loved or just to make things easier. It’s a promise that things will be different.  

Emotional, news, and promise words can make headlines better. Emotional words include “darling,” “love,” “excited,” “joyful,” “proud,” etc. News headlines announce something “new” or “revolutionary.”  And words such as “original,” “biggest,” “top-rated,” “museum-quality,” “profit,” and, of course, “free” are promise words. This might seem like a lot of extra work, but trust me – a great headline can mean the difference between getting your article read or not read.   Enjoy your weekend!

Hello and happy Friday to you! I hope that everyone had a great Halloween. My wife, Stephanie, and I attended a Halloween party and despite my predictable kicking and screaming about the costume, we had a great time. This year, however, I am determined not to eat all of the left over candy.

I’ll wait until Thanksgiving before starting the typical holiday weight gain!

I hope you enjoy today’s short, but VERY IMPORTANT message on newsletters. People today are bombarded with messages and information competing for attention.

Think about how you open your mail.  The odds are pretty good that you do it near a wastebasket. You zip through the pile of mail, flipping most of the envelopes into the wastebasket unopened.  Then you look at what’s left and you decide, “What am I going to read?”

I’ve done some research on this so I can tell you that if you’re like most people you’ll start to answer that question by figuring out how long it will take to read each piece. The magic threshold is ten minutes or less. You read things that you think will take less than ten minutes and give you value. You set everything else aside to read later. For many of us, “later” never comes. That’s how your customers work. They cull out what they think will be interesting and helpful from the mounds of incoming information.

When publishing a company newsletter, there are three common mistkaes that people make. Let me share them with you now so when writing and designing your newsletter, you can avoid them!

Mistake No. 1: Unoriginal name and poor masthead design Too many customers will use the company’s name for their newsletter. This usually reeks of “homemade.” The newsletter name and masthead design need to tell the reader what the overall theme of the newsletter is.    

Mistake No. 2: Lack of a quality, targeted tagline. The tagline appears just below the masthead and, in a few words, fully explains the benefits of reading the newsletter or what readers can expect to get out of it. The two examples below are great examples (of course I would say that!) of effective mastheads and taglines. The masthead design and newsletter name give readers an idea what the newsletter is about, and the tagline that follows adds clarity. 

Mistake No. 3: Ineffective ratio of text to graphics Newsletters must be visually pleasing and easy to read, or they won’t get read. Newsletters must have a good balance of text and pictures. In addition, the pictures need to add value to the articles by helping to “sell” them. People tend to look at pictures, headlines, subheads, call-out boxes and bullets. If each of these tells them something interesting, they will then decide to read the article.

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!

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.

In this second installment of what makes a great newsletter, I address the all-important topic of content.  Great newsletters are newsletters that customers love to read. Here are the important points about the kind of writing that customers love.  

Customers love stories. Don’t just describe what you do. Demonstrate your benefits for the customer by telling them about someone like them who succeeded because they purchased your product or service.  

Customers love to learn new things. You’re the expert on your business and what you do. Tell them about new developments. Introduce them to new products or services. Offer them articles that help them learn. 

Customers love a little humor. Just because newsletters are serious business doesn’t mean you should be long-faced and serious all the time. Lighten your message with gentle humor. 

Customers don’t want to work hard to get value from your newsletter. The best newsletter writing is like the best writing anywhere. It’s simple and easy to read.  I’ve been producing newsletters for nearly thirty years for clients in just about every industry.

Whether it’s working with my private corporate clients in Dynamic Communication (http://www.dynamiccommunication.net ), or producing my nationally famous No Hassle Newsletters (http://www.nohasslenewsletters.com), I can tell you that following these rules is not always easy.  Sometimes it is just too easy for companies to take some copy from other marketing sources and drop in the newsletter – just to get it done. The problem with this approach is that your newsletter reads like just another marketing piece. This is a sure fire way for your newsletter to therefore receive the same treatment – which is usually a fast trip to the circular file!    

Have a great weekend!