In my former life as a regional manager, I had both ‘corporate office’ experience and I was also active in the field, working with the same stores and employees that I had come up through. This ‘front line’ experience helped me to appreciate the silly and often ridiculous ways that those at corporate, you might say, the Ivory Tower, would interfere with the company’s real mission which is to grow the business by meeting and exceeding customer expectations. Twenty five years in retail has ingrained in me an ability to spot stupidity a mile away, as I did last week.

I was on a tight schedule as usual and one of my stops was at my personal bank to deposit a check. I pulled in to the drive through and after waiting almost 10 minutes the attendant returned to tell me that they couldn’t deposit my check because it looked altered. What?

It was my own company check, written by me to myself, to be deposited (not cashed!) into the personal checking account I had with this bank. It seems that the bank has a policy of not accepting checks that may appear to be altered. At first glance this seems like a worthwhile safety policy for all concerned, but what were they objecting to?

The clerk explained that the date looked altered. They said that they couldn’t tell if the date was February 12 or 13! It was not altered, perhaps my messy handwriting, but in either case, what difference could this possible make, it was February 13? At this point I wasn’t mad, I was stunned in disbelief.

I realized that the clerk was just following orders and not the one to be upset with so I asked if the manager was inside. He said that she was but that she already OK’d this! “Tell her I’ll be right in.”

I drove around, parked and went inside where the manager was waiting for me. She re-explained the banks policy and showed me that the date on my check was not clear! Since it was already February 13 I asked what possible difference it could make and she just repeated the banks ‘no alterations’ policy. Now I was getting streamed.

Here are the facts as I explained them to the branch manager.
• You know me by sight as one of your customers
• You personally opened up our checking and savings accounts
• You processed our home equity loan six months ago
• You know that I own my own business, that this is my company check, written by me
• And finally, I’m not looking to withdraw money; I’m depositing this money into your bank!

No dice. I had to drive home, write another check and come back. Despite my growing red face I still recognized that even the branch manager was not the policy maker so I asked who was and if we could get them on the phone. Surprisingly she obliged and she got the banks controller on the phone to clarify their ‘no alterations’ policy. Having told the controller the facts as I just outlined above, the branch manager then said to the ‘Ivory Tower’ controller that even though I know Jim, if I accept this check I will be written up, right? She was told, “Yes you will.”

And there you have it. The branch manager was afraid for her job and the result was one of major inconvenience for a good customer. By the way, this bank has also been courting me to move my business banking to their bank. Not going to happen.

This is yet another example of a policy created in the Ivory Tower, combined with zero tolerance for any common sense to be applied by the folks entrusted to actually interact with and serve their customers. It’s no wonder so many businesses are in serious trouble.

Many times policies are created in the ivory tower in the heat of the moment, when something bad or unfortunate happens at the store level. Typically, the policies created are an over reaction to something that rarely happens and in fact create impediments to customers trying to do business. A couple questions for you as I close this rant.

• Do you have any of these policies in your business?
• Do you trust your front line staff to do what’s necessary to serve and please your customers?

Remember, customers have many options. Make it easy for your customers to do business with you. By the way, when I left the bank I drive to another location less than 2 miles away and they immediately deposited my check!

Remember the ol’ 80/20 Rule that says 80% of a company’s profits come from 20% of its customers? Well since this is true for most companies, I find it odd that many entrepreneurs focus on and spend the majority of their marketing time and resources always trying to acquire new customers, much of the time to the neglect of their current customers (the ones generating the profit!).

That makes no sense. It’s much easier and quicker to sell more to your current customers than it is to acquire and sell to new ones. Look, you already have established relationships with your current customers because they’ve already purchased from you! This is a huge marketing advantage.

Communicating with your current customers with a monthly newsletter helps you stay top-of-mind. Your newsletter arrives and instantly your customers are thinking about you and after receiving your newsletter on a consistent basis, your customers actually begin to look forward to receiving it—it’s a welcomed friend—and they are curious to see what tips you are sharing with them this issue. Issue after issue, your newsletter reinforces your relationship with your customers. It makes your fence stronger. It also gives you a way to tell current customers about products and services you provide that they may not know about.

Learn more about newsletter design in my book, The Magic of Newsletter Marketing – The Secret to More Profits and Customers for Life available at Amazon and my Web site.

If you’d like to discover the best ‘Done-for-You’ newsletter program ever, check out my No Hassle Newsletter program. With No Hassle Newsletters you can complete your monthly newsletter in about 23 minutes or less! Go to www.nohasslenewsletters.com.

Publishing a customer newsletter is one of the smartest ways to grow a business. Yet, few give real thought as to the importance of newsletter design. Newsletter writing is critically important yet without proper design, your newsletter may not get read! In this article I’m going to discuss the largest and perhaps most important part of design.

The masthead is the major graphic element at the top of the front page of the newsletter and includes the newsletter title. The masthead should identify your company. It may say that you (your company name) “presents” the newsletter title. It may include your logo or a symbol that represents your kind of business. A spine is a good symbol for a chiropractor. A professional speaker might be represented by a microphone.

In most cases, the newsletter title you develop should not be the name of the company. It should, however, be a name that sticks in the mind, that rolls pleasantly from the tongue, and, along with your graphic of choice, easily conveys what the newsletter is about.

The tagline is at the bottom of the masthead. You can think of it as a subtitle. The newsletter title and the tagline should work together. They should tell anyone who picks up your newsletter what it’s about. It should give them a clue about the benefits of reading your newsletter. One last point. Remember the old expression, “too cute by a half.” What you think is cute and ‘clever’ may leave your readers utterly confused. Learn more about newsletter design in my book, The Magic of Newsletter Marketing – The Secret to More Profits and Customers for Life available at Amazon and my Web site.

If you’d like to discover the best ‘Done-for-You’ newsletter program ever, check out my No Hassle Newsletter program. With No Hassle Newsletters you can complete your monthly newsletter in about 23 minutes or less! Go to www.nohasslenewsletters.com.

Getting your customers and prospects to actually read your newsletter requires you to follow a few important design steps. That’s right, there’s more to publishing a great newsletter than simply good writing.

If you want people to look at something in your newsletter, you should present it in a way that attracts the eye. You can see examples of each of these in our samples at the end of this chapter. You should also try looking at other print publications.

Color and contrast draw the eye. A colored element on a black and white page attracts the eye. So does a thick, black border around a text box. It isn’t absolutely necessary to produce your newsletter in color. With the proper use of shading, reverse text (white text on black background), borders and bold fonts, you can design a black and white professional newsletter.

Headlines draw the eye. Decades of newspaper reading have taught us to look for headlines. We look for them to get an idea of what to read. We scan the subheads to pick up on the key points.

Position draws the eye. Without anything else to draw it, the eye comes to rest about two thirds of the way up the page and slightly to the left of center. That’s a good place to put something interesting.

Pictures and graphics draw the eye. We love pictures. They may not be worth a thousand words, but pictures and graphics draw our attention. That may be why the captions on photographs are among the most-read parts of any publication.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, there’s more to producing an effective newsletter than simply good newsletter writing. Your newsletter design must be pleasing to the eye. You can learn more about effective newsletter design in my book, The Magic of Newsletter Marketing – The Secret to More Profits and Customers for Life or by visiting No Hassle Newsletters.

Publishing a newsletter is one of the smartest marketing strategies any company can use to build long-term, profitable customer relationships. But there is a secret to newsletter writing that helps to actually getting your newsletter read.

The fact is, you’re the expert on your business and what you do. Tell your customers about new developments. Introduce them to new products or services. Give tips for using existing products or services. Think of new uses for those products or services. Offer them articles that help them learn.

Short, helpful articles about services you offer are the kind of pieces that generate pass-along referrals. Pass-along value makes your newsletter a great way for your current customers to refer you to their friends and colleagues.

If you run a house cleaning service, you know that your customers do some cleaning when you’re not there. Your newsletter should share cleaning tips your customers can use. That way your value goes beyond the cleaning you actually do. The chiropractor can do a short piece on back pain. The accountant can share Five Things Every Business Plan Should Have.

Readers love leadership-management tips. They love to read articles on saving money; in winter, for example, you might include the tips section Five Things You Can Do to Save Money on Your Heating Bill. Readers find such tips informative, helpful, and enjoyable.

Customers love stories. 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, newsletters are sales letters in disguise. But there’s a way to do that 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.”

This is an extremely effective way to make your newsletter more interesting while still meeting your ultimate goal of generating more profits for your business.

I opened this post by stating that publishing a company newsletter is one of the smartest marketing strategies any company can use. But the secret to writing newsletters that actually get read is writing from your customer’s point of view. Your newsletter must contain what I often refer to fun, entertaining, and informative content. You can learn more about this by visiting www.NoHassleNewsletters.com. 

Writing a newsletter is not as easy as you think, otherwise more companies would be doing it! Learning how to produce a newsletter is a skill that can pay huge dividends. In this posting I’m going to talk about the ‘main article’ of a customer newsletter.

The main story of a newsletter is typically found on the front page. The main article is one of the most important stories in your newsletter. As the lead “work stuff” article, this is usually where you will write about your products and services. Take note that when you write about your products and services, it is important to do so in a way that does not appear to be selling your customers anything. Remember, your customers expect to read information, not sales brochures.

One way to achieve this balancing act is to tell other customers’ success stories. Share how a customer benefited from using one of your products or services and, if possible, include a customer testimonial and evidence of the benefit received.

The main story on the front page is also a good place to tell your customers what else you do. Keep in mind that customers usually begin a relationship with you based on a single transaction. Unless you’re the greatest sales person in the world or have the most unbelievable follow-up program, chances are very good that your customers are unaware of the many other products you sell or services you provide.

I want to give you another big secret on why monthly customer newsletters are so effective. It is because you are marketing and communicating with people who are already buyers.

Put your main article in the same place every time and make it easy for your readers.

Special note: No article, including the main article, should “continue” more than once, or at all, if possible. Don’t make your reader constantly flip through the pages to finish reading an article.

As I mentioned earlier, effective newsletter writing is a skill that can pay huge dividends in terms of more repeat and referral business. However, don’t make the mistake that many companies make by writing your newsletter all about boring ‘company stuff!’ Your newsletter will produce much better results if it has the proper balance.

If you struggle with writing newsletters that your customers, clients, and prospects actually like to read, then check out my wildly popular ‘Done-for-You’ No Hassle Newsletter program called Success Advantage 2.0! Not only do we provide ready to use newsletter templates, I also offer my ‘Concierge’ newsletter printing and mailing service!

Writing a newsletter that generates more revenue takes no more time than writing a newsletter that doesn’t! The big question faced by many entrepreneurs and business owners is what do you write about?

In this article I’ll not only discuss the what, let’s also briefly consider the where. I have a saying, “Successful newsletters are dependable newsletters.” However, dependability is more than just sending out your newsletter at the same time every month. It’s being consistent with the kinds of articles you include and where you place regular articles. Of course, your readers are smart enough to find their favorite article by hunting around, but why make them work for it? Why make extra work for yourself by plotting a whole new layout each month?

One of the most important elements of a great newsletter is what I refer to as “your personal monthly message.” This can be as short as a paragraph, but the main idea is to show some of your personality to your customers—break down the “company” façade. Your personal monthly message is where you can make a personal connection by talking about non-transactional things, such as an interesting vacation. The whole idea is to let your customers see you as a person, and not simply a business. Subscribers to my Success Advantage 2.0 program know as No Hassle Newsletters, know this all to well as I provide a place on the back page specifically for your personally monthly message.

Great (dependable) newsletters use the same basic layout every time. The most important stories in your newsletter should be in the same place in every issue. Follow the lead of the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal has the same basic layout every business day. Readers don’t have to wonder where to find the top story. It’s always in the same spot.

If you go into your grocery store, you always know you can zoom up this aisle and zoom down here to get the bread. You know exactly where the milk is. Now once in a while your grocery store will move things around because they want to have you look at more items. I’ll be honest with you, that ticks me off. So don’t do that in your newsletter. Make sure you’re consistent with the kinds of articles you include and with the format of where you place them.

If you struggle producing a newsletter every month, or if you know that this is something you need to do but just don’t have the time, I encourage you to check out my ‘Done-for-You’ newsletter program at www.NoHassleNewsletters.com.