Even the best of us will sometimes run out of things to say.
As a marketing speaker and marketing coach, I have found 14 things that most of my clients (professional speakers, consultants, and professional services firms) can turn to that will keep your e‐zines and blogs timely and fresh.
Here's the list for you - and please use the COMMENTS section below to add your own great ideas...
1. How‐To Tips. Everybody loves to read “how to’s.” A very short pithy practical tip your reader can use that day. For example, say you were writing to employers interested in OSHA regulations. You may have an article like, 10 Tips You Can Use to Pass Your Safety Inspections.
2. Dialogue with the Reader, Soliciting Feedback and Participation. I love this; it works equally well for an ezine or blog. This allows two‐way communication with your reader. You get to build a real bond with your readers. Your readers can be your best source of material. Pose questions to your readers and promise to publish the answers. For example: In one of my e‐zines I asked my readers to tell me some of their success stories, involving giving out free information. I told them that if I used their information I would give them full credit in my e‐zine.
3. Tips from Friends and Colleagues. This gives you the opportunity to “be seen” as an unbiased source of information. I love to bring in experts covering all sorts of topics. Lets be honest: you and I don’t know everything. If you can bring in experts covering a wide range of topics you become a source of information that your reader can always look to. In one of my e‐zines my friend Paul Karasik gave a great networking tip from his new book “How to Market to High Net‐Worth Households”
4. Plugs for Friends and Clients’ books, e‐books, reports, products and services. Make extra money by creating affiliate relationships, or joint ventures. Becoming an affiliate for someone can be the easiest way to make money. All you do is promote their products for a commission. Alternatively, you can promote a friends product as a favor because you believe your readers would benefit from it. (I do this regularly with a lot of my NSA speaker buddies who offer excellent programs and products to the same target market that I serve. No money changes hands. Just love and referrals.)
5. Reader Feedback and Contributions. This gives you a chance to create a buzz, controversy and argument. There have been times I have posted information, only to be inundated by readers telling me they agree, or disagree. Either way that is good. It means people are reading.
6. Upcoming Speaking Engagements, Seminars, and Tele‐conferences. If you do any public appearances, some of your readers will want to attend. This is your chance to let them know where you will be and what you will be doing. It is also a great way to meet some of your most loyal readers. Include links to Websites where the reader can register for the event. (Oh, by the way, will you join me at the NSA Convention in Orlando July 17-20?)
7. What I’ve Done Lately. Your readers will want to see what you have been working on; it is like reality TV. It gives them a sneak peak in to your life and lets prospective new clients see your work.
8. Recommended Vendors. Sometimes you come across a service provider that has helped you out, and you feel would be a godsend to your readers, why not return the favor and promote him in your e‐zine? A copywriter friend of mine recently had a problem with his computer, and a company called Rescue.com saved his bacon.
9. Useful and Relevant Websites. While you are cruising the net, you may find a Website others don’t know about, that you find useful. Let the world know, get the word out. For example, this ezine marketing course may be exactly what you need to get your ezine marketing back on track!!
10. Mini Book Reviews. If you read a book that you feel may be valuable to your readers let them know, post a link to Amazon and make yourself a couple of bucks if they buy.
11. News Nuggets of Interest. Clip excerpts from industry trade journals that you believe may be relevant to your readers.
12. News About Your New Books. Let your readers know about any books you might be working on.
13. Plugs for Your Own Products. This is where you get a chance to plug your own products. You do not have to feel guilty about selling your products and professional services; your readers want to know what you have to offer. Look at it as a fair trade. You give your reader valuable information, and in return he rewards you by purchasing some of your products. It is totally win/win.
14. Quotations. Many people love to read quotes. A good quote can be inspirational. If you find one you like include it in your next issue.
That's it - so now you have No More Excuses not to crank out terrific, value-rich ezines and blogs with a lot less effort than you thought.
Got more ideas? Share them in the COMMENTS area below.
As a
marketing speaker and
marketing coach who works with professional speakers, consultants, and professional services firms, the topic of email marketing comes up fairly regularly.
A study conducted by Quiris discovered that people have an inner circle of 16 sources from whom they open e‐mails—that includes e‐zines they subscribe to, and their friends.
What does this mean to you? Simple: the competition is fierce.
You could be giving away free gold bars, but if no one reads any of your message how would anyone know about it? It is the age‐old question what came first—the chicken or the egg? The greatest message no one reads is no more effective than the worst message everyone reads. They have to read your message.
Your typical Internet user is overwhelmed with daily e‐mails, most of which they never read. Do you read all your e‐mail?
People do not have the time to sit and read every single e‐mail they get. They read their e‐mail the way they read their normal mail, except now they have the power to use a delete button.
They quickly scan two very important lines on every e‐mail that will help them decide. They look at the “from” line, and the subject line.
Always use the same from line when emailing to your subscriber list. Your readers must get to know and trust you. Once you create a bond with your reader and gain their trust, you will make it into their inner circle.
Isn’t this how you decide which e‐mails you will read?
Your subject line is a different story; try to give your reader a reason to read your e‐mail. Offer him a benefit for reading your message. Let him know what is in it for him or her.
Tests show that if you include the readers’ first name in the subject line, you will get a noticeable bump in response.
Think of your subject line as a mini headline. One of my most successful subject lines from my e‐zine was “Do Question Headlines Work?” There was an avalanche of response to that simple subject line.
Michael Masterson has come up with a formula he uses when he writes headlines; it’s called the 4 U’s. Your headline must be useful, unique, ultra specific, and urgent. It is a nifty little checklist. The next time you are stumped for a headline, try the 4 U’s.
Here let me show you how it is done. Check the subject line for the 4U’s, for each U give it a score of 1‐4; 1 being lousy, 4 being excellent. When you’re done average out your score and see what you have. Anything lower than a 3 should probably be re‐written.
Here is a sample subject line from a small business marketing e‐zine:
8 ways to generate a ton of repeat business
Is it useful? Every businessperson or salesperson wants to know how to increase his or her referral business. Yes, it is useful, let’s give it a 4.
Is it unique? Well, not exactly so let’s give it a 2.
Is it ultra specific? You betcha, it tells you there are 8 ways, not a couple or a few but eight specific ways. So let’s give it a 4.
How about urgent? There really is no timeframe given so let’s rate this a 2. If you add these numbers up you get 12 divide that by 4 and you get 3. Not bad, but the real question is - how can YOU do even better?
In the comments section below -- Will you share your thoughts and insights into how YOU decide which emails to open and engage with?
Many people I speak to tell me they do not use e‐zines because they simply do not have the time. As a marketing speaker and marketing coach to very busy CEOs, business owners, other professional speakers, and consultants, I hear you.
Here's the secret: It only takes me two hours or less per month. And those two hours are some of the highest ROI hours I can spend.
You're getting my simple formula for writing e‐zines that will make your ezine much easier to write - and more profitable to send.
Write five to seven short stories about a topic, one to three paragraphs each. You want the reader to be able to get through each story in under a minute. You do not have an unlimited amount of time with your reader so make sure he can read your entire e‐zine issue in about five minutes.
The next little tip might seem insignificant but I think it is vitally important. Do not put any click links to your stories; you do not want to give the readers mind a chance to wonder, because they are waiting for another page to load.
Many Websites like to give you a brief description of the article and then ask you to click on a link to read the whole article. That is just too many hoops to go through to read the story. Do not have just a story title and first paragraph with a link to the entire article.
Write short articles and include the entire article in the e‐zine itself, not a teaser part.
So here, it is in 4 Simple Steps:
1. 5 – 7 stories
2. 1 – 3 paragraphs each
3. Maximum reading time < 1 minute per story < 5 minutes per issue
4. No click links to stories—the full story is in the e‐zine.
There you have it quick, simple, and effective.
BONUS: Here are 8 more tips for writing an e‐ zine, courtesy of Dan Ranly, www.ranly.com:
1. Write for surfers and scanners
2. Provide information quickly and easily
3. Think both verbally and visually
4. Cut copy in half
5. Use lots of lists and bullets
6. Write in chunks
7. Use hyperlinks
8. Give readers a chance to talk back (feedback)
Feedback from YOU is always welcome in the comments area below...
Email marketing campaign tip: A slimmer email can lead to healthier results for 2009...
Many people enter into the new year with a personal goal of living a healthier lifestyle and shedding the unwanted pounds brought on by another season of holiday excess. The same commitment should also be applied to the messages being sent to your subscribers-messages that may have slowly packed on the pounds right under your nose without being noticed.
How It Happened
Emails tend to start off with very streamlined designs, making them easy to use and less likely to run into display errors in different email clients. However, as marketers reach a level of comfort with email marketing, and quality content continues to be developed, more and more of that content begins to find its way into their email communications.
It can start with something as simple as a sidebar, or additional space for images. As the months go on, additional content accumulates on your email template, and soon it hardly resembles the streamlined communication vehicle it once was.
Think this might be the case with your own email? Ask yourself a few questions about your email marketing campaign:
What am I trying to communicate?
Trying to communicate more than two or three main ideas in an email is difficult in light of how quickly most email recipients sift through their inboxes. Identify the one idea, if you could only choose one, that you would want recipients to take away from your email-is it the first thing you notice on your test message? If not, consider moving or eliminating excess content.
Am I overloading?
Giving visitors to your website a variety of options is fine, but an excessive number of links and linked images on an email can make it difficult and frustrating to engage with. Many marketers rely on emails to drive traffic to their sites, but the amount of clicks an email receives has much less to do with the number of available links than the relevance of those links. Also, too many links on an email increases the chances of frustrating site visitors who wait for a page to load only to realize they clicked on the wrong link in your message-an easy mistake to make with several links in close proximity.
Where can I make changes?
Some content on your emails will be non-negotiable, but be mindful of including any non-essential elements. For example, a large graphic about an event could have a negative impact if it's the first thing a recipient sees. In this case, the recipient may believe the event is the focus of the message-even if that is not the case-and could abandon the message due to lack of interest in the event. Scaling the graphic down, or simply using stylized text to promote it, would slim down the message and make sure the recipients' focus is on your products, editorial, or whatever else you consider to be the key takeaway (see #1 above).
One common email element not likely to be eliminated by any marketer is advertising space, but there is no greater contributor to a bloated-looking email than a slew of rotating banner ads. At the very least make sure clearly defined borders separate advertising from your own content, and avoid using any unnecessary images of your own, which can contribute to the cramped appearance.
Your email marketing campaign: Less is more
The tendency of emails to become inflated stems from marketers' desire to communicate as much information as possible with their subscribers. While this desire is perfectly understandable, it does not always take into account the user-experience of those who will be receiving the messages.
It's a good thing to have more ideas than can fit onto one email-for your subscribers' sake, try not to overload your messages. One idea on an email can still get great results, but only if your recipients can find it.
Guest column by Karen J. Bannan
How long was the subject line in your most recent e-mail marketing campaign?
You may not realize it, but the number of characters you use can positively or negatively impact the success of your campaign, according to a new white paper released by direct marketing agency Epsilon.
The white paper, "Rethinking the Relationship Between Subject Line Length and Email Performance: A New Perspective on Subject Line Design," details some of the more important considerations that marketers should be thinking about, said Kevin Mabley, the company's senior VP-strategic services.
Here are four tips you can use to boost your subject line prowess.
1) Front-load your subject lines with the most important information.
It would seem like this tip is a given, but take a look at the messages in your inbox. As you'll soon see, it's a strategy that few marketers embrace. The biggest problem is with ordering information. If you've only got 38 to 47 characters-the average number of characters that show up in the subject line of 57% of all U.S. e-mail recipients' e-mail programs-you need to put the most important information all the way to the left.
Use urgency and relevance as your guide. Is your offer or newsletter timely? Put that right up front. Also, make sure your brand is in the first few words. However, if your company has multiple brands or categories underneath its umbrella, lead with what's most recognizable and important to your customer.
2) Keep the subject line as short as possible to convey the message.
Epsilon's research shows that shorter subject lines have higher click-through and open rates. Still, you don't want to go short for short's sake, Mabley said. Instead, you're looking to pack the most information you can into the smallest number of words.
And avoid words that have a sensationalist slant, such as "free" or "discount." "Don't just say '20% off your next purchase.' Your messages need to be rooted in your customers' expectations," Mabley said.
3) Don't forget to test.
This is another common suggestion, but one that still isn't heeded as it should be, Mabley said. "At the minimum, you should be performing an A/B test on every message that goes out," he said. "The general rule is you can test 10% of your list in order to figure out which option is a better one."
This is how you're going to figure out if your front-loaded data should be the brand name or the actual benefit to the recipient, and it's something that may change on a day-to-day and message-to-message basis, he said.
Your messages should also go through a spam filter so you know, on a scale of 1 to 100, how likely it is that an ISP will consider your message to be spam, Mabley said.
4) Dynamically personalize the subject line.
This is something that's simple to do, and shows that you know who you are e-mailing and what they are looking for. "Whether you use their first or last name or their company's name, it makes it more personal and provides better reception," Mabley said.
Here is a piece I wrote for Sales & Marketing Management. Due to deadline issues, it didn't make it into the magazine, so here it is for your reading pleasure:
Salespeople can gain more and stronger leads through e-mail correspondence by becoming aware of the trends in overall email marketing - and in getting ahead of the curve by FOLLOWING those trends with their email practices!
Email is the most revolutionary tool in marketing history, and everyone should take advantage of its flexibility, ease of execution, low cost, and trackability. Here are some guidelines to make your email more impactful - and to help you ring the cash register more often!
1. Let the customer choose
Providing customers with some level of control makes them feel as though they are in the driver's seat. For example, don't have one email newsletter - have several on different topics or "tracks" and let people select the one(s) they are most interested in.
2. Don't worry about frequency
Let the customers' requests dictate frequency. As emails become more relevant to recipients needs, the question of how frequently to email subscribers goes away. If you'll help solve my problems, get me new customers, or show me how to work smarter, I'll gladly open your emails 2-3 times a week.
3. Data Integration
Email is uniquely positioned to take existing data and elevate it to the level of relationship marketing that most marketers have only dreamed of. Amazon.com is a great example. They know what I've bought, what I like, and they regularly email me suggestions about new titles that match my buying patterns. Database marketing drives relevance. Relevance drives sales!
4. Use the Personal touch
People buy from people. Email technology provides a way to leverage this knowledge and deliver emails coming "from" real people. These emails can include pictures, personal notes based on prior engagements, working reply addresses... just like a real relationship!
5. Use your signature file smartly
Your email signature file should not only have a 'hot' (clickable) link to your website, but you also need to give people a REASON to click. Nobody is going to click on a link because they're thinking, "Wow, Joe's company has a website... wonder what it looks like." Kick your signature line up a notch and add a CUSTOM line or two based on who you're writing to. For example, when writing to a hotel industry client, add this line to the bottom of your email signature block: "Ask about 'Inn Service' our latest offering for the hospitality industry."
The idea is to use every email (both personal and automated) as a marketing vehicle, mini-teaser, or venue for generating further inquiries into your services!