FEBRUARY 25, 2004 |
VOL 4, ISSUE 7 |
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Reading time: 1 minute
Word count: 338 Brevity may be the soul of wit (William Shakespeare, Hamlet) but it's also one of the keys to an effective email newsletter. Consistently deliver short tips in digestible bites and you create a welcome image in the mind of your reader. She is likely to open your e-newsletter because she knows what to expect. She remembers how long it takes to skim or read ñ and recalls it was worth a couple minutes of her time. What are short tips? Sounds obvious but if you've been publishing for a year or more, you need a formula. I browsed through the newsletter archives of e-newsletter consultant Michael Katz and online promotion expert Ilise Benun to see how they do it. Both are guest speakers at tomorrow's teleseminar. Michael Katz: www.bluepenguindevelopment.com Ilise Benun: www.artofselfpromotion.com Both have been publishing e-newsletters (or ezines) for several years with the express goal of generating leads for their consulting businesses. Ilise in 300 words Ilise dispenses one quick tip each week in 300 words or less. She often refers to a technique she's using with current clients. She always boils her advice down to a specific, concrete task: "One question you should ask" or "4 steps to take." Michael in 650 words Michael, who has won an award for humor writing, has a distinctive, casual voice. He starts off almost every issue with an anecdote. *Not* related to email newsletters. It could be an insight he had while running on the narrow country roads near his home in Massachusetts. Or one of those "what's the meaning of life" questions posed by his young son. Then he flips the anecdote to explain how it relates to email newsletter best practices. He offers three bulleted tips. And concludes with a sentence that begins "Bottom Line:" Bottom Line Quick tips, if useful and relevant to your subscriber, make powerful content. They're easy and enjoyable to read. (And not too taxing to write.) And they position you as an expert, someone who can distill the complex into small, achievable steps.
How do you deliver a content-rich e-newsletter that sells without selling, or as guest expert Michael Katz puts it, "without being obnoxious about it."
My other guest speaker, online promotion expert Ilise Benun, explains it this way: "Email marketing is like Chinese water torture, but less painful. It works, drip by drip, message by message, reaching out to your best and most qualified prospects to educate them about your services, hammering home one clear message until they are compelled to pick up the phone and say, 'I need your services.'" During this live event we delved into the key ingredients of an e-newsletter or ezine that is a successful lead generator. Who should sign up for the PDF transcript of this live event - Already publishing an e-newsletter Learn how to get more leads and sales as well as how to cut down on the time and effort you put into your publication. - Planning to launch this year Get big-picture strategy as well as hands-on tips to get started. Publishing a regular e-newsletter is a lot of work. Learn from the get-go how to be smart about it and get measurable business results. What you will learn - how to find your voice and then use it to write a message people will read all the way through - how to make yours one of the few email newsletters your qualified prospects read religiously - short cuts to create compelling content issue after issue - how to subtlely position yourself as an expert - whether to archive all your issues on your site - how to measure your success both qualitatively and quantitatively Note: this Feb. 26, 2004 teleseminar was a great success! Order the enhanced PDF transcript & MP3 audio file of Effective Email Newsletters: How to Sell Without Selling Warm regards,  Publisher, WordBiz Report +1 202.333.2022 land |
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