By Debbie Weil
If you're human... you're probably a bit frazzled this time of year between end-of-the-year deadlines, office holiday parties and family obligations.
Use the month of December as your chance to re-cycle some of your most useful content. Here are the pointers I offered in a recent column for BtoB's E-mail Marketer Insight:
Question: The end-of-year holidays are just around the corner. Is this good or bad for my e-newsletter?
Answer: Mostly good.
In today's 24/7 work environment, a surprising number of folks check their work email during holiday lulls.
Here are five tips for how to take advantage of these "lulls," when you might get a surprising amount of response to your e-newsletter or ezine.
- If you publish in HTML, commission a holiday logo for the masthead of your e-newsletter. Readers love this kind of twist. Think of how popular Google's changing logo has been. (Psst... look for the famous WordBiz holiday masthead next week.)
- Start combing through back issues of your e-newsletter for a round-up of best articles of 2004 to feature in December.
- Make your Top 10 predictions for 2005 รณ another great end-of-the-year article.
- Solicit from your readers their "most important lesson learned in 2004." Then edit and compile responses into a PDF that you give away free in January. Readers love seeing their names and their company's name in print, as well as trolling to see what everyone else had to say.
Of course, this also gives you ideas for newsletter content in 2005, as you'll learn what readers' pain points and challenges are.
- Finally, don't forget to include an end-of-the-year promotion. Last year I published an issue of this newsletter on Dec. 30 advising readers they had until midnight Dec. 31 to take advantage of a special offer.
We publicized the offer each week during December. Then we plugged it one last time with "only 24 more hours" left. Dec. 31st turned out to be one of our highest-grossing sales days in 2003 for the WordBiz Store.
Yup, there must have been a bunch of subscribers logging on to their email, itchy to get back to work in that lull between Christmas and New Year's.
TIP: notice the special holiday offer in this issue? See the gift-wrapped Blogging 101 Resource Guide above.
I've been cleaning out and organizing my paper-strewn office since January 2004. And yes I hired a professional organizer to, er, hold a gun to my head to get it done.
Yesterday, organizer Sally Thacher and I worked for 6 straight hours clearing out fat textbooks and bulging notebooks from my MBA program completed 6 1/2 years ago... along with other stale stacks of paper.
The old adage about cleaning out your closet seems to apply to office paper as well... if you haven't worn it (i.e. looked at it) in a year or two... or 6, toss it.
If you've got a favorite strategy, book or resource for taming the paper beast I'd love to hear it! If I get enough responses, I'll publish them next week with credit to you, of course!
Be sure to email me at debbie.weil@gmail.com so I don't miss your message! I.e. do NOT just hit reply to this email.
Martha Retallick is back... with a new and terrifically useful set of PDF reports called "Postcard Marketing Shortcuts." Order her pack of Postcard Marketing Shortcuts plus an audio tutorial and save big time.
And yes, ordering these postcard reports entitles you to your complimentary copy of our just-published Business Blogging 101 Resource Guide. See special of*fer above.
Postcards may be the ideal, unsung marketing vehicle that's both low cost and a little different. Remember Martha's computation...
"Marketing persistently and monthly with postcards can cost you less than $6 per name per year."
Here's a mini interview with Martha from August 2004.
