Six Ways To Cultivate a More Effective Newsletter

Will Your Newsletter Yield A Bountiful Harvest?

The worst of winter is behind us (hopefully). Now we can look forward to what passes for "spring" here in New England. For me, that means it's time to start planning my vegetable garden. You see, in a former life I was co-CEO of Suburban Renewal Landscaping with my college roommate. Our venture lasted one season before we fled back to the relative comforts of corporate America.

As with gardening, a successful newsletter requires planning, some heavy lifting, and some careful pruning. So without further ado, here are my suggestions for what it takes to nurture a compelling newsletter that customers and prospects will actually look forward to reading.

Develop a Plot Plan. Before you simply start writing articles to fill pages, take a step back and think about what you hope to accomplish with your newsletter. Do you want to sell products? Educate customers? Deepen relationships? Drive people to your website? Most likely, it's some combination of all these objectives. So before you start tilling the soil, sit down and give some serious thought to who your potential readers are and what they need and want from you. I suggest you boil it down to a single-sentence mission statement, such as "our newsletter educates clients and prospects about the principles of effective financial planning while showcasing our firm's unique products and services."
Plant High Quality Seeds. The adage "you reap what you sow" is especially true with newsletter content. Just as a garden planted with last season's leftover seeds may not flourish, your newsletter will fall flat if you skimp on content development. You need to devote serious time to brainstorming topics and developing story ideas. And don't expect your overworked junior associates or members of your executive team to write compelling copy. That's neither their job nor their core competency. Rely on professional writers (in-house or freelancer) if you want well written content that will resonate with your target audience.
Hire a Crew Chief. One of the most common mistakes I've observed is when companies attempt to edit by committee. Rather than giving someone the authority to call the shots and make decisions, the content gets watered down by an unwieldy review process and ill-defined chain of command. Too often companies create content that, in the end, is dull and confusing. Name an editor and trust in that person to make good decisions.
Use The Right Tools. You wouldn't use a snow shovel to turn your soil or a chain saw to prune your tomato plants. With your newsletter, make sure you're using the right combination of tools to grab your readers' attention. Some readers are skimmers, so be sure to include pull quotes, subheads, graphs, photos, and captions to communicate key messages. Don't create 10 pages of gray copy and expect people to read your newsletter cover to cover. If you're creating an e-newsletter, consider inserting video clips for those non-readers out there. Mix it up and hopefully everyone will find something of interest in your newsletter.
Measure Your Yield. If you're using Constant Contact or another email service provider to send an e-newsletter, analyze your reports to learn what topics are resonating with your audience. Test different formats or subject lines to see which tactics achieve higher open rates. If you're sending a print newsletter, do an annual survey of your readers and ask what subjects they want to read about. Better yet, invite a group of customers to lunch or dinner and conduct an informal focus group.
Stay Grounded. Finally, make sure your articles and copy read like they were written by actual human beings. Don't let corporate culture or overzealous legal reviewers suck the life out of your newsletter. Profile real people and tell stories that readers can relate to. Revisit your mission statement often and perform an honest assessment of whether your newsletter is achieving its objectives.

Is your newsletter as good as it should be? For a free newsletter analysis, email Bull's-eye Communicationsor call 774-719-2324 .

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Bull's-eye Communications' contributing writer Nancy Opiela recently published an insightful article in Advisor Perspectives, a free newsletter that's read by 80,000 RIAs, wealth managers, and financial advisors. Nancy's tips are relevant for virtually any professional services company.

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Here's a sampling of interesting articles I've come across in recent weeks:

Recent Bull's-eye Communications Projects:

Wrote Fidelity Viewpoint piece on Roth 401(k)s
Working on an article for Fidelity Charitable Services' Giving Outlook newsletter
Completed several mutual fund annual reports for Putnam Investments
Managed content development for Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services' Product & Service Update.
Wrote articles for spring issue of National Financial's Reach Higher magazine
Kicking off next issue of StockSense newsletter for Fidelity Stock Plan Services
Published editorial on reducing litter in Massachusetts in The Sun Chronicle newspaper.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to forward this newsletter to a colleague or friend who might benefit from my editorial or marketing communications services.

Sincerely,

Neil Rhein

Financial Communications

Email Marketing Seminar

I will present a seminar on "the Power of Email Marketing" for the Women's Business Network of Southeastern Massachusetts on Tuesday, March 9 from 9:30 to 11:30 at the Mansfield, MA Town Hall. The meeting is open to women in business. There is a $10 fee for non-members. To register, please visit www.wbnsema.org.

Today's Buzzword:

Death By Tweakage:

When a brochure or newsletter "fails due to unnecessary tinkering or too many last-minute revisions."

Source: www.buzzwhack.com

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Visual Thesaurus

Whenever I'm stuck for a word, I click on Visual Thesaurus, an interactive dictionary and thesaurus that creates word maps that link to related words.