Newsletters… Have you seen the big change in them?

Newsletters… have you caught onto the big change in them?

I’ve noticed a big change in newsletters over the last year. I like it.

What change you may be asking?

The biggest change is that they are getting easier to read because they have less images.

At one time you couldn’t send a newsletter without loading it with pictures to entice people to read it. Now it appears that images are on the way out.

Why?

It could be that roughly 90 per cent of people read their email on a mobile device. Images slow that down and eat data.

It could be that people want real information and a real story instead of glitz and glam.

It could be the fact that more and more newsletters are ending up as in the spam bucket because mail servers don’t trust them.

As a writer and newsletter producer I like this change. I used to spend hours laying out images in newsletters and then testing the newsletter before sending it. Some clients wanted more images than content which made them hard to produce and very time consuming.

How will this change affect newsletters?

After careful consideration I can see two improvements to newsletters because of this change.

  1. Headlines will get better.
  2. Content will get better.

A good headline or title grabs your interest and makes you want to read more but a great headline or title won’t make up for lousy content.

Two of my favourite newsletters are text only. No images, great headlines, very few links and well written about things I am interested in. I did an experiment with a newsletter I read every week. It only takes me a few minutes to read and it always makes me think I copied it into a word document and counted the number of words.  I was surprised to see that it had over 1000 words in it. The word count did not include the disclaimer, the contact info or the author’s bio.

So to play on an irritating television commercial “What’s in your newsletter?”

Until next time,
Dan

 

(p.s. Have you ever thought of how a well written newsletter could help you earn referrals, grow your business and strengthen relationships?)

Category: newsletters, writing | LEAVE A COMMENT

A few business questions and a story

business questionsI have a few questions and a story for the sales people and business people out there.

Would you rather do more business or less business?

Would you rather do more repeat business or less repeat business?

Would you rather get more referrals or less referrals?

How much does it cost you to get new business compared to repeat and referral business?

Are you open to learning how you can make more sales and do more business?

I know when I ask those questions business people stop and listen. As a business person I ask myself every day how I can increase repeat and referral business. I use a simple, affordable system to build repeat and referral business and to generate new business.

Now the story…

Today I went for a walk in downtown Whitby. I can’t drive right now so I decided to walk and talk to business owners. I set a goal to meet and talk to 25 people and get permission to send them something.

In 24 of the businesses the managers and owners were open to me when I asked if I could send them some information, some even asked when I could email it.

In one business I went into I was referred to the “Chief Marketing Officer”. Initially he refused to  speak to me but after I asked one question he did let me speak for a minute.

When I said I would like to send him some information and asked him for his card he refused. His answer was “I don’t want to get on a mailing list and get a bunch of junk in my inbox.” I explained to him again that I was going to send the information by snail mail. He begrudgingly gave me his card after a few seconds of thought.

I reassured him that I would mail not email the information and left.

Now for the interesting part of the story…

The company provides digital marketing services to business. On their website they have opt-in forms for people request information which subscribes them to their list…BUT THEY DON”T WANT TO BE ON ANYBODY’S LIST.

What do you think?

(If you are open to making more sales and doing more business get in touch.)

 

Category: list, list building, newsletters, Uncategorized | LEAVE A COMMENT