How To Write And Publicize Your Email Newsletter To Build Relationships And Make Sales
By Eric Ruth
If you don’t already publish an ezine (online newsletter), you’re really missing out on a lot of immediate profits and more importantly, you’re missing out on the single most important aspect of a newsletter…
RELATIONSHIP BUILDING.
My newsletter gives me the opportunity to communicate with you one-on-one. I can really TALK to you, without worrying about how many pages (weight and postage) I’m using to deliver my message.
Cause it’s FREE.
I wish more of you would put me on your newsletter distribution lists so I could see what you’re doing. Some of you do.
But I’ve only seen one person who seems to really “get” how to communicate to her list. Her name is Debbie Lander and she consistently delivers a very personal, informative and fun newsletter that apparently drives business for her (I’ve heard that she routinely picks up a client or two just about every month and also makes product sales).
Those are the four most important qualities of your newsletter:
#1: Personal – talk to each reader one-on-one, as if they were sitting in your kitchen having an ice tea with you.
#2: Informative – obviously the main reason someone would be on your list is to LEARN, so you’ve got to deliver the goods, but not in text-book style.
#3: Fun – when you properly educate in a personal way, it will be a fun learning experience that’s not heavy handed. And when you do that effectively, then #4 happens with little “selling” on your part.
#4: Drives business – the main reason you are producing a newsletter is to drive business. Don’t forget that, but also don’t make your newsletter one big commercial or no one will read it. You may have 4,000 subscribers, but 3967 of them are deleting it before they even open it.
One of the reasons I think Debbie does such a good job (there are many, but this is probably the most important), is that she has PERSPECTIVE.
Like me, Debbie is no spring chicken (although she looks like one cause she takes great care of herself).
Debbie has four kids and LOTS of life experience. She knows who she is and is not afraid to be herself (she’s not self-conscious). Those qualities translate into her writing and they resonate with her readers.
Her readers LIKE her.
And people do business with PEOPLE (not companies) they know, like and trust.
I’ve never personally spoken with Debbie (a couple emails here and there), but I like her. Her personality comes through in her writing. She doesn’t muffle it or hide it under overly technical “jargon” in an attempt to impress her readers.
She knows what she’s talking about, she has the credentials, the expertise and the hands-on experience to HELP people, but she doesn’t attempt to “show off” or make herself more important by being overly technical.
Does that make sense to you?
See, Debbie is building relationships, not trying to sell.
And it’s that positioning which creates sales.
Debbie’s not ATTACHED to “making the sale.” This is sort of a philosophical thing, but it’s very important. You may have experienced it in your life. The more desperately you think you “need” something, the less likely you are to actually get it.
That’s why the best time to make a sale is right after you’ve just made one.
There’s something that occurs at a subconscious level within us that allows us to be more in-the-moment, more engaged and less needy.
For a very funny, but dead-on illustration of this philosophy, I suggest you watch the classic comedy “Tommy Boy” with Chris Farley (RIP) and David Spade.
Now, it doesn’t require age and life experience to have this perspective – I’ve met kids who have it.
What it requires is SELF-CONFIDENCE.
It requires believing in yourself.
Trusting that your personality, your story, your information and your unique perspective on health, fitness and life is what your readers want…
…not a text-book presentation of biology and kinesiology.
That’s not to say that those things aren’t important: they are.
It’s just all about how you weave them into your story. How you make them palatable and understandable to your audience.
And that really is a skill. But just like any other skill, it can be learned. How do you learn it? Practice.
You’ve got to write, my friend. I’ve said it hundreds of times already and I’ll say it thousands more times before my career is over.
Developing your ability to effectively communicate is the single most important business (and life) building skill ever.
If you’re an excellent speaker, but not so good when it comes to sitting down and writing, then record yourself speaking and transcribe it.
The key to effective writing is to write like you talk.
Now, with all that said, what specific action steps can you take to build your online newsletter?
#1: Make it easy for people to subscribe – put a form on your website and an offer in your signature file (the identifier that you should have at the bottom of every email you send out). Keep in mind that everyone is offering free newsletters these days, so you will probably have to ethically “bribe” people to opt-in. Come up with a killer free report or some kind of fitness course that you can offer to incentivize people to sign up.
#2: Put your email/website address and your special offer on every piece of “collateral” (printed business stuff: bus card, stationery, invoices, direct mail, etc. everything!)
#3: Encourage your readers to forward your newsletter to friends. Test “bribing” them to do so with special offers (i.e. each email address you send me gets you entered into monthly drawing for “x” – ten addresses get you ten entries – more addresses mean more chances to win). Then you simply send out an email to these addresses, referencing the name of the person who referred them, and inviting these people to subscribe.
#4: There must be over 100 (probably more like 1000) health and fitness related message boards (forums) that you can visit regularly. Not only is this critically important “market research” for you to do, but it gives you an opportunity to weigh in as an expert and answer some questions. Of course, your sig file would include your newsletter offer.
#5: Links from other sites. Setting up strategic alliances and joint ventures ON LINE is just as powerful (if not more so) than doing it off line. There are many, many different ways you can set these deals up with no cost to you whatsoever. You are an expert, after all, and you can ADD VALUE.
#6: Buying hits to your website at google or overture (formerly goto) is the killer direct response app on the internet. If you don’t know about this then you definitely will want to pick NPE Gold Plus Module #7 “How To Get New Personal Training Clients For FREE On The Internet!”.
#7: A simple postcard to everyone on your sphere of influence (SOI) house list can bring you lots of new subscribers quickly. Just remember to offer some incentive for them to sign up.
#8: Articles that you write for publication online (all health and fitness newsletter publishers are looking for valuable content – you provide them with a great article and ask that they include your contact info) and offline should include your sig file with contact info.
There’s probably a half-dozen other strategies you could use that I’m not even thinking of right now. It’s up to you to BRAINSTORM every single way you can get subscribers, and then do them all.
Remember what the wise direct marketer once said, “I don’t know one way to get 100 new clients, but I know 100 ways to get one – and I use them all.”
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