For many companies and organizations, it’s a powerful marketing tool that attracts and retains customers. I’m referring to the dependable, hard-working newsletter.
On the subject of newsletters, guerilla marketing guru Jay Conrad Levinson says, “It’s a way of staying in touch, proving your expertise, giving beneficial information and gaining confidence.”
Newsletters can be used for marketing, public relations, sales support, associations, or many other purposes.
But how do you publish a successful newsletter?
Following are some simple strategies that have worked well for my clients and me.
Content and Style
Consistently providing editorial value is the key to a successful newsletter. Measuring content against a set of objectives is one way to accomplish this.
What is the purpose of your newsletter? What are you trying to deliver to your readers?
Another way is simply to remember what you’re publishing — a “news” letter. After all, “newsletter” is the marriage of two common words: “news” and “letter.” If you make your newsletter newsy, providing readers the latest information on subjects they care about, you can’t go wrong.
Does all content have to be cutting-edge news? No. Editorial content can be a new slant on an old subject. It can be time-tested tips that are good reminders to an interested audience. Or sometimes it’s information that isn’t new but useful to people in a new stage of life — parenting, for instance.
Whatever the content, it should be relevant to readers. If unsure, just ask yourself: How can readers use this information? Is there take-away value?
The second word, “letter,” helps to establish a writing style and tone. I like to write articles and newsletters as if I’m writing to one person in a friendly, conversational tone.
Newsletters are often a dialogue with customers — the lifeblood of your business — so the tone, while friendly, needs to be respectful. Just avoid writing newsletters that are stiff, formal and self-important.
Story Ideas
In the abstract, thinking “news” is great. However, a few concrete ideas can help kick start a newsletter. Here is a partial list:
* News
* Product and service stories
* Product and service tips
* Special offers, promotions and sales
* Explanatory articles (how it works)
* Case histories
* Industry updates
* Do’s and don’ts
* Appropriate humor
* Quotes and testimonials
* Checklists
* Interviews
* Profiles
* Letters
* Community involvement
Want some more good ideas? Collect and read newsletters. What do you like? What can you apply?
Create a newsletter file and fill it with company and industry news items. Keep a list of ideas, talk to customers, attend trade shows and seminars, and read as much as you can.
By keeping yourself well informed, your newsletter will stay current and interesting to your readers. Finally, publish your newsletter on a regular basis and your sales are sure to increase.
(c) 2005 Neil Sagebiel
Neil Sagebiel is a veteran copywriter who has served clients such as Microsoft, The Seattle Times, Lucent Technologies, March of Dimes, Airborne Express and Unisys. To sign up for his FREE expert tips to help you write better and sell more, visit http://www.neilsagebiel.com
Tags: audience, clients, customers, marketing, news, newsletter, newslettters, readers, Sales, strategies
In the theater, an “aside” is something said to the audience that is not to be heard by the other actors. If the aside was delivered on a television sitcom, the actor would look right at the camera and talk to the viewers at home instead of talking to the other actors.
To a public speaker it means a temporary departure from the main theme or topic. If you get good at this technique, the audience will think you are a genius. The way it works is that you begin telling a story or delivering information on a certain topic. Then you go off on a tangent (aside) indirectly related to the main theme. When you have finished the aside, you pick up the main theme where you left off and keep right on going.
The audience may think you are lost or confused when you first leave the original topic, but when you return to the main line after the aside, they realize you are in total control. This is very impressive.
Great storytellers are able to take you down several auxiliary paths, but still move you along the main path from beginning to conclusion. I tell a story about some medical work I had done where the doctor said to me, “This will just pinch a little bit. ” This phrase sends me down a whole different path talking about how my dentist had said the same thing and then pushed the Novacaine needle up into my brain, twisted it around, and pulled it out. I then came back to the main line of the medical story until I got to the word gauze. This word sets off another tangential story about my mother ripping gauze off me. Then it is back to the main line again.
You can alert the audience of an upcoming aside by saying the word “incidentally” before you veer off the main path. Another good technique is to go to a different part of the stage when you do the aside. Get good at asides and you will add a new dimension to the way you tell your funny stories or deliver information.
Copyright © 1998 - 2005 Advanced Public Speaking Institute
Tom Antion provides entertaining speeches and educational seminars. He is the ultimate entrepreneur, having owned many businesses BEFORE graduating college. Tom is the author of the best selling presentation skills book “Wake ‘em Up Business Presentations” and “Click: The Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marketing.” It is important to Tom that his knowledge be not only absorbed, but enjoyed. This is why he delivers his speeches laced with great humor and hysterical jokes. Tom has addressed more than 87 different industries and is thoroughly committed to his clients’ needs. http://www.antion.com
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Recently, I was a presenter on a panel consisting of three other women entrepreneurs. It gave me a chance to revisit the potential power of panel presentations. Whether you are a presenter and/or a meeting planner and/or program coordinator, consider using the idea of a panel for your next presentation. It takes some extra organization and work, but I think you will find that it is well worth the time.
Start by picking a theme that will be timely for your niche audience. The reason our panel consisted of women was that the event, called an IT (Information Technology) Tea was one in a series of presentations put on by a local technology publication that has been working to bring together women involved in the technology field. The theme for our presentation was “Doing It Her Way” and involved women entrepreneurs working with IT. Therefore, the attendees were all receptive to our topics and what we had to offer. Good listeners that hang on almost every word are a speaker’s dream.
Pick panel members with forethought. The meeting planners had obviously chosen our panel with many criteria in mind. Even though we all had the common thread of entrepreneurship and IT, we each had different types of companies, different backgrounds, age differences and different approaches to business.
We did, however, have other qualities in common that were obvious. All are passionate about what we are accomplishing and love talking about it. We were all interested in each other (none of us had met before) and no one tried to dominate the discussion. We could all laugh at ourselves and yet be serious about our directions. I feel that it was obvious to the audience that we were enjoying the afternoon as much as they were.
Prepare, prepare, prepare. Organize, organize, organize. It is my firm belief that the success of a panel undertaking depends upon prior preparation. The woman who pulled our presentation together told us to the minute when and how long we would be speaking. She wrote the introductions and sample questions for the moderator and made copies of everything for each of us. She had an excellent sound system set up with an extra microphone for the audience, and when we got to the Question and Answer part (with sufficient time set aside for this portion of the presentation), she had planted a few questions with audience members to get the ball rolling - which it did.
You’ve been asked to be part of a panel, so how do you prepare? Yes, even though as a panel participant you don’t know for sure what the other panelists are going to say, or what questions will be asked, it is as important, as always, to be prepared. We were fortunate because we had timelines and biographies of the other panelists beforehand. But we had no idea about what or how the others would speak. Each of us brought notes and had a strong opening and closing statement (sort of a motto for our lives and our businesses).
Because you are not the only show, be ready to have fun with the other panelists and be flexible enough to change parts of what you might have said to balance the whole presentation. Each of us made it plain to the others and the audience that we felt honored to be asked to be part of this panel and we all took the opportunity to work together to make the afternoon worthwhile for everyone.
That’s a successful panel!
Chris King is a professional speaker, storyteller, writer, website creator / designer, free agent, and fitness instructor. Sign up for her eclectic E-newsletter, Portfolio Potpourri, at http://www.PowerfulPresentations.net You will find her information-packed E-book How to Leave Your Audiences Begging for MORE! at http://www.OutrageouslyPowerfulPresenter.com and her business website at http://www.CreativeKeys.biz
Tags: audiences, panels, presentation skills, presentations, professsional speaker, public speaking