Nobody wants another newsletter

If your inbox is anything like mine, you really don’t need another newsletter.  If you are asked to sign up for a newsletter list, you probably won’t.  Yet people are really successful in growing massive email lists - so what’s their secret?

The answer is VALUE!

They get people to sign up to their list - not because they’re offering a newsletter, but because they’re offering something of enough value that people are willing to part with their email address in order to get it.

This is usually a digital document that offers information that the reader perceives to be of value - known as a lead magnet.  This has some serious benefits - it not only grows your list, but, providing you’ve positioned the content properly - the people who want it are your ideal clients.  By signing up for your lead magnet they’re saying ‘I want this kind of information’.  As long as your newsletter continues to deliver that kind of information they’ll stay with you.

If you receive a newsletter that consistently delivers great value you want to keep getting it.  If it’s a boring, tedious email full of uninteresting information about the company that is sending it (e.g. new premises, new staff, how many new clients they’ve got), you’ll probably delete or unsubscribe.

So every newsletter you send out needs to deliver great value.  My favourite newsletters sound like they’re talking just to me.  They’re chatty, often sharing personal information or situations, but ALWAYS give me information that is absolutely brilliant - whether that’s tips on how to construct a marketing email campaign, the best freelance graphic designers on Fiverr or how to use Instagram as a marketing tool.

Formal and corporate doesn’t work nearly as well as friendly and entertaining.

What about promotions and offers?

But the whole point of an email list is to be able to market your stuff, isn’t it?

Yes, but first you need to deliver massive value - then you’ve created that magical thing called ‘reciprocity’. 

When someone has signed up for your list they’ve said ‘I’m interested in your stuff’.

If you keep delivering good value - whether that’s tips, how to do something or how to avoid pitfalls - they’ll just love what you give them more.

As long as your promotion or offer is in the same ballpark, why wouldn’t they be interested?  So if you’re a massage therapist, you probably wouldn’t get far by promoting hairdryers.  But if you’re promoting great body creams or oils you’ll probably get some takers, especially if they’re the ones you use yourself and come with your personal accolade.

So - lead your newsletter with value, follow with your promotion and, if possible, add some more value before the sign off. 

Then you have a strong list that is worth staying in contact with. 

The Social Mix

One of the questions we get asked most frequently is ‘What should we post on social media?’.

It may seem like an ‘obvious’ question, but it’s hard to find or generate good quality  content that establishes your reputation and engages potential clients.

Also, different platforms need different types of content:

• Twitter: short and punchy
• Facebook: Entertaining, fun, informative
• Instagram: Visually attractive
• LinkedIn: Meaty, opinion, knowledge
• Pinterest: Visual images, with short narrative - excellent place for infographics.
• YouTube: How to …, recommendations and reviews, influencer

If you’re active on several platforms then you can find that it’s getting to be a full-time job finding and creating content.  Here are a few tips:

Write an article for your blog and then take quotes from it.  These can be shared on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.  A visual representation can be used on Instagram (but Instagram doesn’t feature links to a blog, only the main link in your profile.) and also on Pinterest.  You could turn your blog into a video using Vidnami or InVideo too.

Curate articles and images to share.  If you read an interesting blog that your audience will appreciate, share the link - along with a comment about why you like it or what you disagree with.  Good for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.  You might add more content on LinkedIn to share your opinion on the article subject too.  On Pinterest you can do this by pinning other people’s content onto your boards.  Depending on your audience, this might include fun or motivational videos - especially on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Share your favourite quotations or sayings.  Use Canva to make them look attractive.  Great for Instagram and Pinterest, but can also be used on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Comment on topical issues in relation to your business or your key clients businesses.  Good for LinkedIn, Facebook pages and in short form on Twitter.

Publish your top tips.  These are great for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and, if they’re not too long, can be created as an image for Instagram and Pinterest.  For YouTube you’ll probably need to collect some tips together and create a 10 top tips … or My Top 3 Tips on … video.

Promote your products or services.  This is something you need to be careful with.  You don’t like being sold at - so why should anyone else.  As long as you’re consistently generating good quality content you can get away with adding one or two promotional posts every so often.  Focus on benefits, not features.

Get creative and your social media will pop!

What has content got to do with your reputation?

You hear the cliché ‘Content is King’ frequently, but why?  Content increases your online profile and that’s important for a number of reasons.

Content is attractive to search engines

If you have a website it’s the content that gets you found when people are searching for whatever you’re offering.  However, there are some requirements:

• It needs to be relevant to your key subject for that particular page
• It needs to contain your key phrase - people rarely search on one word, they usually search in the form of a question
• It needs to be consistent with your website’s core subject

Search engines like all these things and you need to tick their boxes to get well up the rankings.

The challenge is that, once you’ve written your website content (or had it professionally written for you) you don’t want to be constantly tinkering with it.  If you’ve got your message well-focused for the human beings who are looking for your offering, constantly changing it is not a good strategy.

BUT search engines like fresh content - and, if your website never updates the content, they will visit your site less frequently - so your site could slip down the rankings.  That’s where a blog comes into its own.

Content allows you to demonstrate your knowledge

This is the thing many experts miss.  If you show your breadth and depth of knowledge off, with ‘how to’ articles, tips, advice and checklist style processes, you’re demonstrating how good you are as an expert.

Some people argue that, if you give away your knowledge free-of-charge, people won’t pay your for your services.  I don’t think that’s true.  Most of us can manage a spreadsheet and with a little effort could probably do our own accounts (well, certainly, if we’re running a small business) - but it’s so much easier if you let an accountant do it for you.  Less stress, less time and it’s more cost effective.  That’s the same principle - people like to know how - but, when it comes down to it, they’d rather engage an expert to get t right.

If you’re highly visible as that expert choosing your services is a no-brainer.

Content expands your visibility

Content isn’t just what you write on your blog.  It includes your newsletters, email campaigns, social media posts and articles, lead magnets, articles published in the press - anything that showcases your expertise and business.

We’re not talking about sales blurb - good content should not need to sell (and nobody wants to be sold at).  The right content in the right places ensures you build a reputation as the go-to authority in your industry.

The challenge for busy business people can be the time it takes to generate good content.  My top tip is to write a good article and then leverage it.  

• Post it on your blog
• Upload it to your LinkedIn profile
• Take quotes out of it to share on social media
• Use it as the lead item on your newsletter
• Merge it with other articles around the same subject to create a lead magnet
• Use stand-alone chunks to add value to your email campaigns

There’s a lot of mileage in a good article!  Make writing articles a regular habit and your reputation as a leading expert will grow and grow.

How to leverage your blog

Some people ‘get’ why blog articles are important; others think it’s a waste of time.

Writing articles to publish on your website is part of your marketing.  In pre-www days, PR companies would charge a premium to get press coverage for a company - in fact, they still do, but now PR includes blogs, social media and pay per click (PPC) advertising.

Think of your website’s blog as a mini-publication, that is searchable by people looking for expert information.  That’s a good reason to ensure you keep it ‘fed’ with fresh material regularly.  You don’t need a PR company to do that for you!

However, you now need to leverage that valuable material so you can write once and use many times.

Convert your blog into social media posts

At one point it was enough to publish the blog title and a link on Twitter - but now you need something more compelling to induce people to click that link.  

If your article is interesting (of course it is) then you can take ‘soundbites’ out of it to use on social media.  Effectively, this is finding sentences that stand alone, but are clearly part of something bigger.  For example, if I was soundbiting this article, I’d probably pull out:

Some people ‘get’ why blog articles are important; others think it’s a waste of time.

Writing articles to publish on your website is part of your marketing.

Think of your website’s blog as a mini-publication. 

Then just add the URL link to the blog when it’s published.  If people are interested in the soundbite, there’s a good chance they’ll click on the link and read the rest.  You can use these posts more than once - if the article is generic you can repost these soundbites regularly - monthly, three-monthly, etc.

Transform your article into a newsletter

The audience that visits your website are not the same as the people on your list, so make sure your list knows what you’ve written.  

People who have signed up for your list have already self-identified as being interested in the material you produce - or they wouldn’t have signed up in the first place.

Send your list a regular newsletter, leading with your latest blog (and use the title as your email subject line).  You can add any offers or promotions you have going on, after you’ve delivered the great value your article contains.

Use your blog material to create your lead magnet

If you’re writing around the same set of subjects, you’ll gradually develop enough material to put together as a lead magnet.  You’ll probably need to do a bit of editing and maybe write and intro, some connecting content and a conclusion, but it’s better than starting from scratch.

Pick three or more articles that complement each other and create a new title for the document.  Titles such as:

How to …

3 mistakes people make when …

Top 10 tips for …

All work well.  You just need to pick the right articles and edit smartly.

Build yourself an eBook

When you’ve built up a bank of blogs, you can convert them into an eBook.  

I once did a 30-day blog challenge, writing a daily blog and then edited it into a full length eBook that sold at £17.  

It got great reviews and worked because it delivered massive value.

Of course, the next step is to develop that into a ‘proper’ book and you’ll have your very own business book in your hand before long!