Saturday, December 26, 2009

Keeping Online Newsletters 1-To-1

Hello to all...

Tis the day "after" Christmas and hope you are feeling a moment of calm. All is done, love abounds, life is good. I hope this is what you are feeling all day today ... if not all day, for at lease just one moment at some point within today!


Soon all will begin again and I thought I would start a short series of blogs about online newsletters! Do you use one? Has it created good things for you?

The importance of having an online newsletter has kind of taken a backseat with all the buzz about social networking. People do mention the importance of list building but I haven't seen much lately on how to maximize the power of your list.

I believe we all know the basics. You create a mailing list and then send out information to that list. However ... the competitive edge these days in business lies within the strength of your relationships. Your mailings to your list can serve a huge role in building strong relationships! Do you think about that when creating your mailings?

There are several ways to achieve relationship building with a mailing, but today I just want to speak of your mindset when first writing your mailing's content. Let's just visualize right now sitting down at your desk and starting to develop your content for your mailing .....

  • First thing we usually think about is what we want to say! That's cool.
    x
  • Next we need to think about who we are saying it to. Is the information you want to deliver meaningful for everyone on your list? Let's assume right now it is. Cool.
    x
  • Now you have to write your content. Here again you are sending a 1-to-1 communication to "many" ... and, you have to write your content as if you were just speaking to one person. If not, your communication becomes much, much easier for people to skim over and pretty much waste all your effort! Your message becomes an "ad" vs. a "communication." That said, there are times for "ads" .. .but if you are doing a newsletter about your business .. .the more 1-to-1 in feeling you can provide, the better your bonding.
    x
  • How do you write 1-to-1 when mailing to many? The best exercise I can give you is one I mention a lot and that is to pretend someone on your mailing list is sitting at your desk. Start talking out loud to that person about what you want to say. Then write down exactly what you said in the same way on paper. You'll get the idea pretty quickly and see the difference!
    x
  • Do one more review of the people on your list and make sure you have written something that they can all relate to and that will strengthen your relationship. Read you message to yourself as if "you" were receiving it.
    x
  • You are now one step closer to maximizing your newsletter maling.

Tomorrow I will talk a bit about what happens when you don't know who would not be interested in the information you want to send to your list. It's a biggie so make sure you check my blog out tomorrow. You can subscribe on the right side my blog, right here, just to make sure you catch tomorrow's posting . Would love to have you on board!

Also please share with us if what I wrote today makes sense! What are your experiences in writing this way ... 1-to-1 to many!

Keep your business growing ...
margie

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