Simon Payn's Effective Customer Newsletters

Ikea's Basement and Your Attitude of Service

Reading business books or getting a business education can seem a bit like browsing through the downstairs part of Ikea. 

Your senses are overloaded by all that interesting stuff. So you end up filling your cart with rugs and glasses and can openers - when all you came in for was a Poang chair. 
Big shock at the checkout. 

In the same way, there are lots of ways to grow your business. But if you fill your cart with all the Twitters and referral strategies and online advertising programs on offer, you're likely to get confused, choke on the variety and end up doing nothing. 

So that's why it's important to think about your 'Why'. If you didn't read my previous article - What is your 'why' - then go back now and do the exercise at the end. It's super-valuable (I got some great "whys" from some people who took the time to do their homework. These people felt newly energized and excited about their businesses.) 

When you know your "why" - the reason you are in business in the first place - it's much easier to focus on what you need to do to grow your business. You don't end up with a cartful of junk. 

Imagine, for example, that you are a real estate agent. After figuring out your "whys" you came to the conclusion that you believe that home ownership is one of the joys and rights of life today, and that it is your duty as a real estate agent to make sure that as many people as possible can enjoy owning a home, without the stress that can accompany the purchase process. 

In this example, the real estate agent has figured out that she is there to serve people (rather than serve herself). She then will work out ways in which she can serve. Which might be: 

• Providing educational material on buying a home.
• Making sure that her focus is on the client relationship - removing the stress and uncertainties of the home purchase.
• Finding ways to open up home ownership to as many people as possible by working with financing experts and by finding ways to reach people who are renting a home but could benefit from owning a home.

So, to accomplish all that, she might: 

• Fill her website with useful articles that educate her clients.
• Send out her newsletter on a regular basis. The newsletter would contain articles that educate her clients and assure them of her attention to their needs.
• Consider where the main "stress points" are for her clients in a real estate transaction and work out ways to minimize them, either by the retooling her work processes and/or by finding partners who can help. Then she would make sure she communicates all this to her clients - perhaps by providing a "stress-proof guarantee" that shows all the ways she will make her clients' lives easier.
• Finding financing experts and asking them to provide articles for her newsletter and website that educate clients about financing options.
• Using newsletters and social media to reach out to renters and other people who might benefit from owning a home.

You see how she has moved from a self-centered way of marketing herself to one that focuses on the needs of her clients? 

And can you see how much more attractive she becomes to her clients now that she has positioned herself like this. 

So here's an exercise for you: How can you better serve people to bring your "why" to life? 

4 Keys to Business Success after Labor Day

At time of year, many of us press the reset button.

Seems like New Year 's Day all over again, except with more school buses.

So I thought it would be a good time to look at some fundamentals - the four big things that make the difference between success and just grinding along.

As the economy in much of the world continues to struggle, these fundamentals are becoming increasingly important because getting the basics done right is more critical than ever.

These fundamentals are practiced by our most successful clients. Indeed, by the most successful business people anywhere.

1. Long-term perspective and relationships

The reason so many people fail to achieve their objectives is because they don't look far enough into the future.

Ever heard of the marshmallow test? It was successfully used by psychologists to predict how well a child will do in life.

A four-year-old child is given the option take one marshmallow now or to sit and wait for 20 minutes, after which they will get two marshmallows.

Some children wait patiently and are rewarded with a marshmallow feast. Others can't stand it and scarf down the single marshmallow right away.

Studies that followed the fortunes of these children found that those who had patience did much better as they progressed through childhood.

I've noticed that many business people are like the one-marshmallow child. They only do things that bring them immediate results. 

The trouble with that, however, is that they are forfeiting much greater results in the future because they're not building a foundation that will generate long-term success.

My most successful clients have focused on building long-term relationships with clients. To do so, they've created a structure and strategy for their business that puts the emphasis on these relationships rather than the quick-hit sale.

Some of them have been sending out newsletters for years - many writing the content themselves before finding me. They continue to send out newsletters, month-in, month-out. 

Others are just starting out, but are building a structure for their business that will create long-term relationships. They are collecting contact information. They are providing value. They are keeping in touch. 

On the other hand, I see people who are looking for the next quick fix - the magic tool that will bring them a flood of business, with little effort on their part.

These people go from one magic trick to the next, never building a business with a strong foundation.
Long-term thinking beats short-term thinking every time.

2. Time working "on" your business

Of course, to be able to think long-term, you need to do the things that will generate long-term relationships.

The trouble is, many of those things don't bring immediate benefits - you don't see quick results.

So what happens instead is that people spend time working on the minutiae of daily business - servicing clients and fulfilling products. They're working "in" the businesses.

The most successful people I see are able to carve out some time to work "on" their businesses. 

Maybe you can only find half a day per week, but it pays to spend that time doing things that set your business up for the long term. That might include activities that build long-term relationships with clients. Or you might think of systems that make your business run more smoothly.

It might also mean finding time to actually send out your newsletter. 

3. Successful delegation

If you want to find time to work "on" your business, you might consider delegating some of the routine tasks to someone else.

Here's the thing: many of the routine tasks are "below your pay grade" - they can be done by someone for a lower fee than you would charge for what you do best.

So, every hour you spend on one of these tasks you are, in effect, losing money - because you are not earning as much as you could be earning.

The successful people I know have built themselves a team of people and vendors to whom they can outsource these routine tasks. It doesn't mean you have to go hire someone full-time - you just have to find the right people or the right organization for each job.

4. Regular communication

If you want to build relationships with clients over the long term, you need to communicate with them over the long term.

After all, any relationship without regular communication withers, none more so than a business relationship, with so many competitors tugging at your clients' purse strings.

The most successful businesses I know have developed a regular communications strategy for prospects as well as clients. As soon as a prospect comes into that business's orbit, they receive useful, relevant information on a regular basis. 

These businesses use a variety of communication channels: email, print, social media...even personal phone calls, if the spending potential of the client is high enough.

When you are regularly in touch with your clients by providing useful information that makes their lives better, there's little reason for those clients to go anywhere else.  

That's how a business stays in business for the long term.

Marshmallow picture by Gary Knight.

Will You Live Longer Than Facebook?

Will you live longer than Facebook? 

That was the interesting question posed by comedian Baratunde Thurston on a radio interview I heard last week. 

Barantude is no stranger to social media. He tweets, he Foursquares and he posts to Facebook. 

And he also has an email list. As it says on his website - Yes, Email! 

Here's the point that Barantude is making with his provocative question: 

Social media sites come and go. (Who remembers Friendster?) And when they disappear, they take your contacts with them. 

There's no way to export your contacts from Facebook, Twitter and the rest. 

That's why Baratunde maintains an email list too. Because you can keep your email list. For ever. It's yours - it doesn't belong to Mark Zuckerberg or some other social media whiz kid. 

And - as I've said so many times before - the most important asset you have in your business is your list of contacts. Your list of people who are willing to hear from you. 

But there's even more to it than that. 

Baratunde says that there's something more intimate about email. Whereas social media expects you to "cough out a thought" in 140 characters (or sneeze a political ideology, as he says), email allows you to be more expansive. And that means you can connect more. 

Because when you connect more, you build stronger relationships with people. 

Perry Marshall, who is an enormously successful marketer -primarily using email - describes the inbox as a very intimate space. 

I think he's right. And it's why I continue to advocate email (and print) newsletters as effective ways to build deep, long-lasting relationships with your clients. 

That's not to say that social media doesn't have a place (you can find me on Facebook and LinkedIn too!). Just that it's smart to remember the value of traditional print and email newsletters. 

After all, you're going to live longer than Facebook, right?

Meet Dulci! The eggs with a newsletter...with a goat

Have you seen the box of eggs that come with their own newsletter?

Back in 2009, I wrote about The Country Hen, the egg producer that puts a newsletter in every box of eggs. 

I'm pleased to say, the eggs still come with a newsletter.

As you can see in these images, this winter we were introduced to Dulci, the company's 5-year-old adopted goat.

Indeed, it was The Country Hen's newsletter readers who named Dulci - 875 of them wrote in with suggestions.

So what can we take away from Dulci and her newsletter?

1. It's short!

Don't think you have to send screeds of information. The Country Hen newsletter is about 6"x4". About 100 words and a big picture.

The point is, the company sends something, which is more than its competitors do.

Can you put together just 100 words?

2. It's fun and personal

This egg company's newsletter isn't about eggs, it's about a goat. And that's a good thing.

Here is Dulci helping you imagine a rural egg producer with a friendly goat roaming around. Doesn't that picture make the eggs sound good, even though they aren't even mentioned?

What can you write about that makes what you do more wholesome and fun?

3. It's interactive

The Country Hen asked its customers, via the newsletter, to name the goat. 

Once you get your client to interact with you, the relationship you have with those clients strengthens.

How can you encourage your clients to interact with you more?

For more, read the original article on The Country Hen's newsletter.

 

Two More Ways to Boost Response to Your Newsletter

Today I want to share two easy ways to boost response to your newsletter. They are both being employed by one of my clients, an insurance agency in Hobe Sound, Florida.

Indeed, one of the ideas was his.

The secret behind both ideas is this: Relevance.

Make your newsletter relevant to your readers and you are half-way there. After all, people want to read stuff that is for them, not about you.

1. Make it relevant to 'now'

This idea is simple but my client reports it gives his response rate a boost. Together (this client takes advantage of Ready to Go Newsletters' enhanced service where we work together to customize the newsletter) we give the newsletter a theme each month. December = Christmas; February = Valentine's; March = St Patrick's Day. You get the picture.

 

What we do is find a picture and add it to the top of the newsletter, and then change some of the newsletters' colors to match.

It's a very easy way to make the newsletter relevant to what's going on today - relevant to what is in people's minds.

2. Make it relevant to readers' concerns

Ever been in a crowded room and suddenly - amid all the noise and conversation - you hear your name? What's happening here is your subconscious is taking in all the data and words that your ears are hearing, and when it notices something that is relevant, it tells your conscious mind to listen.

The same thing happens with your client's email inbox or postal mailbox. Both are crowded with noise, but when something relevant to you pops up, it gets noticed.

Here are a couple of articles that were used (and the headline became the subject line of the email newsletter.)

• What's Going on With Home Insurance in Hobe Sound?  (About changes in insurance rates people are paying. Note that it has the town's name in the title. That's relevant.)
• Why are Florida Auto Insurance Rates so High? (Anyone in that state with a vehicle is going to want to read this. The article contains some very interesting information about some people taking advantage of Florida's rules on insurance claims, pushing up rates. Not only is the article relevant, but it shows that the agency knows what it is doing.)

These are just some examples of how to make your newsletter more effective. This client works closely with Ready to Go Newsletters to customize his insurance newsletter each month. If you'd like our help, contact us.

 

Business Owner on a Wire

Have you seen Man on a Wire? The docu-movie about a guy who decides (and succeeds) to walk a tightrope between the two towers of the World Trade Center.

It's a fascinating movie. It kept me entertained on a long transatlantic flight a few months ago.

Anthony Tjan reminded me how the movie is also a must-see for entrepreneurs.

This is a story for someone who had a seemingly impossible dream - to walk a wire between the then newly-built towers.

Everyone thought he was crazy.

And he probably was.

But he did it. How?

• By having a powerful, simple goal
• By planning extremely carefully
• By choosing team members who supported his goal
• By being single-minded towards achieving that goal, against all adversity
• By going ahead, despite people thinking he's crazy.
• And yes, by being a little bit crazy himself.

As Tjan says:

You want someone like Petit to succeed because it seems so improbable and outlandish that it takes a creative visionary with some degree of craziness to pull it off. Seeing this movie is an inspiration for those who dare to think differently and push the boundaries.

One way to put video in your newsletter

I was at Infusionsoft's annual user conference in Scottsdale last week, and a straw poll among the audience found that people were split 50-50 over whether they preferred reading text or watching videos online (particularly when it came to sales websites).

What's clear is that you cannot afford to ignore video when half your audience prefer it over text. And anyway, it's always good to share your message using multiple media.

I know lots of people want to add video to their email newsletters, but figuring out exactly how to do it isn't so easy.

The trouble is, video just won't play in most email readers.

One way to do it is to put a snapshot of the video player in the newsletter. People then click on that and they're taken to YouTube (or wherever you are hosting your videos).

I did it with my own March newsletter.

Take a look at what my client Chris Swanson, of BMA Marketing, has done. (Link to newsletter here; snapshot on this page.)

He's used the ready-made newsletter that I provide and then found relevant videos on YouTube to add extra flavor to each article.

That will make his newsletter attractive to a broader range of people.

That's something you can easily  do with your own newsletter, right?

What matters now

Ideas are like food.

Eat a few of them at breakfast and fuel yourself up for the day.

So here's a way to fuel up for the week. Maybe for the rest of the month.

Today I came across a free ebook, called What Matters Now. It's made up of (very) short articles by some big-name (and not-so-big-name) thinkers.

I urge you to download it.


Two things I noticed:

1)    The ebook is given away free. If you have good content, your ideas can spread virally through freebies. It's the approach I tried with A Newsletter for Every Business. Maybe you can try it too?

2)    Look at how each article is written. Each is a single idea, expressed simply. That's what makes the articles so powerful. Something to learn from?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A Newsletter for Every Business: http://anewsletterforeverybusiness.com

Sign up to receive these messages by email: http://www.tinyurl.com/30Emails

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Print newsletters and Canada's second currency

OK, let me get the wisecracks about the title of this post over with right away - in case I lose my residency in Ontario.

No, Canada's second currency isn't the US dollar.

And it's not the euro either, as an earnest store associate suggested to a friend last week in upstate New York. "Would you like to pay with euros?"

Hmmm.

No, Canada's second currency is Canadian Tire Money.

For those of you not in the know, Canadian Tire is an iconic retailer up here - it sells everything from auto parts to barbecues, passing through tools and housewares on the way.

Some people hate it (you can never find an associate) but more, I think, love it.

Canadian Tire is piled to the roof with cool stuff you can mess around with on weekends.

And it gives you money.

Spend enough at the cash and you get Canadian Tire money back, in "real" bills you can use at the retailer. Now, these bills are measured in cents, not dollars (for the most part) but it's like...real...money.

***

There's been talk recently about Canadian Tire doing away with the bills. Indeed, there's an announcement on the reward program's future today. Maybe they'll replace it with electronic rewards - like most other retailers - but there's also talk of introducing a Canadian Tire dollar coin.

We shall see.

But doing away with the paper money would be a big mistake. And not only for the ebay folks who collect the stuff.

You see, there's something special about paper. You can touch it - feel it crinkle. And you can carry it around with you - it pokes out at you from between the real money and frayed receipts.

And when you keep seeing it there, you remember to go back to Canadian Tire and spend it. Hey - I've got $2 in money I can use towards that $400 drill press I've been lusting after. Betta spend that quick!

I think that's super-powerful.

***

So - you can see how it relates to newsletters, can't you?

Now, I'm not one of these guys who says print newsletters are the only way to go. Or, for that matter, email only.

I'm platform flexible.

For the newsletters I send to my own clients, I started out with print, then switched to email. And next year I'll be sending print newsletters again to select people in my database.

After all, it's about what works - what brings the best return on investment.  Email is cheap...but print can work better.

Why? Because it's physical. You can't just hit the delete button on it.

Print newsletters stick around. Articles get clipped and pasted on the refrigerator. (I know this happens with the newsletters I make for members.)

You can read them in the bathroom.

So I urge you - and Canadian Tire, because of course they are reading - to keep the faith in print. By all means use electronic methods too, but don't forget the power of "real" money reminding you that it's there to be spent.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A Newsletter for Every Business:
http://www.anewsletterforeverybusiness.com

Sign up to receive these message by email: http://www.tinyurl.com/30Emails

'Bore me and I block you' - how to make your newsletters interesting

About a year ago I got really into Twitter.

Maybe a little too much into it. Huge timesuck.

I'm still on it, but I ration myself. Now I waste time on Facebook.

But I tell yer - it's rough and tough in the Twitterverse!

Some people on there really work it. They post many times a day and, most importantly, they add value when they post. They don't share what they had for lunch, but they post interesting, provocative, useful information. All in 140 characters.

I got twittering (I think that's the right verb) with one of the twitterati (I think that's the right noun) and she came out with this zinger: “Bore me and I block you.”

I felt like I'd been put on notice.

You can imagine the stress.

But she was right.

In today's mega-multi-channel universe, attention is at a premium. People will decide in five seconds if you are worth another 30. It's like a bar in Manhattan.

Bore them and they block you.

The same goes for newsletters, of course. Bore them and they ignore you.

The good news is, most newsletters are boring - and that means you don't have try that hard to be interesting. The bar is pretty low.

So here's 5 ways to avoid being boring:

1)    Don't be that guy at the party who just brags about his latest triumphs. The harsh truth is that nobody cares about you - all they care about is themselves.
2)    Think about what interests your readers and what will make their lives better.
3)    Be yourself, not some dull corporation. People like people, not organizations.
4)    Take a risk. Be brave. Get naked.
5)    Engage in conversation, not a monologue.

Still with me? Good. Glad I haven't bored you yet.

Feel free to share your ideas. If they're interesting, I promise I won't block you :)

+++++

Sign up to receive these message by email: http://www.tinyurl.com/30Emails