How to Write a Great Newsletter

Communicating with your customers and potential customers is important. Email newsletters are a great way to do just that. But more often than not, people will open those newsletters and not actually read them.

This means that all of that content that you worked hard to create is ignored and doesn’t help further your business goals. Getting people to read the newsletter is the missing link. Newsletters help people stay connected to your brand and give your brand a platform to speak from.

There are a few tips and tricks to creating a newsletter that people will open and read. Here’s how to ensure that people not only open your newsletter but actually read it.

Curate it to the extreme

People like it when newsletters find their niche and stick to it. Too often, people are inundated with content and they get overwhelmed. This leads to them not reading anything and your newsletter falling to the wayside.

Chose the topic of your newsletter carefully. For instance, if you are a brand that sells house inspection services, choose one house inspection service to highlight in your newsletter. Then, add maybe one other relevant piece of information that dovetails that that service.

People want to read your content, they just don’t have time to read a lot of it. When you are creating your newsletter, remember that less is more.

Put your personality on display

It’s tempting to slide into the carefully curated brand voice that you have developed. When it comes to newsletters, the more personal and personality-filled, the better. Your customers want to feel the personality of your brand shine through. Don’t bury it under jargon and sterile marketing-speak.

Be a little quirky in your newsletter. Write it from unique perspectives. Don’t be afraid to let the unique parts of what makes your business special come to life in your newsletter. Your readers will thank you (and be more apt to read your newsletter in its entirety).

Make your newsletter valuable

People don’t want a lot of clutter in the newsletters they read. They also want to get something valuable out of the newsletters they choose to actually open. Make the time your readers spend on your newsletter worth it.

In your newsletter, tell people a story, tell them why it’s important, and tell them why they should care. It’s that last part that is the most important. People want to know the “so, what?” of your content. Give it to them.

Always do something new, but keep it focused

Don’t be boring or highly predictable with your newsletters. People who open your newsletters want to get something new each time they open it. Make that open worth their while.

Keep your content and perspective fresh, but make sure you are staying focused on your niche. Going back to the home inspection example: you want people to know that they are getting a newsletter about home inspection, but deliver new things each time. Some examples: a checklist for spring cleaning, a guide to cleaning your pool, how to tell if your windows are losing heat.

Keeping your content fresh will keep your current readers invested. Keeping that fresh content focused on your niche will ensure that they keep opening and see your brand as an authority.

Keep the writing pure

Web writing has gotten a little convoluted lately. What with SEO, keywords, and click-bait headlines, the actual writing can get pushed to the back burner and the point of the content can be obscured.

Your newsletter audience is a captive audience. They opened the newsletter so they want to read it. This is your chance to communicate with them openly and honestly without all the keywords and click-bait.

Keep your newsletter writing straightforward and to the point. No SEO here. Just good and solid content worth reading and sharing.

If you want to learn more about how to write great newsletter content, check out my done-for-you system today!

Marketing Your Own Personality to Drive Branding for Your Online Business

When you run an affiliate marketing business, long-term relationships are far more profitable than short-term revenues. In only a very limited number of cases is there high value to jumping into a hot market, making a big splash, then getting out as fast as you can.

In most cases, building long-term relationships with your customers in the end is the most rewarding strategy, both financially and in terms of your company’s reputation and brand.

If you consider your customers to be your friends, rather than simply your customers, you can improve the effectiveness of any marketing program.

Any time you contact your customers – whether via email, social media, in forums or anywhere else – you should try to personalize the experience as much as possible. Share details about your personal history and family life.

Give your customers the opportunity to develop a genuine emotional bond with you and offer them a vested interest in your success. This will result in a long, prosperous business relationship with a larger group of customers and it will help build your reputation online. Remember, that and you can continually grow your business for many years to come.

Putting Your Personality on the Squeeze Page

For example, how much is an email opt-in worth to you? In other words, when you get somebody to act on your squeeze page — they give you their email address in exchange for whatever high value, niche related content you are giving away for free — what does that mean in terms of cash business? A ballpark estimate is that each opt-in is worth about 50 cents to one dollar per month. And I would say that’s pretty conservative.

So if you have 1,000 opt-ins on a particular squeeze page per month, you can expect that to bring you at least $500 to $1,000 per month.

Every email opt-in you get, you put that person into your sales funnel. That means you are going to be sending them offers and affiliate product promotions interspersed with other high value content and personal information.

The Value of Customers

According to the industry average, each person on your list is worth about 75 cents per month to you.

Obviously, you can increase this average by promoting products people really want and by doing a great job nurturing interpersonal relationships with the people on your list.

Once people opt-in to your subscriptions list, ideally, you want to push your subscribers up your value ladder. This means that regardless of your niche, the purpose of the sales funnel is to push your customers so that they buy offers with bigger and bigger price tags.

You can promote these products using the multiple marketing platforms you have created, including your email subscriber list, social media, squeeze pages, article and forum marketing, and even paid marketing like CPC ads and Google Adwords. How prospects find your sales funnel is less important than what they do once they arrive there.

Gateway Offers

The gateway offer is the first product that you are going to ask your prospects to pay for. Your gateway offer promotion comes after any giveaway product from your squeeze page or elsewhere. The important aspect of the gateway offer is that it should have enormous perceived value for your prospects. In other words, you should over-deliver for what they are paying.

With digital products, it’s hard to lose money in distribution because you can re-sell the same product repeatedly without any additional production costs. Still, it should seem to your customers as if what they are getting with their gateway product is worth far, far more than what they are paying. One way to do this is to provide the highest quality products possible.

Offering your customers value and using your own personality and personal history to build relationships is vital to your success. If you’d like to have access to even more powerful marketing tips, as well as a way to generate conversion-ready Internet marketing prospects each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Customer Retention A Key Component In Any Successful Online Biz And How ...

This video gives 5 effective ways to increase customer retention vs. mere customer acquisition. 

These 5 steps are easy to follow and can allow anyone to start making customer retention a key part of their business model.

Simple Solutions for Increasing Customer Retention

Time to get acquainted with the concept of customer retention vs. customer acquisition, and why it is more important. 

Some recommendations in this video are: a CRM system, spending on retention marketing, and automated email campaigns among others. 

Bottomline: Majority of sales should come from repeat business if you want a sustainable income.

Simple Steps to Help Increase Your Customer Retention Rates

Customer retention is one of the most important metrics used to calculate the effectiveness of your marketing strategy. The reason is simple. It costs more to acquire a new customer than keep an existing customer.

You can’t rely solely on new business. Otherwise, you’ll never grow your business. Use these simple steps to help increase your customer retention rates.

Give Your Customers More Than They Expect

The first way to increase customer retention rates is by giving your customers more than they expect. Deliver more than you initially promised. For example, you could include a free bonus or deliver your product or service ahead of schedule.

Consider the expectations that your customers have. This includes the quality of the product or service, the delivery, and additional features. If you can improve one of these areas without increasing your costs, then you’ll be able to give your customers more than they expect.

Establish Trust with Your Customers

You need to cultivate the relationship that you’ve got with your customers. This comes through the establishment of trust. If customers trust you to always deliver what you promise, then they’ll likely come back for more.

Content can also help establish trust. Giving existing customers access to bonus content, free offers, or PDF guides can go a long way towards building trust. This also helps with the first tip. You’ll exceed their expectations.

Make Your Interactions More Personable

When you engage with customers, you need to be personable. This includes the use of personalised emails and personal responses to their comments.

Depending on the email marketing platform that you choose, you may be able to automatically personalise your emails. Using a template, the software will automatically insert the first name of the people on your mailing list.

You should also encourage your customers to leave feedback. Ask them questions. You can do this through social media or your email marketing. This lets them know that you’re listening and that you care about their thoughts.

When a customer leaves feedback, either positive or negative, you should contact them as soon as possible and address them by their name. Thank them for their feedback.

Deal with Complaints Promptly and Directly

You should never make the mistake of ignoring an unsatisfied customer. When someone’s unhappy with your products or services, your first step should be to learn more about their complaint.

Contact your customer, remember to personable and ask for more details. Use this information to try and find a way to solve their issue. Even if you need to issue a refund or a replacement, you may be able to save yourself from losing a customer. This could also save you from taking a hit to your online reputation.

Make Sure You Deliver an Exceptional Product or Service

The final step to increasing your customer retention rates is to ensure that you deliver a quality product or service. This ties into the first tip. You want to go above and beyond and deliver a great value.

The bottom line is that if you have something of value at a reasonable price people will buy it and they’ll come back for future purchases.

Think about your favourite cereal, shoes, or vehicles. You continue to purchase from the same company because they deliver a quality product. If you can do the same, then you’ll be able to increase your customer retention rates.

Customer retention is an important metric to pay attention to. Use these steps to begin increasing this key factor. If you’d like to have access to even more powerful marketing tips, as well as a way to generate conversion-ready Internet marketing prospects each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.