An effective way to drum up more business for small business owners is to publish an email newsletter. If you're thinking about publishing an email newsletter or already are, there are several tips on getting the most out of your email newsletter. I interviewed automatic business coach, Sandra Martini of www.SandraMartini.com, on how to easily write an article for your newsletter and then get the most out of that article. Below is part one of my interview with Sandra on this very important topic for your small business.
Jennifer: Well my first question comes from working with my clients. A lot of times after I design their e-mail newsletter templates, most of them are wondering what to include in their newsletter, and actually just how to get started with writing the articles. Do you have a simple process for writing an article even if you don’t think you can write?
Sandy: Absolutely and it’s funny, I find a lot of my clients as well, they all know that they should put out an e-mail newsletter or a print newsletter or an e-zine, you know as we call it. They know it needs to be done, but they’re just not quite sure how to get the writing part done and done consistently.
What I tell them to do and it’s a very simple kind of one, two, three process, is first to pick a topic that they can write a couple of tips about. And when I say a couple, I mean anywhere between three to five. You can go as high as seven, but that’s getting kind of up there. So three to five tips about anything, whatever their industry is.
So and for whatever reason I always come back to gardening, it’s one of my hobbies. So let’s say that what they are interested in or one thing they think their clients might want to know is what plants are good to grow in the shade, for example. They can think of three tips of ways to grow plants in the shade.
They write tip number one, tip number two and tip number three. Typically one sentence each, can be two sentences if they have a little more to add, now all they have to do is add and introductory sentence that simply says here are three tips to tell you how to best grow your plants in a shady environment.
Now they add their conclusion. At the end they say okay they’ve told you they going to give you three tips, they give you the three tips and then at the end, they wrap up with a simple sentence along the lines of now that you know the three simple ways to grow more plants in the shade, you know, get gardening. Something along those lines.
And you’ve written an article.
Jennifer: Wow that sounds…
Sandy: They take any couple of tips…
Jennifer: Yes.
Sandy: A beginning sentence, an ending sentence and you have an article.
Jennifer: Wow, that is a really easy way to come up with an article, and so after they have the article, what can they do with the article, you know, other than just using it in their e-mail and newsletter?
Sandy: Well there – my goodness there are hundreds and hundreds of things they can do. But one of the things about that method of writing articles, the kind of the three tips, the five tips your readers, your clients can do this week after week after week and it never gets old.
Because as people, we like numbers, so when you say here are three tips to do X, here are five tips to do Y, people like seeing numbers because they know exactly what they are getting into.
They know that there are three of them and then they’re done. Three, five, seven . . . people also for whatever reason like odd numbers.
So if you give them a certain number of tips and an odd number of tips they’re more likely to read your articles. So even though this is a very simple method for writing an article, even for people who aren’t used to writing, it’s also one that the most proficient writers, those who write all the time, you’ll find are using this same exact method of X number of tips and beginning and ending sentences.
Because that’s what people like to read, especially online, when there’s so much to read, and well, sitting at computers all day, this makes it very manageable and puts it in little chunks for them, so it’s easier on the eyes.
Jennifer: And is there a reason why you say to keep it three to five tips?
Sandy: You don’t want your article to be too long. These days we’re all getting way too much stuff in our inboxes and chances are if you’re doing a newsletter, you’re going to have your feature article, which is what I think, was kind of your tips article, your information content.
You’re also probably going to have some type of a note for example, my e-zine; I have a note from me, which is a couple of paragraphs on whatever’s going on in my life. My feature article, I have an events section, it indicates whatever teleseminars I’m on, whatever events I’m going too. I have a six figure business tool, which is normally some products either that I’ve developed, or that I’ve come across that I really think will help take your business to the next level.
I then have yet another resource called Recommended Resource, which is usually very smart things you can do for your business or smart resources you can use, that won’t break the bank.
So I try to make those well or cost, big or bang type products. So by the time you’re done, that’s a pretty hefty sized newsletter, so you don’t want to be writing a thousand word articles.
And articles that are three to five, seven tips, you can even do ten tips if they’re shorter, that tends to be ending in the four to seven hundred word range. And that’s something that’s manageable; you want to keep your newsletter to two to three minutes worth of reading time for someone.
Otherwise it because a chore for them and you don’t want it to be a chore, you want it to be a delight.
Jennifer: Right. That makes sense because you know, people have so much e-mail in their, you know, outlook and e-mail box already, so if you keep it fairly short and concise you know, their really going to really appreciate that.
Sandy: Absolutely and that’s what you want to do, you want to keep it short, concise, you want to keep your paragraphs small, because none of us want to see a huge chunk of words all written together on our computer screens. So keep them nice and short with lots of space between them.
Just make’s it much more easier to read. Now in terms of your follow-up question about what types of things can people do with that article, I can tell you one of the biggest mistakes that people do is they write the article for the e-zine and then they’re done, they think, okay, all set. And it sits in their computer drive and does no good.
They can now take that same article and do what’s called article marketing. And this is something that you can do in just a few minutes a day or if you have an assistant, you can task it to your assistant and what article marketing is, you take your article and you post it on different directories, different Websites around the internet.
Most of them are free, or a lot of them are free and you’re taking your article and you’re putting it out there with a link back to your Website. So you’re pasting your information, your content out on somebody else’s Website for internet readers worldwide, to come and find, with a resource box and a call to action which takes them back to your Website.
And the reason you want to do this, I get asked all the time, wait a minute, I poured my little heart into this article, why am I giving it away.
Jennifer: Exactly.
Sandy: Why do I want to post it on these article sites? I’m sure you get the same question. Why would I want to do this?
Jennifer: Yes, yes, I get that question a lot, you know, I’ll be so excited when my article gets picked up someplace and people who don’t know what I’m talking about will say, I didn’t know they took your article, you know that’s copyrighted information, but it’s great because, well just adding a little technical information real quick in here, the number – the more links you have to your Website, the higher your Website is going to be in search engine optimization.
So I just wanted to give that little technical plug. I know that’s not really what you’re talking about Sandy, but I just wanted to get that little plug about that, but the other reason….
Sandy: You’re absolutely right. There’s nothing more gratifying than taking your name, in my case Sandra Martini, putting it in quotes and going to Google and doing a search, and coming up with over a hundred thousand entries. And those are all different places that have found me, and that now link to my Website or that have my articles.
My articles are on thousands of directories, blogs, Websites, newsletters, 99% of which I don’t even know about, and it’s all because I’ve done some article marketing. And what that means is you post your article out on a Website such as e-zinearticles.com and that’s a free Website, and people who are looking for newsletter content, go to e-zine articles and in my case, they might type in small business marketing.
Or marketing tips and techniques. And up will come you know, five, ten whatever of my articles and they can read through it and they go ooh I like that one. They have permission to take my entire article and rerun it either in their blog, on their Website, in their e-zine as long as they include the copyright information at the bottom which says I wrote the article, it’s mine and they have a little blurb about me and who I am, with a call to action.
And the call to action is if you want more free tips like this, more free how to tips, and to sign up for my free five step audio series, How To Put Your Marketing On Auto Pilot, visit sandramartini.com. So it’s got a live link to my Web site and what that does, is it entices the people who see it on e-zine articles, and the people who then take it and use it on their blogs or Websites, and want all of their readers to say, “Hey I like what this woman’s writing,” and they go back to my Web site and sign up for my e-zine and now they’re on my list.
Stay tuned for part 2 of this interview.
Jennifer Haubein publishes “SiteNotes” a FREE bi-weekly ezine for small business owners who want a website that actually works. If you’re ready to get insider tips website developers don’t want you to know, and start making more money online, get your FREE tips now at http://www.BestBizWebsiteSolutions.com/newsletter.html.
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