For publishers of client newsletters
SUMMARY
Key #1. Create a good impression
Key #2. Provide useful information
Key #3. Prompt readers to take action
Bonus: "Newsletter Readers Want Bottom-line
Benefits," from an 11/22/02 CLTV interview
About the interviewee
Visit CLTV's website
Contact Newsletter Strategy Session
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Definition: What's a client newsletter?
Article
A television interview with Dave Freedman
Following is the transcript of an interview that CLTV (Chicago) anchorman Bill Moller conducted with David M. Freedman. It aired on the "Building Your Business" segment of "Your Money," October 10 and 12, 2001.
Moller: Businesses are always looking for ways to get their name
and their services out there before their existing or potential
cus
tomers. One way that big and small firms do that is by printing and
sending out a regular newsletter.
Whether a single page or many, they feature short articles, advice, tips, top-10 lists, and always that letter from the boss. National chains like Costco, down to neighborhood accountants send out their free newsletters.
David Freedman is a newsletter consultant. A journalist, he helps companies and individuals with things like the layout, story selection, and writing.
Freedman: It’s an excellent secondary marketing tool. [See
sidebar for an explanation of primary and secondary marketing tools.]Moller: Whether online or printed, a newsletter, he says, is an inexpensive way for a company to reinforce and extend its image. A good newsletter is both an artistic and journalistic document.
Freedman (showing an exemplary printed newsletter): The front is inviting. The table of contents is excellent, it tells you what’s inside [so] you don’t have to flip through to figure it out. Nice splash of color on the cover to attract your attention.
Moller: For a newsletter to be effective for the company and helpful for the reader, David Freedman says, it must include three things. First, a good newsletter must create a good impression.
Freedman: You do that by using high-quality paper, good design….
Moller: It must be well written and its information useful.
Freedman: Something to help readers improve their performance, or help them increase their bottom line.
Moller: And it should encourage readers to do something, mainly to do more business with the company.
Freedman: Ideally, the newsletter should prompt readers to inquire further about issues that are covered in the newsletter. [See the article "Reader Response Mechanisms"]
Moller: He says that companies no longer need to be convinced about the value of a newsletter. It’s all a matter of getting one’s image and message to the top of the pile.
SIDEBAR
What's a Secondary Marketing Tool?
With notable exceptions, a newsletter normally serves as a secondary marketing tool, one that supports and extends primary marketing efforts. Primary marketing tools introduce prospective customers to your company, describe your products or services and their benefits, create a good first impression, differentiate your company from your competitors, and motivate people to take action.
The one objective that a newsletter can accomplish more cost-effectively than most other marketing tools is demonstrating your expertise and authoritativeness.
Newsletter Readers Want Bottom-line Benefits (Not Self-serving Fluff)
A brief interview with Dave Freedman
By Bill Moller, host of “Your Money,” CLTV-Chicago
November 22, 2002
MOLLER: Dave Freedman, you help develop and write and produce a number of newsletters for professional clients. Typically what are the mistakes a small business owner will make when they decide to put out a newsletter?
FREEDMAN: The most common mistake is that they don’t realize how much work it is to put out a high-quality newsletter. They assign the project to a staff person who doesn’t have journalism experience. Then when the deadline comes around they panic because they don’t have enough high-quality content to put in the newsletter, so they come up with fluffy, irrelevant, self-serving content. And it just doesn’t go over big with the client.
MOLLER: It’s important to know what your readers want to read.
FREEDMAN: Exactly. Readers want information that will help them make more money, comply with regulations, and solve problems. Not just any problems, but their specific problems.
MOLLER: I’m a journalist, so I know that in writing a news story you need to have a hook, you’ve got to grab the reader or the viewer. And it’s the same case with a newsletter, you gotta hook ‘em.
FREEDMAN: Exactly. You have to be a journalist. You have to be creative in the way you present your material to draw the reader in, let the reader know what the benefits are before they start reading, so they’ll be hooked.
MOLLER: Is it an expensive proposition, publishing a consistent, let’s say monthly newsletter?
FREEDMAN: Not necessarily. I have a client who publishes a two-page newsletter on his letterhead. So the cost of producing it is very low. But he knows that he has to spend a lot of time and energy in writing articles that fulfill his clients’ interests.
MOLLER: Dave Freedman, thanks.
FREEDMAN: You’re welcome. Thank you.
About
the interviewee
David M. Freedman is a Chicago-based writer, editor, media relations consultant, and newsletter developer (www.freedman-chicago.com). He is the founder and director of Newsletter Strategy Session (
www.nwsltr.com). You can reach him at 847-204-6848 or by e-mail.