“Help, help, I’m DROWN…. (Glug, glug, glug) …. ING!!!! That’s the sound your email inbox makes when it’s flooded with newsletters. Sendmeyourcrapforuseofyourfreething26@gmail.com is in trouble again. Your email address is dancing like a nervous criminal to the beat of Google mailbox police nasty grams.
There’s got to be a better way.
And Betsy Muse of Rocket Fuel Strategy has found it. Recently, I attended her free training on how to craft a valuable email newsletter campaign. I’ve come back to share the deets and takeaways from that experience to help you with yours.
(Screenshot of the rocket fuel site)
Forget Your Past Newsletter Experience
Out with the Old
In the beginning, well, 80s-90s there was the newsletter. Remember those two to four columns of Word-made articles that would pile up in your inbox. Gone are your hours spent trying to fill the 2 cm by 4 cm open space where the picture and text wouldn’t lay flush with each other. Yea!
Newsletters have trashed the Word format and now, embrace the email. But before you jump out there like every Tom, Dick, and Jafar (Notice my cultural correctness) to create an email newsletter follow these tips.
One: Create a strategy.
(Screenshot of Betsy’s ACTIVATE strategy)
Email Strategy Creation
The first thing Muse will teach you as her student is newsletters that rock worlds soak up the VOC. That’s short for voice of customer data. So, you must know who you’re wanting to create the newsletter for and why.
Target Your Audience of One
Your target audience is the same as your perfect customer or client. That’s not because he/she has 7up endorsements, drives a powder blue Mercedes-Benz C Class, and throws your brand a shout-out on the hottest talk shows. Let’s be real.
There are many characteristics your ideal audience member shares and those aren’t any of them. First, he/she likes you. Next, he/she trusts you. And finally, he/she buys from you…. a lot. And most importantly, he/she pays you on time, and doesn’t COMPLAIN!
But business outcome-wise this is how your audience member will show up on your radar.
- He/she joins your social media channels.
- He/she reacts with comments on brand-related posts.
- He/she buy from you…a lot.
- He/she tells his/her friends and family you are the best positioned to solve their specific problem. The problem you’re in business to take care of with either an all-star service or a product.
Here are a few questions to keep in mind as you look to find that one audience member for your newsletter.
- Who buys from you now, that fits that description above?
- Who buys from your competitors that seems to fill in those same criteria?
Now, form a basic market research plan.
In other words, troll them…from afar of course.
Take note of these items:
- Where do they hang out most online?
- What social media posts or blog posts do they comment most on?
- How old are they approximately?
- What influencers do they follow?
- How much money do you think they make per year?
Etc.
When you have that info recorded, you’re ready to dive into more systematic research.
Hello, Voice of Customer Data.
Start with your own product or service reviews. Look up these customers or clients and fill in an analysis sheet. Betsy at Rocket Fuel Strategies then sent me a beautiful Google sheet to document this behavior.
But if you are a Copyhacker Limitless member, or a month-to-month paying Copyhacker, you can use the CH attachments in the mega database and researcher (CH owner Jo calls Airstory). Tadaah! The Ultimate Message Map.
Don’t overlook your own social media following
Next turn to your social following. Poll them directly or send out personal invites to interview them. Always have a bonus gift to exchange for their help of useful information. Some tangible token to let them know you care and want to show appreciation.
Look-alike audience
If there is no one following you that matches the wants to buy from you criteria…no worries. It’s time to get cordial with your competition. They have already built an audience and are get into content creation to feed that group’s demand for their solution.
Finding the Competition
Simple Google searches will put you in the path of influencers within your business’s field of study. Jot down a few of these names on an analysis form.
(Again, the rocket fuel is in my Google docs, but I know Betsy Muse might blow a fuse (just kidding) if I let that link do a bit of cyber-walking. So, do check her out esp. if you dig her ACTIVATE strategy in this blogpost.)
Pay attention to your competition’s social media channels, blogs, and posts on other blogs. Also, note frequency of posts. How much are they posting on each channel.
From this I learned that even self-help kings like Brendon Burchard posting podcast of Twitter is a waste of time. His reward was a thumbs up or two. That’s it.
Locate the Gaps
To find the gaps in message matching you must read between the lines of text. Literally. That’s where you zero in on the information your competition hasn’t delivered on yet.
To do this…read the comments underneath the competition’s social media posts. Listen to their podcasts, watch YouTubes, and get familiar with their audience likes and dislikes.
Now, the secret sauce out poured on the filet of fish of your newsletter study. Keep an ear open. Listen for something your target audience wants that is not getting from this influencer. This could be in the form of a suggestion or an unanswered question.
Include those insights also on your form.
Create your newsletter’s value proposition
Call it slogan. Call it a tagline. But understand this. It’s necessary to set you apart from your competitors.
The Creative Newsletter isn’t going to cut it.
The only place or space you can get value in the copywriter field won’t work either.
Your value prop needs to be specific to the audience and their not listened to wants and needs.
Jo Wiebe of Copyhackers is famous for using the M and M line as her illustrative example to explain value propositions.
Milk chocolate that melts in your mouth, not in your hand. That’s one of her favorites. So, let’s break it down to help you create a value proposition for your audience.
First, the company’s product is in there. They are selling milk chocolate.
Second, the slogan mentions particular value to the customer. This milk chocolate doesn’t melt when you don’t want it too.
Third, in the statement, “melts in your mouth not in your hand,” you see in written form the opposite of your competition’s condition. They have chocolate that melts wherever and whenever. Your value prop boasts of this product or service differentiator, the hard candy shell of protection.
Application of Value Proposition to Your Newsletter
First, your value prop must mention what it is. It is a newsletter….an email series…. a flood of useful tips…. Your value prop should answer that format question of what is it? That must be in the newsletter value proposition. It’s not milk chocolate it’s…. what?
If you want Muse gave a great slide during our training that captured this concept well. So, confused? Score more rocket fuel.
Let’s go back to our example, the creative newsletter.
(Insert LI Photo 1)
Now, you’d want to clarify this proposition. Restate it with new copy technique instead of the short tech to be most clear.
Surf other Newsletters
There are websites with the best newsletters on the web. These are a great resource.
Review them with these questions in mind.
Can I tell why they were creating this email newsletter?
What do you think they want people to get out of it?
What is the valuable stuff given to your one reader?
How much time, resources and which tools did designers use to create this newsletter?
How was it advertised?
How did they set up a visible system to measure the newsletter’s progress?
These are questions that once answered go a long way to designing your own newsletter and newsletter strategy?
Decide on a newsletter format once you’ve got these ideas of what you want and don’t want fresh in your head.
Short Case Study
Here’s where your research takes a new turn. Start brushing off the email address and sign up for your competitor emails.
One thing I noticed when reviewing one newsletter is that the Creative Marketing Newsletter was just a compilation of LinkedIn posts links in the close local of one email. So, the use is convenience. You don’t have to scroll through this copywriter’s LinkedIn feed. Instead, you just click on links in his newsletter.
That right there is a gap. The newsletter subscribers aren’t getting any more value in new copywriting strategy process tips and tricks than the LinkedIn connections.
Enter…my gap.
But I applaud the newsletter’s efficiency. First it comes out every other Thursday. And two it recycles work. So, the Linked In content pays dividends twice. That’s an interesting way to work smarter not harder by stretching the idea of what value is to your one reader.
Central Topic Selection
Muse also shared with us that once you have your newsletter format planned, it’s time to get topics picked.
“Narrow down to a Big Three!”
Muse then turned up the thrust with a mind-blowing mind map of her three topics and smaller topics for future use.
(Miro.com screenshot)
Muse used her three Subtopics under Entrepreneurship…. Health…Lead and Demand Generators….and one other…. but of course, you must try out some rocket fuel to get her last subtopic. My memory’s not that sharp.
Story telling Magic
Muse then unwove her magic of coming up with Ideas. She called it the story bank.
Think of this like a Chicken Soup for the Soul mantra. Tell it, but don’t preach it. Prove it and tell why it matters especially in connection to your topic. You are a brand storyteller that brings your one reader on a wonderous ride of real life or imagined tales and analogies.
Refer to yourself as a subtle guide and teacher. Brush off that journalism textbook and put on the beige fishing hat. You’re poised to hook eager readers with a large number of great ledes that all lead back to promoting what you are selling in the brightest light of value.
Stories
Any story when told right can show your audience unknown connections to your products, services, or philosophies.
Muse’s daughter’s fear of spiders is one story that connected to her brand. Fear of the unknown or something small keeps us from a meaningful experience. Her newsletter spoke to the entrepreneur, so this is a flexible storyline.
Why not speak to her daughter’s death grip on her mom as she saw the spider.
That’s a wonderful example of a topical segway. That of the entrepreneur being unknown and their fear shying them away from social media.
To prove the spider existed…Muse snapped a pic of a huge web taken on site of her country home.
Muse’s position of this story was less dramatic. But again, sample that rocket fuel training to get her personal business topical connections.
Analogies
Another example, Muse gave was a description of the vulture and the sandpiper as they made tracks in the soil. Click. Right there in her email…another pic of the two tracks. She asked the question of which animal would the entrepreneur want to be the sandpiper or the vulture.
Then she wowed us all with her answer. The lesson…. things are not always as they appear to you as an entrepreneur. But once again you’ll have to experience some rocket fueled advice to see the picture of the two tracks with your own eyes.
Total Evaluation
Community
Muse has a laid-back personality. She had little expectations for her training’s students. She explained you could come or leave at any time you needed to. There were about six in attendance at the training. Muse was friendly and understanding throughout my experience. Especially when my computer just decides to head to the water cooler and take its own inconvenient little break.
Activities
Research-related activities. Muse called it more guided practice than a course of study.
Work time
Most activities including research, strategy plans, and value propositions kept under thirty-minute lock and key.
I didn’t finish any assignments. But I did get rough draft starts on them.
Gains
I got a Google doc to pour my research findings into. Also, I have an idea of how in-depth I need to go to study my competitors. It’s topical and so much better than starting from scratch.
I discovered parts to a strategy that were easy to plug into existing strategies. This blogpost is a product of this type of borrowing from everyone out there’s newsletter strategy.
Muse delivered as promised a workshop of pure golden value in that it had no pitches.
Last, I paid zilch. But that’s why I’m writing this honest review. It’s my philosophy that if someone gives me value, I repay it with value of my own. Thank, Napoleon Hill. And my DNA. Well, my parents too. Youth gr…. nah!
Losses
The Google documents are not well formatted. There are spreadsheet cells that only have white writing in them. They are empty until further investigation. Other cells have where the info shifts to the bottom of the cell. This formatting weakness is more a nuisance than anything.
The information came very quickly at me. This pace favored those who had prepaid Muse for her lesson-by-lesson advice and signed up for the replay of the training.
Last, this is not a networking event. Again, my system went down halfway through the training. When I got it to come back up, there was zero incentive to show my face cam. In a free training of six there was a feeling missing of any community support for long term success.
Overall
If you look at the gains and insights, you far outweigh the losses of two hours with rapid-fire material coming at you. The Google docs to create a story bank, document a strategy, and absorb research were a big timesaver. That’s even with funky formatting problems.
Last, Muse is a very thorough instructor who has in the past reached out to me. If I ever had a question even taking the course as free, Muse would make sure that my question was answered or request for help was granted.
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Until next time, continue to be that top-shelf you.