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1. Too much time between issues. The biggest problem of conventional newsletter marketing is the amount of time that goes by between issues. Consistency is the essence of success. Your goal is to maintain your firm’s constant visibility. You have to consistently publish, in order to be there when your market is ready to buy. Otherwise, “out of sight, out of mind.”
Think of the oscilloscope on E.R., monitoring a patient’s heartbeat in Intensive Care. Every time the patient’s heart beats, the trace reaches a peak and the oscilloscope “beeps.” But – almost immediately – the trace begins to disappear.
A similar thing happens when you send out a newsletter. Your awareness peaks in the days immediately following arrival of your message. Your firm will be the one thought of should a purchase opportunity turn up. But, as more and more time passes, your visibility diminishes until you’re forgotten.
The more time that goes by between issues, the less chance you’ll make a sale. The more time that goes by between issues, the greater the chance that your competitors will steal your customers.
Newsletters that come out every month, or – worse, quarterly – just don’t make it in today’s overcrowded and over-communicated marketplace where your competition is trying to make your customers forget about you.
2. Too many pages in each issue. Excessive length – i.e. too many pages – is the primary reason that most newsletters cannot be published frequently enough to maintain constant visibility.
The more pages in a newsletter, the more decisions that have to be made, and the more words that have to be written. More pages also means more time producing and formatting each issue, plus higher printing costs.
Readers and publishers both benefit from short, frequent newsletters. In today’s busy environment, readers are in a hurry. They don’t have time for lengthy preambles. They want to cut directly to the chase. Readers appreciate newsletters that respect their time and that contain as much information as possible in a short, easy-to-read format.
Writers benefit, too. Long newsletters, however, encourage “loose writing.” Not only do short newsletters require fewer words, they are easier to plan and easier to write. By limiting publishers to a finite number of words, short newsletters force writers to ruthlessly organize, edit and re-edit their words. As a result, short newsletters encourage clear, concise writing habits that communicate a lot of information in the fewest number of words.
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