Newsletters: 4 Mistakes People Make
Printed newsletters are an ideal way of keeping communication channels open with your customers and prospects. Keeping them up to date with information about your products or services, and anything happening in your company, makes them feel they are important to you and you are interested in them.
BUT - be careful not to fall into the 'newsletter trap'. You can make your print newsletter effective by avoiding the 9 biggest mistakes people make; here are 4 of them:
Mistake 1: Boring Headlines
Use descriptive headlines to attract your reader's interest. Give the promise of something worth reading. You can turn a boring headline into something more appealing by simply expanding it, as in these examples:
Boring Headline: New XL987 Widget Interesting Headline: New XL987 Widget Increases Production by 30%
Boring Headline: New Website Launched Interesting Headline: Download Free Report from Newly Launched Website
Boring Headline: Message from the Managing Director Interesting Headline: Managing Director Announces New Process Cuts Delivery Times in Half
Use attention-grabbing words to give your newsletter headline more impact, such as 'new'; 'announcing' and, where possible, be specific.
Mistake 2: Headlines Are The Same Size
Glance through any newspaper and you see the headlines are different sizes. It makes the paper more attractive to look at and guides the reader to more important articles.
Design your newsletter to do the same. Generate more interest in your main stories with larger headlines and use smaller headlines in those that are less significant.
Mistake 3: Woolly Opening Sentences.
Keep your reader's attention with your opening sentence. And once your reader has been caught by the headline, don't disappoint them with a boring statement; it discourages them from finishing the article.
For example if you are writing the article in an in-house company newsletter for the XL987 widget headline an uninteresting start might be:
The new XL987 widget was launched at the company AGM on July 18th in London.
Your reader doesn't care when or where the new product was launched - the sentence offers nothing of real interest at all - it's likely to elicit the question "So what?". Whereas this one clearly states something more remarkable:
"As well as increasing production by 30%, the new XL987 widget will cut costs by 10% and is likely to add £147,000 to the company turnover," claimed Managing Director, Charles Forthwith, at the AGM.
Newspaper reporters know they must get the most important information over first to compel their reader to finish the article. You need to do the same.
Mistake 4: Too Many Font Styles
Resist the temptation to 'pretty up' your newsletter with a myriad of font styles and colours. It makes your newsletter too busy and difficult for people to read. It also looks very amateurish.
Choose a maximum of 2 fonts - 1 for headlines and 1 for the main body of the text. You can change the size of the headline font to create variety - as previously mentioned.
Do not change the font size for the articles. Write enough text to fill the space you have. Don't increase the size to fit a gap or reduce the size to fit more in. It looks inconsistent and unattractive.
Related Tags: copywriting, newsletters, copywriting mistakes
© 2004 Carol A E Bentley
Extracted from the 9 mistakes described in the book 'I Want to Buy Your Product... Have You Sent Me a Letter Yet' (How to create powerful sales letters, advertisements, flyers, brochures, web pages and newsletters that persuade hundreds, or even thousands, of additional customers and clients to buy from you!) by Carol A E Bentley (Rated 5-star on Amazon) This book is available at a special offer at http://www.CarolBentley.com/offer
Or subscribe to your free reports on copywriting, with no commitment, at
http://www.CarolBentley.com
Carol has extensive experience in writing copy for direct response campaigns. If you would like to talk to Carol's office about having her work on your current or next sales project you can use the contact form on her website.
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