Sean D'Souza: Spiced up news will ensure clients return

Sean D'Souza.

Imagine someone borrowed your content.

Imagine they then took that exact content, just changed some links and sent it out to their contact list.

Would recipients realise the content was "borrowed?"

In most cases the answer is no.

Try it yourself. Just take the newsletter you get from one company, cut and paste it into another company's newsletter, and you'd be shocked to find you can't tell who sent what.

So what causes some newsletters to stand out while others seem to just merge with the background?

Is it just content? Just style? Or something else? The truth is, there are dozens of reasons why anything works. But you'd be wise to start out with the three big reasons why some newsletters are hot, while others are plainly not.

But why bother spicing up the newsletter in the first place?

Remember, the newsletter is critical. Most people think the website is critical. And yes, websites are important, but it's very rare that websites themselves are responsible for sales.

Examine your own journey and you'll find that even if you do go to the website first, it's always the newsletter that pulls you back to examine a product or service.

People almost never buy from a website first. A newsletter almost always spurs them on, unless they're browsing for some product/service and have to buy right away. Most customers are not buyers. Which is why your newsletter becomes critical. And most newsletters can be fixed in three easy steps.

Start by creating a template for your newsletter.

* What voice are you going to have?

* What structure are you going to have?

* What possible design will you have?

Let's start with the voice.

Are you the person who rants? Are you the soothing voice? Are you something else? I'm a person who rants. I'm fussy about stuff and I do things my way.

Firstly, what's your voice? Ask yourself: what kind of person am I? Most people think they have to put on a voice. But you are already a character. You don't have to do anything but be yourself.

But what if you have a personality that's kinda um, different - like grumpy? Well that's just you. And it will work very well for you to project your grumpiness.

Let's say you were rugby coach Graham Henry.

Now, Henry looks tough. But he also looks grumpy. If you were Henry and you were about to start writing a newsletter, you'd be crazy to not use that grumpiness or toughness to your advantage. The point is, in life people accept you for what you are.

And keeping that brand image (yes it's a brand image) consistent really helps. You can be whoever you really are, but have a voice.

Seondly, you need structure of elements. Having a structure saves you time, but it also creates a specific format that readers get used to. If, for instance, you look at John Forde's newsletter (copywritersroundtable.com) you'll find John follows a format. It includes a quote, some affiliate links and John's easy flowing articles on copywriting. And that consistency helps both John and his readers.

When you look at the Psychotactics newsletter you see a lot of structure too. But there's sales structure and editorial structure to consider. At first we'd only send out a newsletter - no sales pitch.

Then we started sending out a sales letter with sales content at the top. Then we sandwiched it with some sales content on the top and some at the bottom. And the article sat right in between. That's structure. We tested what works for us. What works for us may not work for you.

Our definition of "what works" is what saves us time and gets us a steady flow of customers.

And finally, the design. Design is simply how you present your newsletter. It can be all fancy, or not at all. Our newsletter doesn't have frills. It's text only. If you want to read the HTML version it's on the blog. Why? It works for us. Our text-only newsletter generates enough for us to live happily ever after.

Is this advice almost too basic?

It may appear basic, yet it's critical to pay close attention to all three factors. Even if you do have two in place, you may find you don't really have a distinct voice. Or you may have a distinct voice, but no consistency of layout. All these little things matter if you want to create a newsletter that's read, paid attention to, and brings clients back to you repeatedly.

Use the three steps. Make them work for you.

And make it very hard for others to "borrow" your newsletter.

Sean D'Souza is chief executive of Psychotactics and an international author and trainer. He is the author of The Brain Audit - Why Customers Buy (And Why They Don't).

psychotactics.com