NEWSLETTERS 101: #1 Tips and Tricks to Help You Connect
Someone wrote back to me today, telling me how much they enjoyed my email newsletter. They said it gave them hope they could make theirs better. Yippee! I love it when I can encourage people to take one step forward. I know it will lead to many more.
I'm not the perfect newsletter writer. But I'm happy to share more insights on what might work for YOU.
What's my secret sauce?
1. Be authentic. I write like I'm talking to a good friend. (You can now skip this entire article if you're out of time, because that's the heart of my advice.)
2. Be positive. So, not the friend where I cuss and swear about something frustrating that happened to me at the supermarket. I stick with positive news. No politics. No complaining.
3. Don't be boring. And not like the letters we had to write for elementary school English class. (As in, "Hello, how are you? I am fine! Today I had a sandwich for lunch. What did YOU have for lunch?") I share something I'm excited about, something interesting I'm working on.
4. Don't be pompous. If making people feel smaller works for you, okay, I guess. But I prefer reading about the people who make me feel like I have a voice in the world, too. (Again with the 'friend' thing.)
5. Act like you care. I write as if I'm talking with someone I care about. Someone who hasn't heard from me in a few weeks, someone who really likes me, and who loves my work.
6. Share your news. Then I tell them what's up. What I've done, what I'll be doing, and oh, you might be interested in this thing I made/wrote. And I ask them to let me know what they think. (More on this in the weeks to come.)
7. Think about what YOU like to hear in emails. I think about what I like when I get other people's emails. So in the next few weeks, take note of what newsletters YOU get. What do you like about them? Which ones do you stop and read right away? Why?? What's in them that makes you happy? Inspired? Thoughtful?
8. Don't make it all about the money. I consider the things I DON'T like to see in other people's emails. Repetition. Always about sales. Acting like a TV commercial. Creating false urgency. (Even a call to action does not always have to be about buying something.)
9. Remember that when people sign up for our newsletter, it means they WANT to know more. They want to know what makes us tick. How (and why) we do what we do. How we found our way forward, and how they can, too.
Otoh, I think about the people who put me on their email list without checking with me first. DON'T DO THIS!
10. Be casual. Perhaps this advice is not 'professional'. Perhaps people who are famous artists do it differently. After all, they may have a prestigious clientele, people who would willingly pay $25,000-$100,000 or more for their artwork.
But that's not me. So I do it differently.
11. We're visual artists. Include pictures! Seriously. This would be so much harder if we were musicians.
12. Remember, all customers are fans, but not all fans are customers. I'm writing to people who may not be able to afford my work. And people who have collected my work for decades. And everyone in between. In my newsletter, everyone is worthy.
13. Let people know who you are. The people I'm writing for are people I saw regularly back in New Hampshire, and people who may have never met me. People who come to every open studio, and people who have never been to my studio. Some of them are on the East Coast, some are on the West Coast, and some are in the middle. So we can't even talk about the weather! But what they all have in common is wanting to know more about us, about our work, about our journey.
14. There's too often, and not enough. Too long, and too short. Etc. (You get to choose.)* Because I don't want to inundate people with my writing, I used to limit my email newsletter to 'events', just like I did with my snail mail mailing list. Here's my booth number at that fair, here are the dates of my open studio, etc.
I subscribe to quite a few blogs and artist newsletters myself. Some write every day. Some write once a week, and some write once a year.
Some are so long, I never stop to read them. Some are so interesting, I drop whatever I'm doing to read them.
When I unsubscribe from a newsletter, it's because a) I'm no longer interested in what they're sharing with me; b) I'm not buying what they're selling; c) I never signed up for their newsletter in the first place.
My point here is, there is no single right-or-wrong way to write a newsletter. Except, too boring, too repetitive, and waaaaaay too long. (I'm lookin' at MYSELF here.)
You might be disciplined enough to send one every week, or every month. Or you might be like me, skipping a month or two, then sending three in a week.
If people like what you're saying, they won't care. If they don't, they'll find any excuse to unsubscribe. And like people that say mean things to us, it's more about them than it is about us.
15. Email newsletters are soooo much easier/quicker/cheaper than snail mail mailings to stay in touch with our followers. Back then, it was expensive to mail thousands of people, even just a postcard. So I never sent a newsletter for any other reason.
Now, all I have to do is type, and add some good pictures, and hit 'send'. Yay! I just saved $600!!
Last, here's something I've learned this year:
16. Newsletters level the playing field between extroverts and introverts. More on this to come!
*Now my caveat: There are people who offer different advice about newsletters. They have more expertise than I do, and perhaps even statistics to back them up. Please, feel free to skip my advice if/when it conflicts with theirs.
But if this appeals to you, stay tuned for more columns ahead, where I'll share some ideas about things we can write about, and why newsletters can be a powerful tool for introverts.
Share your own stories in the comments! What newsletter did you create that got the best response from your audience, and what do you think was the reason why? Where do you get stuck when creating a newsletter? What's your greatest fear? (Hint: Getting our work out into the world is a hero's journey. Newsletters are much less strenuous!)
If you enjoyed this article, please feel free to pass it on to someone else. And if someone sent you this article, and you liked it, too, see more of my articles at FineArtViews.com, other art marketing topics at Fine Art Views art marketing newsletter, and my blog at LuannUdell.wordpress.com.
