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I’ve long been interested in the format of electronic newsletters, with their capacity to share knowledge and insight with one’s prospects, and so indirectly lead people toward one’s services. After all, who doesn’t love reading a short, informative e-newsletter?

E-Newsletter specialist Michael Katz has pioneered the format over the past 15 or 20 years for professional services’ firms. In two recent interviews with AWAI, he argued that email and email-based newsletters are not “dead,” despite the many recent developments in mobile technology. In fact, the e-newsletter format continues to influence prospects’ knowledge and buying decisions. If you have an opening rate of 25 to 30%, that is likely significantly better than consumer response rates to traditional newspaper ads, direct mail or unsolicited phone calls.

After consulting Katz’s brief but powerful book, E-Newsletters that Work (Xlibris, 2003), I’ve added e-newsletter creation, writing and editing to my list of available services. Here’s why: the following are some reasons why e-newsletters are very much worth creating for small- and medium-sized business owners, like you:

•   With many professional service-type companies, prospects can’t measure your services upfront, before they buy them. But by publishing an e-newsletter, you can easily earn the respect and trust of new prospects

•   E-Newsletters are low-cost, convenient ways to “stay in front of people” over and over (month by month), so that you become seen as a “likeable expert” in your field. When a prospect thinks of that field, you will come quickly to mind

•   E-newsletters really are simply extended email messages, and are a systematic version of “word of mouth.”  (And everyone knows how valuable word of mouth can be . . . . )

•   E-Newsletters are easily forwarded from one reader to another, including over social media

•   As a client, you may not feel that you are an expert. But most business owners have lifetimes of knowledge and expertise that I can leverage, for content

•   E-Newsletters are meant to be conversational and interactive relationship builders. They invite readers to reply to a particular story or detail that resonates with them

•   Although they focus on the needs of the prospect, e-newsletters have a distinct voice, point-of-view and authentic (not salesy) content that convey the identity of the service provider

•   E-Newsletter content does not need to say wholly original things, but should instead share simple content in the form of a single powerful insight, told from a clear point-of-view, with a lay audience

•  A strong format for B2B marketing, e-newsletters are not about a hard-sell. 80% of them should share knowledge and only 20% should promote a good or service

• E-Newsletters should not be more than two pages, or they will not be read

•  You can re-purpose e-newsletter copy in the form of webinars, books, special reports and other content-rich formats

•  Since about the year 2000, vendors for newsletters have grown more sophisticated and easier to use, so that now one doesn’t need to know HTML programming, in order to create a successful newsletter. Numerous good programs in North America exist, some with complimentary trial periods, training and support

•  The quality of the subscribers’ list is more important than its size.

Katz observed recently that e-newsletter clients like you should not be afraid of “giving away” your expertise. He observed: “If you can give away your business in 12 monthly newsletters, you don’t have a business in the first place.”

What ideas or questions do you have about electronic newsletters? Do you see a need for one in your business? Please share your thoughts — I’d be delighted to hear from you.

 

 

Today’s blog is a note to clients and prospects:

What is Canada’s New Anti-Spam Law (2014)?

After being passed into law in December, 2010, Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (or CASL, pronounced “Castle”) will take effect on July 1^st, 2014, restricting the electronic sending of marketing or promotional messages from service providers to prospects.  Months ago, when I last blogged about the legislation, few in my social media groups were concerned enough to discuss it.

But more recently that has changed. Social Media correspondence and informational copy provided by local marketers in Saskatoon and by the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) (to name just one) have clarified some of the implications of the legislation.  What follows are the highlights as presented by lawyer Bill Hearn (Davis LLP) in written communication to the CPRS:

For clients and prospects who may wonder how communications freelancers like me can comply with CASL and what changes it may bring to our services, please read on  . . . .

What Practices are Affected by CASL?

First, not only Direct Mail marketers but all communications’ and media-relations professionals will have to follow strict rules intended to eliminate the number of unsolicited electronic messages that are currently being sent by and to us. “Electronic messages” include email, social media messages, text messages sent by mobile phones and instant messages.

Violations cost individuals and organizations public reputation and huge fines: $1Million for individuals and $10 Million for any other legal entity (such as a corporation). Beginning in July 1, 2017, individuals have the right to take action against companies contravening CASL, with fines up to a maximum of $1 Million per day that the contravention occurs. Stiff prohibitions!

I won’t be cold-emailing or using direct contact functions in LinkedIn, for instance, or on other social media platforms. After researching various companies or organizations, I will still use cold-calling and surface mail introductory letters. But more and more, word-of-mouth referrals will be essential. They have long been freelancers’ preferred choice for securing clients.

What Content is Affected and to Whom Does CASL Apply?

CASL applies to bloggers and writers of any field, like me, who offer or promote a business opportunity, and/or promote a person who will provide a service.

What Constitutes Consent or Permission for Sending Promotional Messages?

Commercial Electronic Messages (CEMs) sent to any recipient without his/her prior expressed or implied consent (permission) are prohibited.  A CEM is defined as encouraging participation in any kind of commercial activity, regardless of whether any profit is expected.

Consent to receive a CEM may be implied, in the following cases:

• the recipient has conspicuously published their electronic address
• the publication is not accompanied with a statement that the recipient doesn’t want to receive unsolicited CEMs at that address

and

• if the message is relevant to the person’s business, role, or duties in a business or official capacity Continue reading “How Will Canada’s Anti-Spam Law 2014 Affect the Exchange of “Marcom” Services?”

While I deepen my knowledge and use of search engine optimization strategies, I daily continue to receive and read Seth Godin’s influential blog posts. I’ve previously admired and discussed his work on psychological factors of marketing (including resistance in Linchpin: Are you Indispensable). So for today’s blog I’m revisiting his posting from March 13, 2013, which gives more food for thought in this area . . .

“Avoiding fear by indulging in our fear of fear

Every day, we make a thousand little compromises, avoid opportunities, actions and people – all so that we can stay away from the emotion of fear.

Note that I didn’t say, “so we can stay away from what we fear.” No, that’s something else entirely. Right now, most of us are avoiding the things that might merely trigger the emotion itself. That’s how distasteful it is to us.

The alternative? To dance with it. To seek out the interactions that will trigger the resistance and might make us uncomfortable.

Are we trying to avoid the unsafe? Or merely the feeling of being unsafe? Increasingly, these are completely different things.

Due to ‘enhanced security,’ a recent bike event in New York City forbade the 30,000 riders from carrying hydration packs. No practical reason, just the desire to avoid fear.

The upcoming exam doesn’t get studied for, not because studying is risky, but because studying reminds us that there’s a test coming up.

We loudly keep track of all the failures of commission around us, but never mention the countless failures of omission, all the mistakes that were made by not being bold. To track those, to remind ourselves of the projects not launched or the investments not made, is to encounter our fear of forward motion. (So much easier to count typos than it is to mention the paragraphs never written.)

There’s no other reason for not having a will, a health proxy, an insurance policy, or an up to date checkup. Apparently, while it’s not risky to plan for our demise, it generates fear, which we associate with risk, and so we avoid it.

It’s simple: the fear that used to protect us is now our worst enemy.

Easier to avoid the fear than it is to benefit from living with it. I’ve heard the quote a thousand times but never really thought it through . . .

Hence the opportunity. If you do things that are safe but feel risky, you gain a significant advantage in the marketplace.”

Continue reading “When Emotions Subvert our Creative Potential (with thanks to Seth Godin) . . .”

I.  The writing of American  social worker and researcher Brene Brown has influenced business people for some time. Seth Godin prominently praised Brown’s study, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead (NY: Penguin, 2012). Most recently, in her latest study, All In: You, Your Business, Your Life (2013), (which I recently discussed, in this blog), Arlene Dickinson cites Brown and the importance of freeing oneself from shame in order to live courageously. Brown is a social worker (and former TED lecturer), who describes herself as a shame researcher. What has she brought to the conversation about the psychology of marketing, so that entrepreneurs/marketers like Godin and Dickinson take notice?

First, I think that everyone (whatever their field) has at some point felt shame. I recall a personal memory, fifteen years ago, when I attended a professional symposium, as a young guest and observer. Professionals from around the world were present and I thought the opportunity to hear the particular keynote speaker was a valuable one. But when I arrived, I had hastily written my (required) name tag and placed it on the blazer of my suit. In doing so, I had (unnoticed by me, due to the throngs of folk around) smudged the writing of my name and then not put the badge on straight.  For the next few minutes, unaware of my faux pas, I moved around cliques of professionals—people standing in tightly maintained circles, who were unwilling to acknowledge a newcomer’s presence in the reception room, much less to have the empathy to point out to me my botched name tag. When I realized my gaff, I cringed with shame. Still no one spoke to me. When I entered the auditorium, I did so alone. The irony that the meeting was to discuss psychological issues was not lost on me, and I knew that the politics I was witnessing were many years in the making, and had little to do with me. The tone of the audience was caustic and defensive.  Based the behaviour that I’d witnessed, I considered leaving, but figured that I had already paid and was entitled at least to hear the keynote.

Fast forward four years and I was sitting in an archive and reading room of a small university in Europe, where laptops groaned under the high summer heat (and lack of an air conditioner). After a morning’s work, my computer failed and I panicked as I suddenly was unable to retrieve pages (hours of transcriptions) of my observations, based on viewing archival documents that I had only temporary access to, and by travel and appointment. The loss was terrible and I felt ashamed about my technology malfunction, stung by disappointment and loss. I was considering giving up the whole project I was preparing. Unlike in the previous scenario, however, an acquaintance at the next table in this archive had witnessed my panic  and reached out to assist me, by salvaging memory onto a portable disk (prior to memory sticks and the “cloud”). That moment of empathy and grace has stayed with me, ever since. The surge of relief I felt with this friend’s support calmed me and helped me to cope and strategize. (With her help, by the way, I recovered most of the lost data.)

One memory recalls shame in all its isolating power and the other, release from it, by a good and kind friend.  Empathy acknowledges that no one is alone, when shame is isolating from others. Continue reading “Brene Brown’s Writing on Shame Influences Business, too”

March 8th was International Women’s Day and the topic of women entrepreneurs became top of mind, as I was offered free drinks and brochures on the topic at my local Staples’ store! In a much more sustained way, however, in my blog, I have always been interested in the role of gender in entrepreneurship.

In my blog, I observe and discuss issues pertaining to communications and marketing clients and not to service providers (writers, like me, designers, social media specialists, etc.) But recently, I began reading and blogging on contemporary books that argue that improving the careers and lives of women entrepreneurs simultaneously improves the way that business is done. So although I have not directly addressed my past, current or future prospects in these postings, the implications of these arguments affect us all.

Similarly, these arguments cross gender lines to affect men and the issues men face as entrepreneurs and prospects. I’m grateful to the men in the “marcom” world who have always treated me with the respect of an equal, both in Canada and the US: AWAI and marketing and copywriting experts Steve Slaunwhite and Ed Gandia; LinkedIn guru and trainer, Wayne Breitbarth; and, most recently, Saskatoon-based marketer, Harley Rivet.

Drawing from blog postings that I made between 2013 and this year, in this “special report” I want to revisit some of the challenges and complexities of entrepreneurship for women, featuring the writing of Sheryl Sandberg (Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead [2013]), Debora Spar (Wonder Women: Sex, Power and the Quest for Perfection[2013]), Dianna Huff (“Why Low Self-Worth Drives Lower Wages for Women Freelancers – and What You Can Do About It” [2012]) and Arlene Dickinson (All In: You, Your Business, Your life [2013]). 

1. Sheryl Sandberg: Lean In: Women Work and the Will to Lead (2013):

Every few years a book is released in the business world that is insightful enough to transcend the boundaries between the worlds of business and society (business/government, business/academia, business/the arts, etc.) or (in my case) between such divisions as copywriter and client or editor and writer. As I earlier discussed in my blog, Seth Godin’s Linchpin: Are You Indispensable (2010) was one such book. In the next couple of postings, I’ll discuss why Sheryl Sandberg’s bestseller, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, is another (New York: Knopf, 2013). It warrants a close reading from me and from the people with whom I work.  Freelancers may be negotiating an alternative pathway from the mainstream business world (on that see Michelle Goodman’s excellent book, My So-Called Freelance Life [Seal, 2008]). But that pathway isn’t any less subject to what women and men often experience as ongoing gender inequalities. These issues are what Sandberg, COO of Facebook, exposes and discusses.

Of course, as she readily says in her “acknowledgments,” such a discussion cannot reasonably be produced quickly by one person–particularly one as busy as she is, at Facebook. And, she openly states that she is “not a scholar, journalist or sociologist.” But a team of minds, including co-author, journalist Nell Scovell; and the sociologist and researcher, Marianne Cooper (and with the input of numerous others) has produced a manifesto for rethinking gender issues for the 21st century. Sandberg addresses women in the West; and  people (men as much as women) in every field, be they single, partnered, married, divorced, childless, parents or grandparents. (The research is US-based, but Sandberg’s insights are wide-reaching enough to transcend many cultural differences, without denying that those differences exist.)

40 years after the work of Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, whereby women became 50 percent of the college graduates in the United States, Sandberg takes as launching point the reality that the women’s revolution has stalled and true equality has not been reached.  Men still hold, she says, the majority of leadership positions in government, industry and academia, so that women’s voices are “still not heard in the decisions that most affect our lives.” She says that she, like most children of the 1960’s and 70’s expected the glass ceiling to shatter after she started working in the early 1990’s. Instead, she found “with each passing year, fewer and fewer of my colleagues were women. More and more, I was the only woman in the [board]room” (6). Continue reading “Special Report on Women In Business: Revisiting Blog Postings from 2013-14”