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Copywriting that speaks to your target audience

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The conversation you never thought you would hear

The conversation you never thought you would hear
Right now, the cat on the calendar has a better ‘stache than me.

When your father advises one of your friends on prostate cancer

The news of one of your best friends having prostate cancer is not pleasant. Yet having seen my father go through it and survive and thrive, I knew it could be beaten. So, maybe asking my friend to help me move some furniture at my parents’ house wasn’t just to spare myself some heavy lifting. I really wanted to help lift his spirits. And then the conversation happened…

It started with some of the basics: what to expect; a timeline of recovery, etc. And then it got a little weird. Without divulging personal details about the most personal of things, the conversation centered on the male body part.

So, there we are, in the living room and my friend and my father are talking about their…I just can’t say it.

But this is Movember, the time of year I grow a mustache to help raise funds/awareness for prostate and testicular cancer as well as other men’s health issues and suicide prevention. Since a portion of Movember proceeds help men to get the counseling needed to overcome issues related to these cancers, I thought the conversation was relevant because of one simple factor:

Men don’t ask for help.

Help isn’t always somebody carrying the load for you. It’s not about performing surgery to fix things. Help can simply be a kind and sympathetic ear from a friend or, if possible, somebody who’s been down the same path.

I’ve written and spoken many times about how proud I am of my father. His resiliency borders on the miraculous. It was a privilege to share him with my friend, whose father had passed a while back. I’m pretty sure the conversation helped. But it led to another conversation by phone on the ride home…

“Did your father really say…”

Again, I can’t put it in writing. But I think you get it.

If you would like to help raise funds and awareness for prostate and testicular cancer, as well as other men’s health issue, please go to my Movember site. No donation is too small or too large.

As for my friend, his doctors are still figuring his next move. He, too, is growing a mustache this Movember. More importantly, he’s part of the conversation now.

If you would like more men to get the help they need when dealing with prostate cancer, please donate to Movember this month. Here’s the link to my Mo Space.

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Your design stinks

Yes, that’s harsh as well. In fairness to the “Subject Lines” section, it plays just as big a reason for people not reading your e-newsletter.

How a piece looks can be just as important as how it reads. That does not necessarily mean a lot of glitz and glamour, bells and whistles. Most times, a newsletter simply needs a clean look with stories and images laid out in a logical order.

The Fix:
If you do not have the skill set to use the templates e-mail marketing companies like Constant Contact, Vertical Response and any of the dozens of others offer then ask for help. Typically, those companies will customize a template for you. You may also want to consider contracting a freelance graphic designer or web designer.

Here’s one caveat. Writing and designing newsletters are both specialties. Expecting staff you hired for other reasons to produce a newsletter as good as people who do this stuff for a living is a bit unrealistic. Not to mention how creating the newsletter might negatively affect your day-to-day operations if people you hired for one reason are working on a newsletter.

Without knowing your budget, it’s easy to say, “contract it out.” Particularly if you do not know anybody who does that sort of work (chambers of commerce are a great place to start if you don’t). But if you do not have the staff and your budget can stand it, it will be worth it. In general, the pros do it better and faster.

Addendum:
Templates from companies like Constant Contact, MailChimp, Vertical Response, etc. continue to improve and be more user-friendly. Some of these companies will even design the template for you for a fairly modest price. Constant Contact, in particular, offers design services and phenomenal customer support. If you can’t do it, they will literally do it for you.

This blog was taken from Nobody Reads Your e-Newsletter…And How To Fix It.

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Your readers might not like your tone

Your mother might have said, “it’s not only what you say, but how you say it,” but it applies to e-newsletters as well. How you “talk” to your customers via the words in your newsletter’s articles can greatly affect the publication’s success or failure. Even if it’s a technical subject, your words must still speak to the reader, not at them.

The trap most e-newsletters fall into is one of voice. You see your e-newsletter as a representation of your company. Therefore, you want to use grammatically correct, complete sentences and an impressive vocabulary. But NOBODY speaks like that. If somebody does, he/she is in the vast minority. Therefore, you end up with a more “professional” voice, but in reality, you end up talking down to the reader or, worse, boring them.

The Fix:
Write your e-newsletter in a conversational style. Use words you would say if explaining that topic or subject to a person sitting directly across the table from you. As long as your facts are on the money, your e-newsletter will sound “professional.”

Using the word, ‘you’ can help you involve the reader and create this conversational style. That does not mean every sentence requires a ‘you’ reference. Just enough to keep the flow.

Unfortunately, wanting a conversational newsletter and being able to pull it off are two different things. Most non-writers will try to “write” when asked to produce an e-newsletter article. That’s when you get the thesaurus-ridden copy that’s so dry it’s a fire hazard.

As the boss/editor, determine if you have the personnel to create the kind of newsletter you really want or if you need to contract it out. Again, copywriters do not work for nothing, but when you factor in the final product and anticipated results, as well as the man-hours you save on non-writers trying to write, it’s a bargain

MOST IMPORTANTLY, no matter which option you choose, select one person to write your newsletter. Newsletters that contain articles written by several different contributors sound a bit like conversations with two or more people speaking at the same time. Unless you have bylined stories or columns, your newsletter should speak with one voice—whether that’s done in-house or contracted out.

Addendum:
The fix pretty much holds true. One caveat about conversational tone. There are many interpretations of what that might mean. What’s conversational to one person might seem improper to others. For example, emojis might be all the rage on social media, but probably have no place in your company newsletter.

This blog was originally part of Nobody Reads Your e-Newsletter…And How To Fix It.