Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

5 Pesky Things Your Newsletter Needs

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Creating and maintaining a monthly newsletter is HARD. And lately I’ve noticed a few things that are a glaring error to me, but that you may just have missed by not having another set of eyes (cue client responding to MY newsletter last month with a typo in it…). So, here’s 5 pesky things I think your newsletter needs…

  1. Your Social Media Should be Consistent – I love my senator, I really do. But this giant Snapchat and over-linking your social media is too much. Yes, I understand he’s featuring Snapchat as the new social media source. In that case I would move it elsewhere in the newsletter to announce it. One of the reasons I like MailChimp is because they make it easy to share your social media links in a consistent way. And I noticed yesterday that Constant Contact finally made this easier too.

2. Awkward “From” lines – My newsletter always comes from Elizabeth & Norm. People know that a real person (and real dog) are sending them a newsletter or note. Sometimes your business name is okay, but even then I’d include your name. One newsletter I get sends from their name and business (ie: Elizabeth at Yellow Dog Consulting). I want a real person showing up in my inbox, not a business name I don’t automatically recognize (or do recognize because I know them and wonder why it wouldn’t come from their NAME).

3. Inconsistent Signup Forms – This was a fantastic fail I discovered a couple of weeks ago. I received an email from a name and business I don’t recognize, so I opened it to scroll down and unsubscribe. In the process I discovered someone at the company and learned why I was signed up for this newsletter I didn’t ask to be. So, I hit the unsubscribe button and it took me to a landing page to ask why I’ve unsubscribed. I filled it out and then got this response…

unsubscribe successful

You can see why this is an issue right?

What happened? Well, they created a great signup form process and just didn’t know that it would copy over to their unsubscribe page. Take a moment and go through your signup forms to ensure that they’re properly setup and you don’t do this…

4. No Way to Share Your Message – If I read a good newsletter I want to share that with my network on social media. Include those snazzy social media sharing icons in your newsletter. You’ll always find them at the very bottom of my newsletter…

social media sharing

5. My Name – Every newsletter program makes it easy to include your subscribers name. Include it! Every newsletter I create for clients starts with some form of “Hi (Name)!” – I wanted to be greeted. I’ve invited you into my inbox and made the time to open you. The least you could do is remember my name. If your list isn’t consistent with names then make the time to clean that up.

Pick Up the Phone

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pick up the phoneTrue confession – I really don’t enjoy answering the phone or making phone calls. But, as we all know, it’s a necessary evil in life and business.

A couple of weeks ago a colleague referred someone to me. I sent the proper follow up email right away and suggested we schedule time for a call the following week. (Yes, a scheduled call is TOTALLY fine by me) I didn’t get a response so I decided I needed to put on my big girl panties and pick up the phone. And guess what? They answered! And we talked for 20 minutes, and then they needed to go to a meeting but called back later to finish the conversation. And then I sent over a contract 2 days later and now I have a new client.

No, it’s not always that quick and easy. But you do need to make sure that making phone calls is part of your follow up process. I know I’ve missed business because I didn’t call. And I know that I’ve not hired someone because they didn’t call me back or do the follow up they said they’d do.

Not everyone feels the way I do about phone calls. I know a lot of sales folks who LOVE making calls, they can smile and dial all day long. Which is great for them! But also make sure you’re using email.

If 80% of sales are made on the 5th to 12th contact (no joke) you need to find a few different ways to follow up with folks. My suggestion? It’s a combo of email, calling, social media, and networking.

If you hate writing emails or hate making phone calls, you’ll have to get over yourself at some point and start doing one or the other consistently, and occasionally  both.

Follow up, it’s like I’m a broken record about it. But you know what? I have a new client this week that proves it works.

Sales Lessons From a 3rd Grader

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jog a thon!A couple of weeks ago I was visiting with a friend and her 3rd grader had his jog-a-thon sponsor form on the kitchen table. I asked him what it was, hoping he’d get the hint and ask me to donate. After some coaching from mom he asked if I’d like to donate. I said OF COURSE!

He explained to me that if I donated $9 per lap and he ran 9 laps that’d be $81! (Mostly he was just showing off his mad multiplication skills.) So, I asked how many laps he thought he would run. And he had no idea, and didn’t seem to remember how many he’d ran in the past. So, I told him to put me in for $5 a lap. His math estimates seemed safe enough, I figured he’d be somewhere between 5-10 laps, it’d be fine.

Cue to Friday morning and a text from my friend. “Dude. We may want to change your jog-a-thon donation to a flat rate. The poor kids are trying to keep warm in the rain and are running their asses off.” I told her I was sure it’d be fine, how many laps had he run? How much time was left ?(4 laps in 7 minutes, 23 minutes to go…) Well, it’ll be fine.

15 laps later I learned a flat rate might be a safer way to go in the future.

What does this have to do with your business?

How often has someone tried to renegotiate the rate when it gets too high? If you agreed to it up front, you need to pay your bill. And yes, get an estimate. I could have pushed more on his past lap average, or just done a flat rate. But changing my donation in the 11th hour is a weaselly move. When I’ve seen business owners try to change things half way through a project, it’s always a red flag.

Being straight forward and honest is always good if you realize the scope is more than you quoted for. This is why a contract is a great idea – here’s the rate, here’s the estimate, here’s what’s included. If the estimate changes, or you want to add something else in, that’ll be more or changes the terms of the contract. Every time I skip a contract with a client (“it’ll be fine, it’s a small project,” “she’s friend!”) it bites me in the ass.

Learn something from this awesome (and financially well supported in his jog-a-thon) 3rd grader. Get it up front, in writing and then run your ass off to make the most of it!