Personality

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If you scout around a little, you'll find various gurus and writers advising you to inject personality into your newsletter. That's about as far as the advice goes.

Nobody is prepared to really get down to details regarding newsletter personality. That's because it's extremely hard to pin down exactly what we mean.

Let's just remind ourselves of what we're trying to achieve. We want to create impact and influence. We want to turn subscribers into loyal enthusiasts, people who trust and act on what we say.

A lot has been written about the elements of trust and loyalty, what marketing researchers would call "dimensions of the reader relationship".

In a newsletter, this loyalty, this influence, this impact comes from how you present yourself (professionalism) and what you have to say (value). It also comes from how you say it. That, in a nutshell, is what personality is all about. How you say it.

Let's remember that we're not talking about selling. This isn't about sales copywriting, although that obviously has a role to play in the promotional elements of a newsletter. We're really just interested here in developing that long-term influence and impact.

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