Michael Katz on e-newsletter success
I've known Michael Katz for some years as an admirer of his work and writing. His company Blue Penguin Development helps professional service firms build stronger customer relationships through effective email communications, particularly through e-newsletters.
Michael is a genius at finding the best way to provide value through your email content while driving sales through that same content. Something you'll see reflected in his own biweekly newsletter.
Here's what he has to say about overcoming the barriers to e-newsletter success...
Email newsletters enjoy a strange reputation. Though lauded by the likes of HP and other giants, they're still to win the hearts and minds of all marketers in the way that email promotions and paid search have.
The argument in favor of newsletters is clear. It's an extremely cost-efficient relationship marketing tool. What Katz refers to as the "electronic desktop alternative to lunch with a lot of people."
You provide useful, engaging content and it keeps you top of mind; it positions you as the source to go to when the reader eventually looks to purchase a relevant product or service. And the variable costs are near zero.
Explaining the doubters
So why is it difficult to convince some marketers of the benefits? One reason is the problem with assigning bottom line results to newsletter initiatives.
As Katz puts it, "...in my corporate life, we all pretended that if we couldn't measure it, it didn't exist. Things which didn't fit neatly into spreadsheets (like relationships) were ignored, because there was no easy way to track them."
"In terms of selling my own services, I find if I don't have somebody who at least has a glimmer of belief that staying in touch with your relationships works -- despite its measurement squishiness -- then I don't even get involved in the discussion."
In other words, although we know implicitly that acquiring new customers costs so much more than nurturing existing ones, some marketers are still reluctant to commit to a tool that "...is measurable, but in a much less one-to-one way. It's hard to say that THIS newsletter led to THIS piece of business."
The four-month itch
Those that do get the value of newsletters face some hurdles when it comes to their successful implementation.
The biggest?
Actually sitting down and putting out regular issues.
Katz notes that people often hit a wall after four months, and draws a comparison to exercising. Once the initial euphoria wears off, it's hard to get out of bed and go running in the middle of winter, especially when the benefits of regular exercise are yet to kick in.
He says, "Typically, the excitement wears off before the results show up. I always tell new clients to give it a year. Even though my current record for fastest results from a newsletter is 20 minutes, it's a slow burn and you have to stick with it."
He adds, "Your email newsletter is never an emergency so it's easy to put it on the backburner. If you delay it one day, nothing will go wrong. But what happens is one day becomes one week, and then it becomes so long that you just kind of give up."
One way to stay on track, says Katz, is to create schedule and publication pressure.
"Create a clear schedule of when it's going to come out. And make that a real deadline. Create pressure on yourself. In your welcome letter or on your sign-up page, state 'this newsletter comes out on the third Thursday of every month.' So the whole world knows, and you have a little added pressure to get it out then."
Once you get beyond the four or five month hurdle, doing the newsletter becomes automatic: "Once you make it over the hump you just keep doing it. Plus you start to see the benefits so you realize this is worth doing."
Curing the content myth
Another hurdle is the fear that you can't keep producing well-written and useful content month-after-month. But Katz says that fear is not grounded in reality. First, content is rarely scarce.
"If you know enough about a topic to run a business in it, you'll never run out of content. I've never heard of anybody saying they no longer have networking lunches because they've run out of things to talk about."
And as for quality writing, Katz says that misses the point. A newsletter is about relationships and communicating using a human voice. It's not about winning Pulitzer prizes.
He notes that most people think the style needs to be "...a combination of how your English teacher taught you to write and how you think business people are supposed to sound."
But to use the newsletter-as-lunch model again, it's actually better to write like you talk.
"Forget what you were taught in high school about how to write. I sometimes recommend that people just get themselves a tape recorder. Speak your topic and then transcribe it. Most people can't write and hate to write. But they can all talk."
It's not direct mail
This issue of voice and style reflects the biggest error people often make with newsletters, which is to treat them as a traditional marketing message.
Katz gives another example: "Working on an email newsletter has this feel of it's a brochure, it's a direct mail piece. It has a 'design' and 'copy'. So people start writing it from the same perspective and using the same language."
Mistake.
Instead, e-newsletters should focus "...on this idea of giving people information as opposed to promotion. It's as simple as that. There's so much noise that if you become known as someone who gives away no-strings-attached useful information, then you just break through the clutter."
Katz uses the business talk analogy: "Everybody knows the deal. I trade useful information for the attention of the audience. It works well for them and it works well for me. But as soon as my presentation turns into a promotion, the guy who organizes it starts looking at me sideways and people start leaving."
And the irony (and opportunity) is that in a business presentation to an audience, "...the best way to promote your services is to never mention them explicitly at all. Talking about the topic you specialize in so that listeners can benefit acts to position you as an expert. As a result, some of those people circle back and hire you. I see an e-newsletter as working in the same way."
"Give away information...all the time...in whatever format...on whatever your expertise is. Whether as a newsletter, white paper or podcast. Then prospects naturally come to you and want you to help them. People are so accustomed to having to sell at people at every turn, that they never give the relationship a chance to work its magic."
But you can sell, too, can't you?
While offering value is key, Katz notes that the point is to sell, not just to publish. He advises a clear separation between information and promotion, with an 80:20 content ratio in favor of the former.
"The useful content needs to standalone. There's so much suspicion about people being self-serving (and rightfully so) that the slightest hint of a bias or promotion about you and readers discard the whole article. It should pass the business journal editor test: I only want real good stuff, I don't want anything about *you*."
"Then in the newsletter, maybe there's a section about the services you sell or the things you do, but it's not hard for the person reading it to get the good stuff as well."
Katz advises switching your perspective, so the right content balance follows automatically. "It's about having the right frame of mind: it's relationship building...it's farming, not hunting."
Email overload
This approach also tackles the issue of email overload. Katz says, "The biggest objection I got when I first started this was, 'well not enough of my customers have email so I don't think an email newsletter is a good thing.' Now the biggest objection I get is 'well, there's so much email that I don't think it's a good thing'."
"It used to be easier because people were eager to read newsletters, while today people are eager to delete them. Nobody wants one more email. You truly have to give somebody something that will displace something they're already reading. Because they're not looking for more stuff."
And he has a final tip for standing out in the inbox...
"The answer for me comes down to being as narrow as you can on whatever your topic is. The opportunity to break through the clutter with a general financial planning newsletter for example has passed - there are thousands of them. You could still however, write a standout financial planning newsletter for female small business owners in Boston. Narrow the subject and audience, and you'll rise to the top much more quickly."
Best business book ever read: Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
"...I quit my job because of that book. I read it in 1999 and I said about my then company, 'we are doing this totally the wrong way.' I couldn't get it out of my head."
Best business advice received: People want to hire experts. You need to become the leading expert in something.
"...it was incredibly good advice because it makes you stand out; it brings people to you; and those who arrive assume you know what you're doing (and you do, because you specialize)."
Best way to celebrate email marketing success: Ice cream.
"...especially Moose Tracks. It's vanilla with peanut butter cups and fudge. It's great."
Why he does what he does: "I'm really excited about this idea of giving away free information as a means of marketing a business. It doesn't have to be a newsletter. It's a philosophy of becoming a trusted expert who offers information to people. Do that, and some of them will hire you."
"Giving information with no strings attached is a perfect fit for my approach and personality; as opposed to more focused selling which has never been natural for me. I just love that I've built a business by sitting in my office and waiting for the phone to ring."
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