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CopyDoodles Lunch & Learn: CopyDoodles & Newsletters: What You Need to Know

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Hi, everyone. Welcome to today’s CopyDoodles Lunch and Learn. This is Lauren, your CopyDoodles Success Coach. Today we’re going to be talking about CopyDoodles and Newsletters: What you need to know.

I’m going to begin with the presentation and a few side notes. If you want to ask a question, here’s how, just click on the ‘Questions’ box on your GoToWebinar screen, and type a question in. I’ll answer all questions at the end during Q&A unless it pertains to something I’m directly talking about. Also, next week’s topic is Asking Your Customers, Clients, Patients, Will You be my Valentine? So, basically it’s a bunch of really great Valentine’s ideas that you can use for your online or your offline marketing. Make sure to check it out.

Also a few more side notes, I typed in ‘eye’ on clipart, and this came up. But, because the actual zoomed in pictures of eyes creeped me out, so I decided to use this cat. But I want you to keep an eye out for a brand new marketing print newsletter from Mike. It’s going to be coming out in the next few weeks. We’re working on it. I’m going to talk a little bit about it in CopyBling this Saturday, but it’s probably also going to be really vague. But, it’s going to be a way that you can really quickly and easily implement new and exciting techniques in your marketing. Just stay tuned. Also this week’s member’s only Lunch and Learn Deal of the Week is the Key to 2012 Marketing and New Business Ideas.

The deal of the week is actually a free webinar with Mike Capuzzi and Charlie McDermott. It’s not– they’re going to be talking about nine big business-building ideas for 2012. If you don’t know who Charlie McDermott is, he works a lot with video and marketing. He also does a ton of really cool marketing techniques for his own business. It’s just a really great way to find out new business-building ideas for 2012. Head over to www.CopyDoodles.com/blog because I put the link there. It’s a completely free webinar, it will be this Thursday, and there’s also room today at 2 p.m., so if you’d like to join, then please sign up. And today’s webinar, CopyDoodles and Newsletters: What You Need to Know, the replay will be at www.CopyDoodles.com/blog. I post all replays after the webinar, I just really quickly edit them and get them up there. And the transcripts will then be available early next week.

So why use print newsletters? If you have never used print newsletters in your marketing, or you’re not sure why you should even begin using them the first thing I suggest you do, along with listen to this whole webinar, is check out the past Success Webinar transcripts that we have in the CopyDoodles Access Club. We have a transcript with Michael Carroll, and it’s really, really interesting to see his take on newsletters. He uses them a lot in his business, print newsletters. And he has a lot of really great ideas on how to use them.

Let me just show you how you can access his transcript, so you can use it and read it. All you’ll have to do is log in to the CopyDoodles Access Club. And then at the very top of the page, there is a ‘Resources’ button, if you’ve never seen it before, get familiar with it, because there’s a lot of really great resources in here. If you click on that, there is the CopyDoodles niche order form, if you want to add niches to your account. There’s a CopyComics thumbnail, which you can download and see thumbnails of all the CopyComics, so it’s easy to search. And then there are a ton of Success Webinars that we’ve done with CopyDoodles members just like you, who have been very successful with the types of marketing that they’re doing. If you scroll down and you click on the Michael Carroll Success Webinar PDF, check it out, read it, it’s actually a really fun — it’s one of the most fun ones that Mike has done. They had some really great banter going on, so make sure to check it out, download it, it’s just a PDF. You can skim through it, come up with some really great ideas for you.

And then, it’s also a great retention tool for customers, patients, clients, JV partners, and affiliates. Having a print newsletter is just another way to get into people’s minds, get into people’s mail boxes. There’s so much information coming to people online, that a lot of people forget that they can still connect with customers in a more personal way by sending them mail. I’m more likely to read mail, I know that I get a lot of mail, but not a lot of it is really junk mail anymore. Most of the stuff that I receive is stuff that I really want to look at, so when I get stuff in the mail, I look at all of it. It’s just another form of media to capture your reader’s attention.

Like I just said, less businesses are using traditional mail, the stuff that I get in the mail is all stuff that I want to see, and what I want to be reading. And whenever I get a newsletter, I get a magazine in the mail, even if I don’t get around to reading it that exact day, I still end up reading it, and following call to actions, and interacting with it, and it’s just a great way to keep your customers informed. What I really like about newsletters is that a lot of them that I get actually have information that I would never have found any other way, because it’s directly in my hands. I can browse the internet, but it’s coming from somebody I trust, it’s coming form somebody I know. The articles, Q&A, sometimes I get newsletters with CDs and things in them, they’re a really great way for me to interact with different businesses.

Where should you start? Think about your perfect customer, what does he or she want? What does he or she like? Like Mike says, in a lot of his blog posts and a lot of webinars that he’s done, get a picture of your perfect customer. Maybe it’s a customer that’s been a customer for several years, they’re really great, even if it’s not really their picture, just think of them, put their picture on your desk, right next to your computer, and write to them. And when you write, think about the key things that they want to hear, and write directly to them, so it’s a lot more personal.

If you’re writing in a way that you’re just writing an article that would maybe be in a newspaper, or a magazine, it’s not as personal as writing directly to your customer. And if you’re writing directly to your key customer, your perfect customer, then you are going to get a lot better response, because most of your customers are probably very similar to this perfect customer you have in mind. Or, you want to get more perfect customers, and if you write to them, you’ll attain more perfect customers. So, think about the key things you want your newsletter to contain. Think about not just articles and things that I’m going to cover in the other bullet points, but think about the number of pages that you can write.

Is your newsletter monthly? Is it bi-monthly? Is it in color? Is it two-color? What is the size of your newsletter? Are you going to do a regular 8.5”x11” page, or are you going to try and do something a little more different? Are you going to actually have an envelope for your newsletter? Are you going to fold it in half, print the person’s name on one of the back pages and address, and then send it out that way? What is the amount that you can spend on a print newsletter without dipping too deep into your budget. This is all about retention, about keeping customers, getting new customers.

And also, do you want to charge for your newsletter, or do you want to have a free newsletter? You can charge monthly for a newsletter, which make sure that if you’re charging, you’re giving people a lot of information and content that they’re going to want. Maybe you’re giving them samples, and coupons, and fun things. Or maybe you’re just giving them so much information that they are going to want to pay for it and keep getting it.

Think about the types of articles you’re going to write. Are you going to write a lot of informative articles, or are you going to do some Q&A? Are you going to do interviews? If you do Q&A and interviews are those going to be in print? Are they going to be on CD? Are they going to be on DVD?

Are you going to have a section for customer announcements, maybe birthdays, people who have had weddings, engagements. If you’re very close with your customers then you’ll be able to easily pull this information.

Maybe you have a customer of the month that you feature every month. It’s just a really great way to get people involved because people like to read about other people. And, reading about other customers that you have, or even just reading about employees that you have, if you have employee announcements, people either want to see their name in print, they want to see their friend’s name in print, they want to learn more about the other people that you’re dealing with on a day to day basis.

Are you going to have a section for quick tips? Maybe in the back of your newsletter you actually have a section that covers everything that your newsletter talks about that month, so that somebody can quickly read it and see all of the key ideas, if they don’t have time to read it, you know, that immediate moment. Maybe they’ll read one of the quick tips and then want to go to that article and read that. Even if it’s just one article they read a month, one key thing that they pull from your newsletter, it still can be a great newsletter.

Are you going to use repurposed articles from your blog, from contributors, from friends in the same business as you? Doctors? You know, that kind of stuff. You know, free offers, coupons, are you going to promote your events that you’re having?

Will you have a calendar of events? Maybe on one little section of your newsletter you always have a calendar of events that talks about where you’re going to be, what you’re going to be doing. Actually, I get Martha Stewart Living, and it’s kind of funny because the first time I got it, I think the second or third page actually has calendar of events of where Martha is going to be and what’s she’s going to be doing. And, it doesn’t only have, you know, what her TV shows are, you know, when her posts are going to be on blog and stuff like that, but it also has events that she’s going to be at, family events that she’s having with her family. Over the holidays it talked about where she would be for Christmas and where she’d be for New Years, and what she would be doing.

People like to know about you and find out more about you. And, by giving them just little information like that you’re not giving them too much, but you’re still giving them a sense of who you are.

Are you going to be also giving people information about videos you post online? Blogs? Maybe social media? Or just other ways that you can get people connected with you. So, if somebody is reading your newsletter is there a way that you can incorporate into your newsletter ways to get them online? Maybe a giveaway they need to go online to enter. Maybe you have something on social media you want them to check out, so you get them on there. And, then you’re kind of moving people through the process of all of the different ways that they can get more information about you. The more that you do that, the more they will trust you.

So, also get a great newsletter name. Just look at the image of the newsletters I had on the title slide. None of them have their business name in the newsletter. They might have the logo, or they might have their name, or something like that, but they don’t have their business name. It’s not called, you know, CopyDoodles Newsletter. So, you can have a lot of fun with this. As you can see there’s the Disability News, there’s David’s Positive Home News, there’s the Lower Your Taxes Newsletter: Better Late Than Never. So, make sure that when you come up with the name you choose a name that explains what your newsletter is about, and it still sticks with what your company image is.

So, if you’re an insurance company, but you want to have a really fun newsletter make sure that you have a great name, but people still know that you’re an insurance company, and people still know what they can come to you for. So, like this, the Lower Your Taxes Newsletter: Better Late Than Never, they know that this is a tax professional, but they’ve had a lot of fun with their name.

So, like I just said a little earlier, invite readers to go online. So, what I really liked about this newsletter from Michael Carroll is he actually has a drawing on his social media for a $50 gift card. And, as you can see down at the bottom it says, “Facebook me and follow me on Twitter.” He has the link if somebody wants to type it in their browser. And, then he also has a QR code that people can snap with their phone and then go over to his Facebook or Twitter page. All he has to do is follow the page and then maybe comment on the wall, or send a Tweet, and they’ll be entered to win a $50 gift card. So, this is just a really great way that you can get people on your social media and interacting with you on social media. Because somebody might see this, they might go onto your Facebook wall and then to post on it they might not just post, “Hey, I want to be entered,” they might post, “I have a question about your services.” Or, “I saw your newsletter and it reminded me that I wanted to tell you this…” So, make sure that you have other ways that people can interact with you, because some people might read your newsletter and they might not read your email, or they might not even know you’re on social media, because they’re not searching for you. But, if you tell them, then you’re inviting them to go online.

Then think about your colors, like I said before. Full color newsletter can be expensive and if you want to try and save as much cost as possible, but you’re not sure if you want to do completely black and white, then think about a two-color newsletter. So, these newsletters are using black and white, but then they’ve also go I guess three color. Black and white, and then they’re also using a red, or a blue. And, you can switch this up every month. I know that Disability News, they have a new color each month. For Valentine’s Day they had red, because it was a holiday. So, this is just a really great way to make your newsletter a little more eye-catching, but not spend a ton of money by having the whole thing in color.

And, something that you can do, if you want to make sure that your CopyDoodles match the color of your newsletter, because as you can see these CopyDoodles match the blue exactly. What you could do is log into the CopyDoodles Access Club and you could go to the home page. On the home page you can actually set the default color of your CopyDoodles. So, you can either select a color, if you know that one of these colors is the same color as your newsletter, or you can ask your designer, or look at whatever you’re creating and get the HTML code or the RGB value for the color that you’re using.

If you’re not sure what this is the best way is to go to the Lunch and Learns that I’ve done in the past and scroll all the way down, because back in September/August of last year I actually did a whole section on how to set RGB and HTML values for your colors. But, if you aren’t sure how to do this, if you have no idea and you have a designer doing this for you, they can give you this color in seriously two seconds. So, just ask them for it. They’ll know what you’re talking about. And, you can set the color yourself and all of the doodles that you create to put in your newsletter, you may be sending them to a designer, you may be doing it yourself, will be matching.

Also, point out coupons. Jacquelyn Stanfield of VIP Dental in Texas, as you can see at the bottom they have a coupon, it’s a special offer. And, then it also has a CopyDoodle pointing to it that says, “Just for you.” So, they do their newsletter in black and white, but then, as you can see, they’re pointing out things using CopyDoodles.

And, one of the things that I think would be really great is actually if they use this coupon border, which I just put to the right hand side of this, because that would also call more attention. I added in red, just to add a little color to the slide, but even if they used this coupon border in black and white, it would still call more attention because it would look different than your typical coupon border. So, if you’re looking for those coupon borders, in ShapeDoodles in the CopyDoodles Access Club, or you can type in the search bar
‘box 3’.

And then also leave readers a hand-written not with our CopyFonts. This is Danny Stezer [assumed spelling] of Coffee News. But, he used our CopyDoodles fonts in order just to write a little message on the side of his newsletter. So, when people pick up the newsletter and look at it, they know that they can win a prize, that there was somebody that had won last month. They know who won, and then it’s also just something different. So, it actually looks like he quickly handwrote this and circled it before he sent the newsletter out to people, or left the newsletter for people to pick up.

Direct people to enter your store. This is from Food for Me, which is a restaurant in Australia. And, what I thought was really cool is that they have a section on their newsletter where it talks about birthdays, and they are asking everybody for their birth date, and their name, and their email. So, it’s probably just a way to get people on their email lists, and then they also probably send them a special gift or a coupon on the birthday, just to try and get them into the store.

But, what they’re doing here, is because it’s a newsletter, and because it’s not an online, you know, type of email or anything like that, they can’t actually have the person go online and type it in right away. So, they’re actually asking instead of doing that for the people to come in their store, clip out this little piece of paper from the newsletter, and bring it into the store and slip this page into their magic purple box, and they can win prizes, and they’ll also get a special gift on their birthday. So, it’s just a really great way to get people into your store. So, I’m sure that the people that come into the store, they’re coming in to purchase something, or make an order, or ask questions. So, they’re getting people in there, they’re interacting with them, and they’re probably going to make a few sales from this too, just because they ask people to come in.

And like that get your readers involved. Jeffery Maryl [assumed spelling] this is his real estate news letter, what I love about this is the torn paper. So, he’s getting his customers involved by using this torn piece of paper from the CopyDoodles Access Club, the FunDoodles, and he actually has a testimonial on there. So, it’s a testimonial from one of his customers. These customers are probably actually reading the newsletter too, so they see their name in there. And, people love to see their name in your newsletter, in print. So, it’s getting his customers involved in that way.

And then he also has a trivia question on the right hand side, which gets people interacting with him. So, all you have to do is read this. If you know the answer to the trivia question you can email. And, then the first correct answer actually gets a coffee mug and a scratch off ticket. So, it’s a really cheap prize. It’s not an expensive gift to send somebody a coffee mug, especially if you’re getting a bunch printed up for a promotion idea and it has your name, your business name, a call to action on the coffee mug, because somebody might us that everyday. A scratch off ticket is $1 from the lottery. So, you’re getting people involved, you’re getting people interacting with you. And, I’m sure that even if somebody sends in the answer to the trivia question you can respond, “Hey, you won. Is there anything else I can help you with?” That would be a great way to start a conversation with somebody and get them purchasing more, or just talking to you and interacting with you more.

And, I shared this one last week, but I wanted to reiterate it, because it’s really important and new people might be on this webinar. So, use customize CopyComics near the name and address. Even if you don’t customize them, just use a CopyComic near the address that you’re sending your newsletter to. This is Mike’s newsletter that he sends. What he does is he has a — I believe it’s a four page newsletter and then it is the red, black, and white and then it’s folded in half and the person’s name and address is on the back, a long with a CopyComic. He always puts a CopyComic on the back. So, it gets people to open it and read it. And, then also along with last week, I don’t need to tell you guys, but have a bright, fun colored envelope, if you use one. If you don’t want to choose this option, to have your newsletter folded in half and sent out, then use an envelope and make it red, or orange, or green, or coordinate with the seasons. And, then also get some really cool stamps, just because they’re a little different.

But, you’ve got to check out this really cool newsletter from Charlie McDermott. This I received in the mail — I guess just a week or two ago, right before the New Year. And, it actually came in a clear envelope and it was the first time I had ever received anything in a clear envelope, so it was super cool. And, the newsletter was actually in the inside. He made the back of the newsletter exactly what you see here. And it had a call to action, join him on a free webinar, with a little kind of coupon border there. And, then on top of that was actually a CopyDoodles post it note. I believe he just printed an actual Post-It. You can purchase those and print them on your computer on your own. Then he used our CopyFonts, so it looked like he had just quickly slapped this Post-It note on there and sent it out to me.

So, there are a ton of ways you can get really, really creative with your newsletter. And, I’m not saying you have to do this every month. And, you shouldn’t send something like this every month because the excitement of it will kind of wear off the more somebody receives it, but just think of different ways you can capture people’s attention.

And, just another important note for a successful print newsletter, when you’re writing be yourself. Don’t try to act differently than you normally would because a lot of your customers probably are your customers because they like you and they like who you are. They don’t want somebody who’s different. But, don’t bore your readers at the same time, because if you’re always writing about the same topics or the same things, or you’re never putting any new information in your newsletter, then people are going to stop reading it. It’s going to be a waste of your time, and it’s a going to be a waste of your money.

And, send them what you would want to read. Think about the types of things that you or your perfect customer, which I talked about earlier, would want to read. If your perfect customer wouldn’t want to go online to watch a video, don’t tell them to do that. Or, maybe send them a CD with a video, a DVD with a video instead, because maybe they interact with that differently.

And, actually I put in here an example. My fiancé, Adam, and I went to Oregon this past summer. It’s a beautiful state, wonderful. Love it there. But, I found this really charming hotel online called Hood River Hotel. It’s adorable. I signed up for their email and I actually didn’t book there, but I soon regretted it because when I first signed up for their newsletter, their email newsletter, I signed up, but they weren’t sending anything out. So, I didn’t really interact with them. I knew they were a little pricier. So, I figured, “I’ll book somewhere else. It’s like a block away. So, I don’t really need to book there.”

But, I regretted it because they started sending out this newsletter, probably two weeks before we went to Oregon this summer and I got it, and it was the weirdest thing. It was unlike any other newsletter I had ever received before. It was so personal. The types of articles that they were putting in there were not just articles to talk about their hotel and the things that they are doing in the hotel, but it talked about renovations, problems they had during renovations. You know? Weird, weird topics, like people that had come into the hotel — like some guy had come into the hotel and they talked to him, and he had be kayaking all the way from several states away. He kayaked all the way past Hood River Hotel, stopped in for lunch, and they put his picture in it and they just talked about him. It was really cool just to have something different, you know? They’re not constantly promoting their business.

They talked about the janitor of Hood River Hotel once, kind of telling us that he had been there for 13 years, he had seen everything, how he loved his job. He didn’t want to be anywhere else. He didn’t want to be a janitor anywhere else, didn’t want another job. It was just really interesting the types of people they profiled, the types of things they talk about. And, every time I get their newsletter in my email, I am always reading it, all the time. And, next time I go to Oregon I’ll probably stay at the Hood River Hotel, because I like them so much. They’re very, very nice people just — I feel that way, just from reading their newsletter. And, you can actually check out their blog by going to www.HoodRiverHotel.com, scrolling down. They have a small link to their blog, but it just kind of shows you the types of funny things that they talk about there.

And, a side note, we didn’t stay there, but we did eat there. Spent a lot of money anyway. So, I still went back just because of their newsletter. And I probably wouldn’t have even gone into the Hood River Hotel if they never would have sent me really interesting content that I like to read.

So, that’s it for today’s Lunch and Learn.