Sean D'Souza: Five reasons why newsletters fail to deliver

Sean D'Souza.

Five reasons? There may be 7000 reasons why your newsletter may not get a response. And the key lies in the word "response". When someone says, "I am getting no response", do they mean:

* I am not able to sell enough products or services?

* I am not getting enough traffic to the website to read more?

* I am not getting enough comments to my article?

* I am not getting enough people tweeting my articles?

Knowing what you mean by response is the first problem.

And being able to put that response in the right context is also important. Some people may respond and simply take up your time. Then there are times when you get zero response - not a peep - and the "lurker" audience buys everything you have to sell. So response is pretty unpredictable until it becomes quite predictable.

And predictability must begin by ironing out the flaws in your newsletter. Here are five big reasons why newsletters don't get response.

1) The newsletter may be simply self-promotional and not helpful.

This is a big one. You get a lot of these, don't you? For example, my wife signed up for something on Ayurveda. All she ever got was a whole bunch of promotional stuff.

Most folks can't help themselves. They mean to write something useful, but they end up being self-promotional.

2) The tone of writing may be cloudy, and not particularly exciting.

Tone is not everything, but it sure counts for a lot.

You're not trying to play to the audience. You're just being yourself. And it's not like you haven't tried to create a tone before. You've tried and failed miserably.

But then, you probably haven't tried tone over the phone. Yes, get a phone. Call a friend. Then get your friend to ask you questions on a topic you're familiar with.

Be sure to record the call, and transcribe what you've said. I know this sounds tedious. But it's quicker than slaving over a boring newsletter that is completely devoid of tone. Tone matters. You have it.

3) The structure of the article may be like a bad day with a jigsaw puzzle.

A story has a natural flow. So great: write a story. Maybe you can't write a newsletter that's nice and structured. But you can write a story, can't you? Just pick up client stories and write about what you've experienced.

And pray, how do you finish? Tell the moral of the story - just like you would in a real story. Seem lame to you to write something so basic? It's not basic at all. As humans we're entranced by stories. If you can create structure with a serious article, then do so. But if you can't, then use the story.

But remember the moral of the story. That's the call to action.

4) A half-hearted call to action won't work.

This is the point where you're going to ask a customer to write back or comment. This is where you're going to get your reader/customer to respond. And you can't hope they respond.

You have to be pretty darned clear what you want them to do. Do you want them to click on a link? Well, tell them to do it. Do you want them to write back and tell you you're a god/goddess/schmuck? Well, tell them to. Most folks just hope their customers will act on their own. And customers don't. You need to tell them. Just a little nudge will do. But you won't get much of a response if you're a stranger.

5) Without a specific frequency, you're dead!

Switch on your TV at 6pm. What do you see? In most countries, it's the evening news. And every evening it's the same old news, but hey, it's consistent. Most newsletters aren't. If you're going to write a newsletter, you've got to have a publishing schedule.

You want to stop? You are ill? Sorry mate, but that won't wash well with your readers. Imagine the TV station cancelling the news because some newsreader didn't turn up.

Response is directly related to frequency. Muck up on frequency and the other four points don't even matter.

Knowing how to define the response and then making sure you don't make these five big mistakes will definitely perk up your response in a hurry.

Sean D'Souza is chief executive of Psychotactics and an international author and trainer. He is the author of The Brain Audit - Why Customers Buy (And Why They Don't).

* psychotactics.com