Productive Newsletters
How to create and publish productive and effective newsletters

Having trouble deciding what to call your newsletter? Or what to charge?

Well, you’re on the Web now, and that means you can do quick, easy, and inexpensive testing to get answers. I’ve done it a number of times and it’s been a useful experience each time. Here are three examples:

Change and measure
A key objectives for one of my websites was to get visitors to subscribe to my newsletter, Abbott’s Communication Letter. When I started working to improve the ratio, the conversion rate was about 9%; that is, roughly one in 11 visitors subscribed.

In a bid to improve that ratio, I added a strong ‘because’ section at the top of the index page, explicitly listing the benefits of subscribing. Again, I measured responses, getting several hundred of them before drawing any conclusions. And what did I find? Adding the ‘because’ section improved the ratio, from 9% to 15%; now one in 6.6 visitors were subscribing.

To do this kind of testing, vary just one detail at a time, measure the results (more about calculating results below), and if the change worked, make it permanent and start over again with another change.

A banner example
Here’s another challenge from several years ago that seemed natural for testing: Which of two slogans should I use on the front cover of my book, A Manager’s Guide to Newsletters: Communicating for Results?

Solution: I created banner ads for each slogan, and tested them with the help of Mike Scanlin of Four Corners Effective Banners. Each banner got 3,000 impressions and when the test was done I had my answers. The answers came from determining which slogan received a higher clickthrough rate (in other words, how many clicks each banner got per hundred viewings).

I would no longer recommend banners as a way of testing; instead I would use pay per click (PPC) text advertising. Open an account with one of the many PPC companies, create two ads that alternate, and select the one with the higher clickthrough rate (also known as CTR).

You can also test prices, as well as words and phrases. Simply put the price into each of the ads. One price in one ad, and a different price in the other ad, and keep everything else the same.

How to test?
If you try to test a lot of concepts at once it gets complicated. Believe me, I‘ve tried. So change just one detail at a time, measure the results, compare with the original, keep or reject the change, and try another.

How many responses do you need to know if you’ve got a good result? Well, again, you can fine an answer online. Simply visit the website http://www.splittester.com/ and enter the results of your testing, as directed. You will get a result that not only shows you the numbers, but also indicates how much confidence you can have. If it’s a relatively low level of confidence, keep the test going longer.

The important thing is that you test, not guess, because testing is the foundation of a successful initiative. And, using the power of the Internet makes it quicker, easier, and cheaper than ever before to test. That’s a deal you don’t want to pass up.

Technorati Tags: newsletter, testing

A visitor to the Manager’s Guide website reported that she had developed plans to start a newsletter for her organization; so far, so good.

But, now she was being asked to attend a meeting with a senior manager, and others, to discuss the newsletter. She wanted to know what to do to prepare for the meeting, and what she should do while at the meeting.

This is an edited version of my response to her; it has been changed to make it applicable to all types of newsletters, and not just employee newsletters, as originally written.

First of all…
Congratulations on getting this far. You have made a start that’s good enough to get the attention of someone who can make a newsletter proceed, or prevent it from getting started at all.

Consider, too: Although you might not be a newsletter expert, you now probably know more about the subject than they do. Plus, you are willing to do something about communication that they likely want done.

This means they’ll want to be on your side, hoping you can do it. After all, they have something to gain, too, and should be willing to help. So, even if the questioning is tough, don’t shrink from it, they probably want you to succeed.

At the meeting:
If I were in your place, I would look at this meeting as a chance to ask a lot of questions, to ensure the newsletter aligns with their expectations.

This approach also takes much of the anxiety out of the meeting, because you will be engaging in a discussion, rather than making a presentation. You are asking for their help and consulting with them, rather than asking for a Yes or No response to a request.

At the start of the meeting, explain that you have been developing the concept, why you came up with the idea, and that you want to develop a consensus about the objectives and operations before publishing. Therefore, you would like to ask questions that would help you understand their needs and interests.

A couple of key questions might be:

• If you were publishing this newsletter, what would your objectives be?
• Would you mind if I wrote a memo to customers, or fellow employees, or other stakeholders asking them what they would want from a newsletter?
• What information would management like to deliver through the newsletter?

If you have time after these three questions, I would ask three more:

• Would you like to be involved in outlining the content of the first couple of issues (Probably at another meeting)?
• Would you be willing to be a member of the editorial board for the newsletter? [This would involve a meeting of 1 to 2 hours before work begins on each issue)?
• Would you mind if I researched newsletters from other organizations like ours?

You may have a few questions of your own, of course, and will probably want to ask them now, if you haven’t done so already.

After getting your answers, tell them that you will spend some time further developing the ideas you have for the newsletter, and that you will prepare and distribute a report to them in the near future. Then, if they wish, you can meet with them again to finalize plans.

In my opinion, the important thing at this meeting is to ask questions. That allows them to buy into the newsletter and become its ’step-parents.’ It also gives you a chance to find out about the political issues the newsletter faces. And, quite frankly, political issues are extremely important for newsletters.

Their questions
You also should be prepared to answer questions from them as well. Likely questions include:

• How much staff time will this take?
• What will it cost, in out-of-pocket costs or new costs?
• When would you expect to start?

Finally, you want to give some thought before the meeting to the benefits a newsletter might produce. At this point it probably doesn’t make much sense to try to put a dollar value on them, but you should be able to say what benefits you envision.

Technorati Tags: company newsletter, newsletters

The problem:
Is the writing in your newsletter consistent? Is each issue as readable as the original standard you set for it?

I don’t take those questions lightly, since I write for many different audiences in my newsletter publishing business. One minute, a professional audience; the next, a blue collar audience.

If I slip into a blue-collar style for a professional audience, they get impatient.

On the other hand, if I drift into a professional style for the blue-collar audience, my writing won’t be understood.

Consistency should concern all writers and publishers, and they should work to ensure that writing in their newsletter remains consistent over time.

Solutions:
My solutions? First, grammar checking software, much maligned by anyone who knows anything about grammar. However, if you put aside the shortcomings of the actual grammar checking and make use of the statistical reporting capabilities, you’ll find you have a very helpful tool.

Second, I use a simple form of quality assurance, a worksheet that tracks key measures from issue to issue. It involves only a few measures, but they do help me stay aware of the readability.

On the worksheet:
Number of words
This measure, taken after completion of the first draft, provides some idea of the volume relationship between words and graphics. Usually, a high proportion of text will be less attractive, and consequently less readable.

Number of Charts
This one doesn’t bear directly on readability, but went in because my client wanted to increase employees’ awareness and use of charts. This measure in the worksheet helped assure that we put at least one into each issue.

Words/sentence
The fewer words, the more understandable the sentence. On the other hand, consistently short sentences lead to choppy sentences and articles, so we want a happy medium of some kind. I averaged something between 18 and 20 words a sentence. Articles written for professionals generally would use more words per sentence.

Characters/word
Again, an obvious measurement. Keeping the average number of characters per word down keeps the readability up.

Passive sentences
A passive sentence contains a ‘to be’ verb, like ‘is’ or ‘are.’ An active verb, on the other hand, describes an action of some kind. Generally, active verbs mean higher readability, so I try to minimize passive verbs. Of course, there can be a price to pay for eliminating them entirely, which is to make sentences sound stilted. For most clients, I aim for no more than 10% passive verbs.

Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch/Kincaid Grade Level
These two measures can be taken together, as each provides a quantitative measure of prose readability. Flesch Reading Ease is a number between 1 and 100, with low numbers being more difficult and higher numbers easier to read.

Those numbers often seem too abstract, though, so we turn to the Flesch/ Kincaid Grade Level, which expresses the same concept in more familiar terms.

For most readers I keep the Reading Ease number above 50, and try to keep the Grade Level at or below 10. This suggests the writing should be easily understood by a person with a Grade 10 education.

Conclusions:
It really doesn’t matter what grammar checking software you use, nor the individual measures, nor the levels of the measures. Instead, think in terms of picking a few helpful measures and routinely recording them. By doing this you should have greater success at keeping the readability of your newsletter consistent from issue to issue.

Technorati Tags: grammar, newsletter, readability, reading