Newsletter Name: Working Backward to Get a Name
Need a newsletter name? Know how to get it? In this article, we’ll look at a process for establishing a newsletter name, and because we’re using a process, rather than guessing, we should come up with a more effective name. And when I say more effective name, I mean a name that will help your newsletter get a better response.
As the title suggests, we’re going to work backward to find a newsletter name. We do that by starting with our objectives and working back from there.
For example, when I started a newsletter about business communication, I started with three objectives, and from those objectives came a newsletter name that worked well.
The first objective for the newsletter was to brand myself as an expert, or at least someone you could trust to provide good information about business communication. That’s how my last name “Abbott” ended up in the newsletter name (and it doesn’t hurt to have a last name that starts with the letter ‘A’ either).
The second objective was to connect my name with the subject matter, business communication. Now, these are a couple of long words for a newsletter name, especially ‘communication’ so I decided to use just one of them. And, for my purposes, ‘communication’ seemed more descriptive than just plain ‘business’.
Third, I wanted the newsletter to be read, so subscribers should know when my message arrived at their inbox that this was a newsletter and not spam of some kind. As a result, I thought it would be a good idea to get newsletter into the name. Another possibility was the word ‘ezine’ (a word often used for electronic newsletters); however, that seemed a bit esoteric. And, again, since length of the overall newsletter name was important, I decided to shorter ‘newsletter’ to ‘letter’ which saves a few letters.
Altogether, then, the name came out as “Abbott’s Communication Letter” and it worked well. It delivered on all my objectives, and I didn’t second-guess myself at all about the newsletter name at any time during the six years I published it.
It certainly beats the old fashioned way of guessing at what might be a good newsletter name, such as picking something like a company name and then adding something rather pedestrian like “Gazette”.
In summary, picking a newsletter name should be a process, rather than a shot in the dark. By focusing on your objectives, and working backward from them, you should be able to find a newsletter name that contributes to your overall goal of getting readers to respond in some way.
