Mandela, Beckham, Frank and . . . . You?

Posted by Sarah Mitchell on 27 May 2010 | 2 Comments

Tags: enewsletter, email, marketing, content marketing

What do Nelson Mandela , David Beckham and Anne Frank have in common? The unlikely trio are famous in their own right but share one thing – an autobiography. Technically, Anne Frank kept a diary but, when published, became the best-selling autobiography of all time. What do any of them have to do with content marketing?

Not much, to be honest, and that’s exactly my point. Frank, Mandela and Beckham have fascinating life stories to share. Through circumstance and talent, all three have written a compelling book resulting in a healthy revenue stream. Unless you or your company have a similarly enticing story to tell, you’d better make sure your content is focused on your customer and not yourself.

It’s not about you
The first place to start is with your eNewsletters. It’s easy to fall into the trap of blabbing about yourself and your business. Being self-centred means you’re missing the most important thing to your prospective customers: their business. In a post titled Are you sending email or ME-mail?, Gina Lofaro, aka The Word Mistress, advises:

”Every email you send to your subscribers, HAS to be about them! It has to fix a pain, address an issue, solve a problem, make them laugh, make them angry, make them act or even make them cringe.”

Of course, your email campaigns are designed to attract paying customers and therein lies the quandary. So how do you develop a newsletter about the customer and still sell your products and services?

The reader focused eNewsletter
Paul Maietta from Fitzgerald Photo Imaging knows the answer. Provide lots of good content – useful information, industry news, and professional advice – then slip in a single promotion for your own business. To see a great example of an effective newsletter with a customer focus, check out the Fitz-e-News Issue 5 - or any issue, to be honest.

The Take-away
Take a good look at your email communications. Are you writing an autobiography? Move your ME-Mail campaign back into customer territory. You’ll begin to see a big change in your customer behaviour, I promise.

What changes have you made in your email campaigns and why?

Image courtesy of Francesco Marino at www.freedigitalphotos.net