1. Ask your customers or suppliers to add a link to your website
2. Add your business to Google local
3. Add your website to DMOZ.org
4. Add a link to your website in the signature of any forums you contribute to
5. Add a website link to your email signature
6. Add a static sitemap
7. Add an XML sitemap and submit it to search engines
8. Title your pages properly
9. Use Google webmaster tools to identify any potential problems
10. Contact The Savvy Partnership - Simon would love to hear from you!

Barry has been advising a client over the last few weeks regarding their self-produced newsletter. This is always tricky as you’ll see when you read on.

I’m usually pretty kind and will try not to call a person’s baby ugly but sometimes you just have to tell it like it is. Anyone can, and often will, delight in telling you what is wrong but if you want to have any credibility and be taken seriously you also have to be able to suggest a practical solution. Unlike their previous consultant’s proposal, our solution doesn’t require re-capitalising the company, whole scale business card reprinting or reinventing the market. That is always a good place to start we find.

We pulled it to pieces as courteously and with as much diplomacy as we could but we didn’t pull our punches; we sent off our observations, held our collective breath and waited for the fallout. The MD rang us up and said that the marketing manager, his sister, (sound of penny dropping) was going on maternity leave, could we talk? Now they could have taken their bat and ball home and in some instances in the past, and probably in the future too, they will. I’d far rather we both understood each other from the outset.

Sometimes taking a thorn out a paw has been a delicate but necessary start to some of our best relationships with clients. My worst clients have been those were, primarily for pragmatic economic reasons at the time, we didn’t say what we really and completely thought during the getting to know each other phase. Those contracts, however silver lined they appeared at the time, have never made us any profit but then everyone is blessed with 20/20 hindsight.

The vast majority of our clients just don’t understand the true potential of a great email newsletter. Or conversely, the real down sides and negative effect if you get it wrong.

In the early days of the web, there were some wonderful, informative, interesting newsletters. There still are some shining examples. Now, more and more newsletters have become little more than graphic designers strutting their stuff…with small snippets of incomplete content, accompanied by links through to an accompanying website. They compound the problem by being self-obsessed, WWD (what we do) missives, a woefully disguised sales pitch often with a misleading title that really gets your pip when you open it to find it vacuous, irrelevant or patronizing. You may as well try to disguise a whale by putting hat on it.

The result? The newsletters themselves are boring, not useful, often irrelevant, not really satisfying…and destined for the junk folder and your company to oblivion. Well maybe not quite that far but certainly off the recipient’s radar.

Why it makes sense to deliver complete content in your newsletter!
A good newsletter builds respect and trust. Think of the newsletters to which you have subscribed for a year or more. You keep reading them for a reason, namely because they are worth the time spent. And each time you read a new issue, your respect for the company or organisation behind it deepens a little bit more.

Meanwhile, more and more of the “drive them through to the website” newsletters, with teaser content and onward links, lose our attention. The only way to make sure your newsletter is consistently opened is to make it WORTH opening. ‘Complete Content’ newsletters are a long-term asset and should have investment and maintenance. The hard part for marketers is to resist the temptation to maximize short-term click-throughs. It may make their monthly report look good for the boss, but it doesn’t quite tell the whole story.

For a variety of reasons we may find ourselves under pressure to use the newsletter to drive as many people as possible through to our sites. It’s an understandable aim, but you need to find a balance that won’t diminish the value of the newsletter itself, keep it fresh and running at top speed. This ‘salesman’ is potentially talking to thousands of customers. You would get pretty miffed, probably apoplectic if one of your sales team said or did some thing to ruin your relationship with your customers but thousands of company let their newsletter do this, without knowing it.

As a potential customer I am really not that bothered that you have a new contract with Mr SillySod plc, or that you have a new Sales Director. I want to know how you can solve MY problem, not my competitors.

So, what makes a good or even great newsletter?
1. Deliver complete content within the body of the newsletter, with optional links to your own site or other sites. In other words, links should be included as a choice for readers who want to explore further, not as a condition of experiencing the full content.

2. Take the long-term view
Don’t measure the success of your newsletter by short-term metrics. And don’t keep changing it in search of incremental improvements in click-through rates. When you start doing that, you are on the road to transforming your newsletter into a promotional ‘salesmail’, where content is included simply as a hook, and not for its inherent value.

3. Maintain a consistent theme, tone and format
The newsletters that keep the attention of their readers, year after year, are those that remain familiar in terms of the voice of the editor, the theme of the content and the format of the newsletter itself. Why? Because readers are extremely sensitive to changes in their favorite newsletters! They don’t like unexpected shifts in voice and content. And as many publishers have found out the hard way, subscribers hate it when text newsletters are changed to an HTML format, or when an HTML newsletter undergoes a big change in design.

And finally….. I think the essence of producing a valuable newsletter is never to lose sight of the long view. Don’t think in terms of weeks or months, but next year make sure you deliver real value with each issue, and that means including complete content within the body of each issue.

Finally, don’t let short-term metrics divert you from your long-term goal. Building long-term readership and loyalty takes time, a lot of time. The rewards however are far more lucrative and long term.

Consistency breeds familiarity. It works – really!

Try these:
1. When someone asks you, “So, what do you do?” offer an UNFORGETTABLE answer in less than five seconds that makes them say, “Really…?” “Cool!” or “Oh yeah, that sounds interesting.” Remember, even the most boring job in the world can sound magnetic, cool and unique!

2. Don’t try to be different. In fact, don’t “try” to be anything. Just be. Be yourself. Be the world’s expert on yourself, and be that person every day. Nothing is more approachable than authenticity

3. The more imitable you are, the less valuable you are

4. Smile for ten seconds every time you walk into a room

5. Consistency is far better than rare moments of greatness. So be friendly to everyone - especially people who appear unimportant, because you never know when you’re being evaluated by someone who IS important

6. Don’t be afraid to interrupt someone by saying, “Wait, I don’t know what that means.” It shows you’re listening and shows you’re human

7. Walk slower. Make it easy for people to get your attention

8. Share your knowledge from your successes AND failures. And remember that people remember stories, not facts; and not to tell them what you did - but to tell them what you learned

9. Most people avert their eyes from oncoming strangers when they get within 10 feet of each other. See how many of them you can get to acknowledge you in one week. Then try to double that number the next week

10. When one of your staff members comes to you with an issue, ask “What are two or three aspects that concern you most about this problem?”
11. Keep your office door open. Avoid physical barriers. And even if it means more team members stop by to “bother you,” you will learn more about what’s going on in your office/department/company

12. Change your working environment throughout your day and work to your body and mind’s individual energy levels e.g. if you don’t feel creative after say a client meeting, don’t try to be – do some routine admin for the first half hour afterwards. People often feel deflated after meetings even when they have gone well because of all the preparation and build up prior to them

13. Two words that will always make every customer happy: RIGHT AWAY

14. Make it easy for people who come to your website to get in touch with you. On every page, put phone numbers, email, fax, screen names, your mailing address and any other medium through which customers can reach you

15. And when your customers ask, “What’s the best way to get a hold of you?” tell them, “Whatever you prefer. I’m equally easy to reach via email, phone, fax or in person.” Let them choose. It doesn’t matter what you prefer - because it isn’t about you

16. In the history of business, a client or co-worker has never exclaimed, “Damn it Steve, why do you always over-communicate!?” Less isn’t more!

17. Make at least one of your customers laugh every day

18. Make at least one of your co-workers laugh every day

19. Make at least one of your salespeople laugh every day

20. Make a friend in less than 30 seconds with every person you meet

21. Make eye contact for two extra seconds when being introduced (and saying goodbye) to someone new. One-one-thousand…two-one-thousand…

22. In the event that you actually remember someone’s name, always say it back to that person upon exiting a conversation

23. Don’t impress. First inspire, then people WILL be impressed

24. Email signatures don’t need your entire life story. Just be sure to include your basic contact information, and something that piques the interest of the recipient

25. When you put an employee on ‘hold’ for ‘call waiting’, tell them how many seconds to expect to wait. For example, “Sandy, hang on 10 seconds. Be right back.” Most people will actually count to ten in their heads. That way, when you return, you’ve proved to them that they can “count on you.”

26. Read 10 magazines you wouldn’t normally read. It’s called an ‘Eclectic Education’, and it’s the stuff great conversationalists are made of

27. Every week, introduce one of your coworkers to someone new

28. Become a great storyteller

29. Be able to answer the question, “So, what do you do?” in 5, 10, 20, 30, 60 and 90 seconds

30. As Yogi Bera said “You can observe a lot just by watching”

31. Spend lunch with your employees as often as possible. Offer a casual, open environment that encourages both work-related and casual conversation. Let them buy you a drink

32. When asked a question you don’t know the answer too, get off your chair and go find the person at the sharp end who really does

33. Send 50% less e-mails and try verbal communication, it worked for hundreds of years before the PC

34. Ask for help

35. Switch off the television two evenings a week and listen to the radio

36. Find a new radio station to listen to in your car

37. Buy, and read, a non-fiction book. Preferably a Biography of somebody you have never heard

38. Make something with a small child, rent one if you have to

39. Have your next department meeting in the park, even if it is raining

40. Jump in a puddle

41. Organise a ‘bad jumper’ dress down day

42. Dig out your old record collections and play something you haven’t listened to in (at least) ten years.

43. Get your colleagues to swap theirs too

44. Have a game of rounders or soft ball after work

45. Scare yourself once a day!

46. Mark out a hop-scotch squares on one of the main offices thoroughfares and insist everyone play as they pass. The CEO/MD goes first

47. Find your “Customer of the Week” and tell them

48. Find your “Worst Customer of the Week” and tell them how you are going to fix that

49. Let all employees who don’t have kids go home an hour early before next Friday

50. Allow all employees who have kids an hour off early on condition they do something for themselves, not with the kids, before next Friday

Have fun, they do work, really!