| Many companies start newsletters with the best of intentions. Then work gets in the way. The weekly newsletter turns bi-monthly, monthly and then quarterly and then on no particular schedule at all. Before long, your customers and people in your network wonder if you have a newsletter at all.
How do you get back on schedule and stay on schedule? First, recommit to getting a newsletter out on a certain day/week of the month. Create a budget of story ideas so you know what you will be writing about several editions in advance. And then, take advantage of the most underutilized newsletter hack out there: Guest columnists. Invite people from your orbit to contribute content every so often. Wait a second. Isn’t this a newsletter for my product or service? Why bring in somebody else who will talk about something other than what my company does? Well, first things first, you invite a guest columnist who does offer something of value to your readers. In the past, our sister company PR Works has welcomed contributions from business coaches, IT specialists, HR providers etc. Many of our readers own a small business and these topics are of interest. So, how did that help? First, it provided content. Don’t underrate that, especially when our readers found it helpful. Second, it provides insight into the types of professionals we work with. It certainly doesn’t hurt your company image to be associated with smart people. Third, it provides you additional audience members as your guest columnist will want to share your newsletter with their customers and network. Our own Joe D’Eramo recently showcased this strategy. In case you didn’t know, Joe started a newsletter called My Home Office Hacks, sort of a virtual water cooler for people who work from home. One of the work from home topics he addressed is what foods to keep in the house. He invited a Wellness & Nutrition Coach, Marissa Szabo, to share some pointers. That issue can be found here. “This was by far one of our more read issues,” said Joe. “What was interesting was the amount of people who saw the article on LinkedIn. Those are largely people from Marissa’s network. It really was a win-win and we’ll have Marissa back at some point with another wellness tip.” You can sign up for Joe’s newsletter here. If you would like to be a guest columnist for an upcoming My Pinnacle Network newsletter or PR Pointer, drop a line. |