Not everyone wants to know "how to"

--> and not every email should give it

One of the biggest mistakes you can make with emails and newsletters is to assume your audience wants to know how to do things.

That may sound a bit weird coming from someone whose emails largely consist of teaching you how to do things…

…but the thing is that I sell online training.

People who buy my stuff want to know how to do things. That why they buy.

But if you’re a consultant, or a coach, or you sell done-for-you services, that’s *not* what your clients are looking for or why they buy.

Back when I did consulting, my clients wanted to know what their problem was. What the real root cause of the issue was. What they should do to fix it.

And they wanted to know that I knew how to fix it.

But they didn’t need to know or want to know how to fix it themselves.

Back then I did that initial problem diagnosis and solution recommendation live with them as part of the sales process.

If I was in consulting today I’d use an email newsletter, but I wouldn’t fill it with content teaching potential clients how to solve their problems.

Because if someone wants to know how to solve a problem it usually means they want to try to solve it themselves. Which means they’re unlikely to hire a consultant to do it for them.

People who want to hire consultants want to know other things. What’s the real problem? What should my priorities be? What are the best types of solution? What criteria should I use to select someone to help me? How can I make sure the project is a success? How can I monitor progress?

I’d focus my content on those questions.

There’d be a bit of “how to” - but mainly to prove I knew how to solve the problem rather than to give them something they would do themselves.

Buyers of coaching have a different set of questions they’re interested in, as do buyers of products.

Now as it happens, most of the people teaching others how to write emails and newsletters are like me: they sell online training. So the emails we write tend to have lots of “how to” in them.

But that doesn’t mean yours should have. You need to think more deeply about what your buyers would actually value hearing about. What would be useful for them.

It might be “how to”. But it might well be something different.

Make sure you’re emailing them what’s really valuable, not just what everyone else seems to be emailing.

- Ian