Why your newsletter MUST look and sound different

👉 useful is not enough

How many newsletters or emails are you subscribed to?

In my case, it’s literally hundreds as I study them for best practices. But for most people, it’s at least dozens if not much more.

But if I asked you to tell me the main themes or biggest insights for the newsletters you subscribe to, could you do it?

Maybe for some. But I suspect not for most.

I’m sure those newsletters have good stuff in them. But when you have dozens of emails with similar good stuff all written in similar ways, it all tends to blur into one.

“I know, I’ll do a newsletter with cartoons in it…”

Which means most people are slaving away writing their newsletter just for it to be ignored by readers.

That’s not just a shame and a waste, it undercuts the whole reason why you write newsletters.

There are really only 3 main goals of a newsletter:

1. A minority of newsletters are paid subscriptions: they earn money because people pay to read them.

2. Some newsletters result in a direct response: people will click on a link in them and buy something from you. This happens mainly when your products are fairly low cost, easy purchases. But it can also happen with bigger sales if you’ve nurtured a relationship over time.

3. Most newsletters result in a delayed response. People won’t be ready to take action immediately but over time your newsletter steadily builds credibility and trust. It establishes your expertise and subtly highlights areas your readers might have problems you can help with. So when the time is right, you pop into their head and they contact you.

None of those goals will be met if people don’t remember your newsletter. If it doesn’t stand out from the dozens of other newsletters crowding their inbox and other content that gets rammed down their throats on the web.

“So much, so bleedin’ obvious” you might be thinking. “Of course I know I need to stand out”.

But we really do overlook just how different we need to be to actually stand out. Or how important it is.

Creating useful content is not enough. Our inbox is full of useful content.

Being “nice” is not enough. Our inbox is full of emails from nice people.

But “useful and nice” is what most people aspire to. We think it will make us different.

But it won’t. It’s what our inboxes are full of. And they’re boring.

That’s not to say your emails shouldn’t be useful. They should. Or that you shouldn’t be nice.

But you need more.

The weird thing is that when you meet most people they’re incredibly interesting. Unusual ideas. Funny stories. Weird experiences.

Our inboxes are full of boring emails sent by interesting people.

I’ll say that again, with emphasis, because it’s so important…

Our inboxes are full of boring emails sent by interesting people.

Our emails don’t need to be boring. We have everything we need to make them more interesting. But we make them boring.

We hold back our strongest ideas for fear of giving our secrets away. We don’t share our funny stories because that wouldn’t be professional. We worry if we sound a bit weird that people will unsubscribe.

Our biggest danger isn’t upsetting people into unsubscribing. It’s boring them into silently checking out.

How do you make your newsletters non-boring?

(But not too much. We’ll talk about Raymond Loewy’s MAYA rule in an upcoming newsletter).

You can write about a topic no one else is writing about (I love Shaun Usher’s “Letters of Note” for example).

Or you can write about a well-known topic with brand-new ideas.

Or you can explain well-known ideas in new and interesting ways.

Or you can just inject your own personality, style and stories into your writing.

All of these will work. And I’m going to expand on all of them in the next few newsletters.

But if you want some inspiration right now, you might want to grab a free copy of my Email Topic Toolkit.

It'll show you how to generate an endless supply of brilliant topics for emails and newsletters (and blog posts and social too) - instantly banishing "blank page" syndrome! And it’ll teach you some of my famous “story prompts” for creating unique and interesting ways of explaining your ideas.

Enjoy!

- Ian