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Newsletters

Taking the Moleskine Plunge

Tuesday, July 10th, 2007

Two of my favorite bloggers got me thinking about Moleskine. Moleskine, for the unitiated, is an Italian line of notebooks and planners,

“used by European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin.” (Product literature)

First, Kathy Sierra showed us how she turned an off the shelf Moleskine into a high powered PDA.

Then, Tony Clark endorsed the Moleskine in a recent post about personal productivity.

If the Moleskine is good enough for these two (to say nothing of Picasso), I figured it was good enough for me. I started with the basic Pocket Ruled Notebook. Minimalistic in the extreme–nothing but 192 pages of ruled paper. I’m finding it an excellent replacement for the spiral notebooks I’ve used for years to record client notes, follow-up tasks, ideas, and any other day-to-day information I need to remember.

What’s unique about Moleskine is the binding. Other bound notebooks don’t want to stay open, making them awkward to use compared to spiral notebooks. But the Moleskine magically stays open and flat, making it easy to write on both sides of the sheet. The paper’s high quality, thick yet soft; a pleasure to write on. Hemingway used Moleskines. While I can’t say I’m writing like Hemingway thanks to my Moleskine, I am starting to feel more like him, and judging by the encroaching whiteness of my beard, I’m starting to look more like him as well.

The second Moleskine product that is changing my life is the Large Soft Cover Weekly Planner. On the left is a seven-day week on a grid; on the right, a blank narrow-lined page. Simple, elegant, efficient. The left side is perfect for penciling in meetings and other time-specific tasks, while the right side gives me a place to make note of other tasks that need to be completed that week (such as writing assignments), driving directions, and notes relating to meetings scheduled for that week. Far more versatile than the At-A-Glance Weekly Planners I’ve used in the past.

It’s so liberating to be rid of those nasty spirals. How many shirt cuffs and pants pockets have I snagged and shredded on the business end of a spiral metal wire? Too many to count. No more. Moleskines for me!

Further reading.

The Moleskine Blog.

In-depth Moleskineia from Interesting Thing of the Day.

Dan the Echo Boomer really likes Moleskine.

Zonageek turned his Moleskine into a hard drive, naturally.

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Using Business Cartoons in Newsletters

Friday, December 29th, 2006

This cartoon was created for use in a newsletter about Web analytics. Now, even the most ardent search marketing fan does not find Web analytics the most stirring of subjects. Applying a touch of humor, along with something visual, inspires newsletter readers to click-through.

When I started developing business cartoons for clients, I assumed certain businesses, like law firms, would never be interested. Not only was I wrong, I was 180-degrees wrong.

Attorneys, well aware of their stuffy image, want to humanize themselves and add a bit of comic relief to their gravely dry Web content.

Financial planners and realtors leave no stone unturned in the efforts to stand out from a crowd that inundates its prospects with e-mail blasts and direct mail.

Business consultants and corporate trainers need methods of breaking up long presentations and emphasizing key points. Business cartoons accomplish both objectives neatly and powerfully. And, the drier the content, the more interest these folks have.

Sales and human resources are more obvious candidates for cartooning, but even dry cleaning can be funny. (Just catch a Seinfeld rerun sometime!)

Are business cartoons right for your business? Most likely the answer is “yes”–provided you have a meaningful message as well. I think of cartoons as exclamation points. Cartoons draw attention to a message and/or reinforce it. And that’s big.

In advertising, getting someone to notice you is half the battle, maybe two-thirds of the battle. You’ll be well armed with a cartoon or two in your holster!

Happy New Year!

Word Sell … Funny Business

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How to Make E-Newsletters Work

Monday, December 11th, 2006


Why are you sending out e-newsletters?

1. To attract new customers;

2. To inform existing customers;

3. To lead or support product promotions;

4. To build a community among employees;

5. To do what everybody else is doing;

6. All of the above;

7. None of the above.

Whatever your goal, the effectiveness of your newsletter depends on execution. Here are some tips.

1. Slow and steady wins the race. For most newsletters, publications once a month is plenty–more often and recipients start tuning you out; less often and they never tune you in.

2. Content is king, design is queen. To state the obvious, people are drowning in spam. Without a captivating design, readers will hit “delete” the instant they open your newsletter. Yet design alone is not enough–even if you capture the reader’s attention, you must deliver compelling news in order to hold it.

3. Keep it short. Large blocks of copy trigger the “delete” reflex. Be brief. Link to landing pages on your Web site where readers can obtain the full story and re-read your call to action.

4. Keep it going. Companies often dabble, sending out newsletters here and there whenever the spirit moves them. Chances are, readers won’t really read your newsletter until the fourth of fifth time they receive it. Minimum time to evaluate a newsletter campaign–one year.

5. Be one thing to one people. It’s tempting to change theme and/or audience from newsletter to newsletter. Mistake. Pick one audience and one strategy and stay with it, again because building readership takes time and repetition.

6. Have a measurable purpose. Why are you mailing a newsletter anyway? Tracking how many e-mails get opened is okay, but better is to have a newsletter link to a specific Web site page(s) so you can track conversions; that is, how many readers acted on your newsletter’s call to action by visiting your site. (We’ll discuss ways to do this in future posts.)

7. Build your list. Effective e-mailing depends on quality and quantity. Have a plan in place to keep e-mail addresses current and add new ones.

Next time we’ll talk about selecting the right newsletter strategy.

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