As we discuss here at Small Business Branding, our brand gets expressed in everything that we do – as I like to describe it – at every “touch-point” a business partner, prospect, client, employee or other stakeholder may have with us.
One of the ways that we express our personal brand and our company brand is through our writing – whether that be through copy on the web, offline marketing materials or letters that we write.
If we are building our business online, providing a content rich newsletter is a great way to express our expertise and also provides us with the permission to promote our products and services.
However there are some things to watch out for which I was reminded of when I read a newsletter today from a training company in Ireland.
They made two fundamental flaws with their newsletter:
- the first two sections of their news letter was promoting their new training courses
- the next two sections of their newsletter had articles but neither of them written by themselves.
So why do I think these are flaws in brining their brand to life?
Well in the case of promoting our services and products a good rule of thumb to follow is that if we provide 80% of great useable content in our newsletters, that enables us to then promote our products and services. this was not the case in this newsletter. I would also recommend that you should lead with the valuable content and leave your promotion to later in the newsletter.
Secondly, if we are meant to be thought leaders in our field, why promote other people by including their articles? By taking the easy way out of creating our newsletters and ezines filling it with content that is in no way connected with our business i.e. we use articles from an article distribution site, we are promoting and building the brand of someone else.
Thirdly, if you are going to use articles from another person, then why not ask your business partners who you work with to provide the article – that way you can grow your business together through collaboration.
Fourthly, when using other peoples articles, make sure that you use articles of people who are experts in their field. In the example I saw this morning, the training company lost all credibility for me as they used articles from people who are not considered as experts in the areas they were writing about – as evidenced by a simple click to their websites.
I am sure the reason that the company took this approach was that they are a small business – in fact they are a sole trader – and they probably ran out of time to write their own newsletter this month.
But remember that finding an hour to create your own relevant and compelling content is worth the investment versus the negative impact of a poorly constructed newsletter over promoting your products, services and other peoples content and expertise will have on your business.
It takes time to nurture and develop your brand, so why waste all your hard work and put your brand in jeopardy all for a lack of time?
Hi,
You work hard for years to earn a good reputation for your company and it only took 1 hour to ruin it, how sad.
Just like in blogging, why put adsense in your blog when you are trying to promote your own product. It really lessen the chance for your product to get noticed because people’s attention will be diverted to the ads provided by adsense.
If you want to hire someone who will do the writing for your newsletter make sure that the one you will hire know what he’s doing and has a good reputation in his field of expertise.
“Give and You Shall Receive”
This is not only true in our personal life but also in our business life. What you’re talking about in your article is exactly the opposite – the training company in question is trying to get before it gives and then to add to this they get someone else to do the giving for them!
If our main focus is to make a quick “buck” we’re missing the point about creating a long term sustainable business. Businesses take time to grow and nourish. When they are built on GIVING real value to other businesses and peoples lives, like a great oak tree, they will survive many storms and be around for the long term benefit of all.
Sean M Kelly
http://www.seanMkelly.com