Top o' the morning, friend!
From time to time I use this letter to answer reader questions. This is one of those times.
Today's mailbag arrived to my Tiny House Studio via snowshoe; there was still snow on the ground in Boston last week. (That's my studio, above.) I rummaged around and selected 3.*
* Kidding. Of course these questions arrived via email. But "cut and pasted them here" doesn't land quite the same, does it?
Welcome to this week's episode of...
Big Questions from the Tiny House Studio
1. "How do you know what your email newsletter should be about?" —Nicholas
You should google "What should my newsletter be about?"
I'm kidding. Do NOT do that. ^^
Again: DO. NOT. DO. THAT.
Google might have a lot of answers. But the only real answer to "What should your newsletter be about?" is going to come from within your own heart and noggin.
Your 5-point focus checklist:
☑️ Hey Self, what niche am I in? This could be a business (you sell rutabagas) or personal project (you love rutabagas and have a million rutabaga facts and root-vegetable recipes to share).
☑️ What's my point of view? In the era of content abundance, your rutabaga category is already covered. That's OK: Add your spin/angle/point of view. Use your voice. No one can out-pizza the Hut, and no one can copy your voice.
☑️ Check in with your heart. Newsletters are a long game. If you don't love rutabagas enough to commit to a regular cadence, your newsletter will wither and rot.
☑️ Are you in love? Check. Yes I love this topic. I can commit. Proceed to the next bullet.
☑️ Don't be afraid to evolve. Actually, expect to evolve.
Through your publishing you'll build confidence and community—both of which will give back to you in surprising and unexpected ways.
You will sprout ideas like a spring tadpole sprouts limbs. You'll walk (hop?) in new directions and on unexpected paths.
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2. "How can I use personalization to take our marketing to the next level?" —Carlos
Let's pause for a sec here and think about that word "personalization."
The root of the word is "personal"—something made or designed to be used by one person.
Like a computer post-1974.
Or a pan pizza.
Marketing took "personal" and hot-glued on the mess of the suffix "-ization."
We know personalization is a scalable ability to use technology and data to tailor messages and experiences to people in our audience.
That's all well and good. Love ya, Tech and Data.
But that definition is a little bloodless, isn't it?
Personalization is ultimately about serving the person at the heart of our marketing. The person viewing it or reading it and clicking and chuckling to themselves because they love your work.
Sometimes we get so caught up in -ization that we neglect the person-.
We forget the goal—like we bonked our head on our towering tech stack and blacked out for a second like Wait what are we doing here again?
If you DO have a tech solution that allows you to segment and create lovely and specific messages to the very best companies at the very most optimal time based on when they indicate through their actions and behavior and choices that they are perfectly primed to hear your human voice and yikes is this still one sentence...?
Anyway... if that's you? Then 1,000%, Carlos. Go for it.
But if you are a marketing team of one, scrounging in the couch cushions for enough budget to fund the F- in Hello {F-Name}... then rise up!
In 2022, personalization is a tech solution.
But personalization is also a human concoction. A potion of creativity and care optimized with empathy and only THEN infused with technology.
Ultimately, "personalization" means "relevance."
"Personalization" means "I care." (Not we. You—the person putting together this email campaign or writing that ebook or publishing this newsletter.)
Stop sounding like a marketer. Sound like a person.
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3. "How do I write like a person and less like a marketer?" —Fake question I planted as a promo because I'm getting punchy here in the late winter twilight
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Thanks for your questions!
Next week we'll be back to our regularly scheduled shenanigans. (And BTW: If you have a question... you can always hit reply and ask away. It'll arrive in my Tiny House Studio directly to me and only me.
Here's what else is going on this week:
➡️ ➡️ ➡️ CREATORS, FREELANCERS: PLEASE TAKE THIS 5-MIN SURVEY
To any writer, newsletter publisher, blogger, podcaster, online educator, YouTuber, TikTok creator, Twitch streamer, freelancer... will you please share your experiences + perspective in this quick 5-min survey?
As a thank you... you could win a pair of Airpods Pro or a $250 Amazon gift certificate (your choice).
Back story on the survey: This is the second year I've partnered with Joe Pulizzi and Brian Clark to understand the journey of the creator.
Side note: The Journey of the Creator sounds like an adventure series or a Genesis creation story, doesn't it? But here I mean the path we take to create content, grow an audience, build a business we love.
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TOOLS
Content tools I used or discovered this week.
Analyze My Writing. This is a fun one. Paste your text into the field and feel judged.
The tool assesses many things—from readability to passive voice to something called "lexical density," which sounds like it's measured by submerging your paragraphs into water to see if they can swim...? IDK.
One odd thing: The "Analyze Text!" CTA button is weirdly small. Took me a minute. You've been warned.
SPECIAL EVENTS
March 24: Writing for Email. Join SparkPost + me as
we talk truths and lies about writing for email. [Free]
April 6-7: MarketingProfs B2B Forum Online. The goodbye event! No, the B2B Forum isn't going away... but April's event will be all-virtual for the very last time! We are back IN PERSON in October! Don't miss this virtual swan song. There will be actual swans.*
Sweet deal:
Use code ANNTICS for $100 off.
*probs
