5 tips for Newsletter Nirvana

So you have to write a newsletter… Thank you CMO, CIO, CEO, or Product Marketer who thought this would be a great way for us to "collaborate" with Gartner and create a co-branded piece that we could use for lead gen. Will busy professionals even consume short articles about technology and business? Or are they simply looking for a few whitepapers on how to fix something? Long-form or lists? Slideshows or videos? Product sheets or client testimonials?

Get ready because we are about to give you the five secrets so your newsletter outperforms the rest.

What we've found from managing newsletter clients is that people tend to care about one thing in particular: they want to learn. The kinds of articles that explode among the business crowd are ones that make them feel smarter at the end of the day; the content can come from anywhere and be in any format. Here are six tips generated from watching readership patterns over the last three years.

1. Write What You Know
Investigate your Sales force to come up with topics. What objections are they coming up against when selling to a prospect? Does your target audience understand the technology issue you solve, or do they need to understand the impact of the situation? What behaviors does your company employ that solves these problems? What failures have others had along the way that your company helped to turn into a success? What inspires your company to do what it does? Use the details from your existing customers to help others facing the same technology challenges.

2. Know your audience

Your prospect base can be comprised of thousands of executives, IT leaders, senior managers, and C-level executives – basically the working world. Be conversational, and keep the topics focused on the technology issues your audience faces. And remember that your readers are busy; an email, IM, phone call or conversation is always about to lure them away. Employ photos, bold headings, lists and graphics whenever you can. And, above all, always have a call to action.

3. Pay attention to the headlines

A great headline carries a lot of weight: It can draw in readers who might otherwise skim and move on; it can help keep you focused while you're writing. It can also give search engines valuable information. One rule to remember: Clear beats clever; you will likely end up using your headline in multiple places, so keep that in mind when considering your promotional strategy.

We recommend everyone write 5 headlines and then send to a group of colleagues. Ask them, "Which headline would you click on, assuming you didn't know the author?" [Note: If one headline isn't working, test others. This newsletter, for example, used to be called the 6 Secrets to Writing Great Content for a co-branded Gartner Newsletter, but we find that listicles are bad for engagement – though fine for raw clicks – so we changed it.]

4. When staring at the blank page, consider national and international news
When TV shows need material, they turn to the news. Do the same: find an acquisition that is generating headlines and explain why it's good or bad and how your company could solve its problem. Or talk about your experience solving different IT issues that are affecting many organizations today. Has some big company recently gotten hacked or suffered a disaster? Offer tips on what needs to be done next. Use the news as a conversation starter.

5. Create Promo Material and Share!

This step is equally as important as the content creation. If you do not tell your network, or send to colleagues you might as well not have created the newsletter. Gartner does not promote your newsletter. You'll have to post and drive traffic from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, as well as let your Sales and Marketing people know too. Decide if you'll do an email campaign, banners or pay-per-click ads. Provide to Sales as a tool, or send as part of a lead nurturing program. The more you share, the bigger your audience and the more impact you'll have.

Hope you found some of these tips useful.

Warm Regards,
Gartner Newsletter Team

Source: Gartner