Answer a question you get asked, explain something you did recently, or give one piece of seasonal advice. Announcements are the least interesting thing you could send.

The wrong premise

A business decides to send a monthly email, sends two, and then stops because nothing has happened worth reporting.

That assumes the reader signed up to hear announcements about the business.

Almost nobody did. They signed up because they thought you might tell them something useful about the thing you know about.

Which means the absence of news is not an obstacle, and treating it as one is what kills more small business newsletters than anything else.

What people actually want

None of those requires anything to have happened. All of them are available on any Tuesday from a person who does the work.

The question you answered this week

The most reliable source, and it requires no thinking at all.

Somebody telephoned and asked something. You answered it in two minutes on the phone.

That answer, written down, is a complete monthly message, and the fact that somebody asked is the evidence that it is worth sending.

Keep a note of questions as they arrive, which takes seconds, and by the end of a month you will have four to choose from.

This also solves the quality problem, since a question a real customer asked is guaranteed relevant in a way that an invented topic is not.

The best ones are the questions you are slightly bored of answering, because boredom is a sign of frequency.

Describe a job

The second source, and it produces the messages people remember.

Not a case study with a testimonial. A short account of a job: what the problem turned out to be, what surprised you, what it cost roughly, what you would tell somebody in the same position.

That is interesting because it is specific, and specific is rare.

It also demonstrates competence far better than any claim about competence, since the reader draws their own conclusion.

Ask the customer before describing a job in any identifiable way, and keep it general where you have not.

A worked example

A business sent nothing for seven months because they had no announcements, having previously sent updates about staff and equipment.

They restarted with a different rule: each message answers one question somebody actually asked that month.

The first was about why bills rise in a particular month, which they had explained on the phone four times.

It produced more replies than any message they had sent, including two enquiries from people who had been on the list for over a year without contacting them.

The messages took about twenty minutes each to write because the answer already existed.

Their conclusion was that the seven months of silence had been caused by looking for the wrong kind of material.

Seasonal is easier than it sounds

A structure for the months where nothing else presents itself.

Every trade has a calendar: what goes wrong in each season, what to do before something happens, when to book to avoid a rush.

Write those twelve down once, in an afternoon, and you have a year of messages that only need updating.

They are also genuinely useful, because the reader is being told something at the moment it applies rather than in general.

The same twelve can be reused the following year with different examples, since nobody remembers what you sent eleven months ago and the advice is still true.

Length is not the point

Worth saying, since the perceived effort is what prevents sending.

Three hundred words answering one question is a complete message and takes twenty minutes.

A long message covering four topics is not four times better, and it takes considerably more than four times as long to write, which is why it does not get written.

Short and monthly beats long and occasional, both for the reader and for whether it happens at all.

If the choice is between a short message and no message, the short message wins every time.

Keep a list so you never start from nothing

The practical habit that makes this sustainable.

One running note: questions people asked, jobs worth describing, seasonal items, and anything you found yourself explaining twice.

Add to it whenever something occurs rather than when you sit down to write, which is the moment when everything seems uninteresting.

Then writing the monthly message becomes choosing from a list rather than staring at nothing, which is a completely different task.

A list with six items on it is what keeps a newsletter running through a busy month.

The counter-case

Some businesses genuinely should send less.

Where there is nothing to say and no interest in saying it, an occasional message when something real happens is more honest than a monthly one manufactured to fill a slot.

Announcements are also not worthless: a new service, a change of hours, or a genuine offer are things people want to know, and a business with real news should send it.

And for some trades the useful contact is not email at all, but a note when a service is due, which is a different thing entirely.

Send monthly if you can find one useful thing a month, and less often if you honestly cannot.

Writing this month's

  1. Stop looking for news.
  2. Note questions as customers ask them.
  3. Answer one in three hundred words.
  4. Or describe a job and what surprised you.
  5. Write the twelve seasonal items once.
  6. Keep a running list so you never start empty.
  7. Send it short rather than not at all.

Step two is what makes the rest possible, since a question a customer asked is both the material and the evidence that it was worth sending.

Building a page around a recurring question is covered in the question you answer on every phone call.

Frequently asked questions

What do I send when nothing has happened?

An answer to a question somebody asked, a description of a job, or a piece of seasonal advice. Announcements are the least interesting thing you could send.

Why is a customer question the best source?

Because it requires no thinking, the answer already exists, and the fact somebody asked is the evidence it is worth sending. The best ones are the questions you are bored of answering.

How do I write about a job?

Not as a case study. A short account of what the problem turned out to be, what surprised you, roughly what it cost, and what you would tell somebody in the same position.

What about months with nothing at all?

Write the twelve seasonal items for your trade once, in an afternoon. That gives you a year of messages that only need updating, and they can be reused the following year.

How long should it be?

Three hundred words answering one question is complete and takes twenty minutes. Short and monthly beats long and occasional, mostly because the long one does not get written.

How do I avoid starting from nothing?

Keep a running note of questions, jobs, and anything you explained twice, adding to it as things happen rather than when you sit down to write.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Stopped sending because you have no news?

Write down the last question a customer asked you on the phone. That answer is this month's message.

Start a Conversation