True story: every now and again I hate writing. And I’ve made my living by moving words around a printed or digital page for over 30 years now.
I believe many things about newsletters. The relevant belief here is that anyone can write a newsletter (and that every business should have one).
Now, you might be worried that you can’t string words together in a way that makes sense. That isn’t a reason not to write. It’s just a feeling.
However, everyone has knowledge to share. And you know more about your business/industry than your customers.
Here are a few ideas that will get you moving on your next (or even first) newsletter.
Don’t Write
Staring at a blank screen, cursor mocking you with its stationary, steady beating, sucks for professional writers. It can be even more intimidating when you’re unsure of what you want to say.
So don’t write it.
Say it.
Transcription is free these days. Open up a Google Doc, turn on Voice typing, set a timer (I like 20-minute bursts when “writing” by talking), and start talking.
It’s fine to ramble, go on an extended rant, say things out of order, and just in general muddle through. That’s just what writers call the “ugly first draft.” Mine are often fugly.
Let me use this post as an example. This final version is the fourth draft. The first draft ended up as two posts squished together. I gutted the genAI section (below) because the rest of it was how I think about using genAI to write and it wrecked the flow (which will now be its own post for Thursday or next week).
The second draft was a brain dump of more ideas to help you write because when I started going off on a genAI tangent, I forgot some basic things I had wanted to share. The third was a fleshing out of the post in general (and removing most of the ideas I added, it was too much) and revising the flow.
This fourth and final version was a final run through to tighten the title and subhead, trim and tidy the language, spell and grammar check (I have been using ChatGPT for that as it catches grammar issues better than any word processing software I’ve ever used), and to add the CTAs (calls to action — that’s the “hire me” stuff in here).
Four isn’t a magic number. It’s just the number of major changes I made to this one. Sometimes there are more versions; now and then I get it right in one. Oddly enough, I’ve found over the years that length has zero to do with the need for revisions.
OK, moving on from the mini-tutorial there, back to talking it out. You do need to think about what you want to say. That’s where your customers enter this conversation.
Answer Customer Questions
Your customers ask you questions. These are gold. As you answer them, take notes. If you have a newsletter that “only” answers every customer question, you’ll almost certainly have a successful newsletter.
You don’t need to make it more complicated than this.
You’ve Run Out of Questions. Now What?
While you should never run completely out of customer questions, maybe they slow to a trickle because you’ve done such a good job of answering them online. Whatever business you run — butcher, baker, or candlestick maker — you know more about your profession than your customers.
You’ve probably forgotten more about it than most people will ever know. Think back to when you were in the early days. What would have been useful for you to know then that can help your customer now? Write about tips and tricks and suggestions and hacks (hmmmm, maybe those are all one thing). The point is to think about what might be useful to your customers and potential customers and share that (a chef provides his favorite tips for cutting veggies; an auto mechanic shares tips for how to improve gas mileage; a software vendor shares productivity advice; etc.).
Turn on your phone’s timer for 20 minutes. Finish this sentence until the timer dings: “My customers would be better off if they knew . . .”
Don’t filter. Just write (phone, computer, notebook, papyrus, whatever).
Or talk. I like to do this exercise with pen and paper because I think better that way. I’d encourage you to try it that way first, but if it doesn’t work for you, do it differently the next time.
Steal From Yourself
You almost certainly already have source material sitting in your files and inbox. Take a look through:
Emails you’ve written customers
Proposals
Sales-call notes
FAQs
Estimates where you explained why something costs what it does
And don’t forget to look at your reviews; positive or negative, they’ll give you ideas.
If you’re realizing the ideas aren’t actually the problem, that’s useful too. Maybe what you’re missing is the structure, setup, or time to turn those ideas into a newsletter you can keep publishing.
That’s exactly what my Newsletter-in-a-Box service is built to solve: helping you turn the knowledge you already have into a newsletter system you can actually use. If that sounds familiar, let’s have a short conversation about whether it would help. Get in touch: bryant@simplyusefulmarketing.co.
Edit with Claude or ChatGPT
I’m not your 3rd grade English teacher, but genAI can act like one for you. Even the free version of either tool will do an effective job of placing YOUR words in order while suggesting others.
Use genAI to help put your words and thoughts into order. Do NOT use genAI to imitate yourself.
I used ChatGPT to create three editing prompts (prompt is just the fancy word for telling the AI what you want it to do).
They are long, so I’ve created a Google Doc for you. (Click here to make a copy of the free editing prompt pack.) Don’t let the length bother you. Use them as they are and copy/paste them into your genAI tool of choice. Over time, you’ll learn how to tweak and create them for yourself. These will get you started.
While I would encourage you to read the output from Prompt 1, make your own decisions about its recommendations, and then use those notes with Prompt 2, genAI can do a surprising amount of the editing work for you.
The step you CANNOT skip: read the final copy with an eagle eye to ensure the tool didn’t add something made up or drastically misinterpret something you said. It will sometimes.
GenAI is a tool. You are responsible for using the tool well — and for the final output.
If you want even more ideas, read this one:
Get Going
A newsletter doesn’t require you to be a great writer. It requires you to have something useful to say and a way to capture it. If you’ve been on the fence about creating a customer newsletter, I hope you use these tips to tip you over to the “doing” side of that fence.
“But I don’t feel like writing,” I can feel you thinking.
Well, Buttercup, we all have to do needed things we don’t feel like doing.
I do this for a living and I don’t always wanna. It can be hard to get ideas out of your head and into a newsletter. Do it anyway. You won’t regret it.
Thanks for spending part of your day with me. Comments, criticisms, and witticisms welcomed.
And if you’ve made it this far thinking, “Fine, fine, I should do a newsletter — I still don’t want to build the whole thing from scratch,” that’s what Newsletter-in-a-Box is for.
You get the strategy, structure, setup, and 12 starting topics so you’re not staring at a blank screen every time you need to publish.
Let’s have a short conversation about your newsletter, what’s getting in the way, and where/how/if I can help. No pitchslap. No hard sell. I’m ready when you are: bryant@simplyusefulmarketing.co.