The Newsletter Pro - December 2020

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INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

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Marketing in the Post- Pandemic World

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Fish Can’t Climb How Can Your Business Make the Leap from Good to Great? Tired of Doing Work About Work? Use Asana How to Play Your Way to Business Success DetraPel Teaches the Virtue of Patience

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TO MAKE MORE SALES IN 2021 U S E T H I S F ORMU L A

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W ith Pfizer and Moderna’s announcements of very good testing results for a COVID-19 vaccine, we’re seeing an uptick in the business community’s positive outlook on 2021. This could mean good news for all of us if everything works out as planned. While this is a positive development for small businesses, the country, and even the world, I’m the type of guy who always wants to be prepared. I’d like to say the Boy Scouts taught me that, but I don’t think one summer as a Scout counts. Instead of hoping and praying the government and big pharmacy companies have everything under control, I prefer to make sure I do everything within my power to win, regardless of existential circumstances. That’s why I’ve found a few business formulas that help me be prepared. I

want to share one with you this month, and I’ll follow up with additional formulas over the next few newsletter editions. (NL + LNC + EC) + (NL + LTN + EC) = $$$ Before I jump into the formula, I want to make sure we’re on the same page on a few business fundamentals and why these fundamentals matter. Over the years, I’ve found that the main reason businesses struggle is because they either don’t understand the fundamentals of business or feel that working on the fundamentals is too basic. I can relate to that feeling. In my 20s, I had amassed a ton of business knowledge. I knew things about growing businesses and running businesses that seemed very basic to me. In fact, at times, I felt the concepts were so basic that I

spent a ton of time looking for shiny objects or that one big breakthrough. In reality, I knew the basics but felt like they were too simple or beneath me, and in turn, I had limited success in my businesses in my 20s. One day during the 2008 recession, I gave a presentation to a group of 75 or so entrepreneurs. In my opinion, I was simply going over the basics, but for many, the stuff I was teaching was new, and it wasn’t basic at all. After the presentation, there was a small crowd who wanted to ask me questions, take me to lunch, or hire me to consult. At that moment, it dawned on me: Maybe I was taking some of what I knew for granted. I also realized I wasn’t implementing some of the fundamentals that I knew I needed to, which allowed me Continued on Page 2 ...

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... CONTINUED FROM COVER to turn a corner in my head. Not too long after that, I started Newsletter Pro. I spent a ton of time making sure that my fundamentals were on point. As the company has grown, it is my firm belief that continuing to focus on those fundamentals has greatly contributed to the success of the company. Hopefully, as I go over some information here — which you may know or be doing in some fashion — you don’t write off what I’m teaching as too basic. Instead, take a look at the information and use it to build on or improve your existing system. Let’s jump in! One major reason companies don’t grow is that they don’t have effective lead follow-up and sales systems. I was at a small event two years ago where Tony Robbins was the guest speaker, and he said his research has found that it takes 16 touches, at a minimum, to warm up a lead. As we all know, most people give up long before 16 touches. Most salespeople quit after one or two attempted touches, let alone actual touches. This leaves you with a very expensive name and email address if you’re lucky. Because most businesses don’t have a system for growing leads, they instead focus nearly all of their marketing energy on getting new leads. What actually keeps most companies in business is the small percentage of buyers that are ready to buy now. That

means you’re spending most of your marketing dollars on trying to find just a few people out of each hundred leads who are actively ready to buy. It’s a bad system that most small businesses get trapped in. To fix it, you need to implement a customer relationship management (CRM) system and deploy a variety of marketing pieces across a number of different media. This way, you’ll make sure to nurture the leads who are interested but not ready yet to buy. That brings us to the first formula. (NL + LNC + EC) = $$$ That is new leads (NL) plus a lead nurture campaign (LNC) plus an educational campaign (EC) equals more sales. When we get a new lead, we need to drop them immediately into a lead nurture campaign and an educational campaign. The goal of these campaigns is to build a relationship with your new lead and educate them about your products or services. The best way to accomplish this is with a combination of media. Many people build out these campaigns and simply use email. Big mistake. So few people give out their primary email address anymore, and open rates suck. This is why you need to use multiple media campaigns. You’ll want to add in a variety of media and use as many different types of media as possible. For example, you may use email, texting, direct mail, phone calls, groups, in-person conversations, podcasts, videos, etc. The reason you have to use so many different types of media is that you don’t know which media channel(s) your lead will actually engage with you on. Plus, you have to provide so many touches that you need to use as many different media channels as possible so that it doesn’t take 3.4 years to convert a lead to a sale.

One of the most important media channels on my list above is one that many would normally overlook, and that is direct mail. The reason direct mail is so important is that it has a near 100% deliverability rate, and that makes it powerful. Most businesses will be lucky to get one-fifth of the deliverability rate of direct mail. Since you need so many touches, this is one media that, when done correctly, can speed up the rate of lead conversion. Also, when you use a newsletter, you can build relationships, educate your audience, and make targeted offers just to leads that existing customers won’t see. Having the right mix of content, knowing which media types should be used for nurture campaigns versus sales campaigns, etc., are topics for another day, but take a hard look at the above section and review what you already have and what needs to be improved. –Shaun P.S. I’ll go more in-depth on this magic formula next month, so you have time to work on this section. P.P.S. Need a newsletter to kick off or round out your campaign? Visit NewsletterPro.com/schedule to chat with a Pro. They will be happy to walk you through the best practices all around.

“...THE MAIN REASON BUSINESSES STRUGGLE IS BECAUSE THEY EITHER DON’T UNDERSTAND THE

FUNDAMENTALS OF BUSINESS OR FEEL THAT WORKING ON THE FUNDAMENTALS IS TOO BASIC. “

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BUSINESS HOW-TO

Marketing in the Post-Pandemic World

marketing has come back full force — you need to develop your relationship with your leads and customers now more than ever. What are you doing to educate existing customers on the various products or services you offer that they currently don’t buy and may be buying from someone else? This is huge and can really help you grow profits quickly. How are you ensuring you’re communicating with your customers in a nurturing and relationship- building way, and is your current method of communication more than an email newsletter? If not, you need to add in direct mail, ideally a newsletter, so that you can make sure you’re touching each and every customer as well as your good leads. This will help you maximize your retention, new customers, and upsells to existing customers. COVID-19 has changed marketing, and so far, what we’re seeing is a back-to-basics approach. Some of the new shiny stuff is like a Ponzi scheme collapsing as the world shuts down. Big and small companies have adjusted and are pushing harder than ever on foundational marketing, traditional marketing, and using more social media to generate leads as well as nurture the audiences they build from those lists. Many in your industry may not adjust. I’ve seen a few industries stop marketing because they got an influx of business from being shut down, a massive mistake that will be detrimental for many. When you’re watching how your industry is reacting and what other small businesses around you are doing in response to the pandemic, I want you to keep this in mind: The masses are almost always wrong. If the businesses around you are going left, you need to be going right. –Shaun

The Changes Companies Are Making Right Now

see growth and success, even when others in your industry may not. One change people are waking up to is that a single form of media, regardless of whether that media has been more or less successful due to COVID-19, is a horrible plan. The question I want you to ask yourself is this: Is there a primary media that you get most of your leads from now, and if so, how can you diversify that lead source so you are less reliant on it? Next, look at the amount of information you collect from every lead. Businesses all over saw that when COVID-19 hit and they couldn’t communicate with their customers, it caused massive issues. What information do you currently collect, and what do you need to do to be able to collect more so you can have multiple ways to communicate with both leads and customers? What is your strategy for nurturing existing customers? Relationship

Marketing campaigns are in the process of changing very dramatically. We’re seeing shifts in how people respond to ads, what media works, how well it works, how people buy, and what they buy because of COVID-19. These changes are creating losers in industries that many considered more or less invincible and winners in industries that were previously B-grade opportunities at best. Some industries will never fully recover, and this is affecting both small and large businesses. My concern is that, with all the changes, many small businesses will be left behind because of either bad information, lack of action based out of fear, or some other combination of factors. My goal in this newsletter, and across a number of other media properties I have, will be to help you stay in front of the changes so you don’t just tread water or fall behind — you’ll

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CLIENT SUCCESS

MARKETING HOW-TO

“Newsletter Pro is very professional. Mytch keeps us on track as far as deadlines, her collaboration with me is fantastic, and she’s very well organized. Graham’s writing captures us well. The proofs come back quickly, and the edits are implemented same day. Thank you for making this easy on us!” -Brooke Birkey Donahoe Kearney, LLP “Thank you to you and the team for sending me the diffuser. That was very thoughtful of you all. You all have truly been a pleasure to work with, and I appreciate the kindness and also the flexibility with the last-minute changes lately. Newsletter Pro definitely stands out as one of the best companies I've ever worked with in my eight years of marketing. Thank you again!” -Angela Denmon Pearlman “I’m settling into a groove with the talented people at Newsletter Pro, and we’re putting out some great newsletters. I’m getting lots of positive feedback from patients who appreciate this form of keeping in touch, especially in this era of social distancing, as it’s been a little trickier to maintain contact with some patients. Things are going well, and I hope everything is going great for you guys, too!” -Russ Powell

FISH CAN’T C

THE BEST GIFT I CAN GIVE YOU THIS CHR

OUR BOOKSHELF

How does a company find success? How do big-name brands differentiate themselves and achieve what few others are seemingly capable of? In “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t,” author Jim Collins answers these questions and more. MAKE THE LEAP HOW TO TRANSFORM YOUR BUSINESS FROM ‘GOOD TO GREAT’

Schedule a Call With Us! Visit NewsletterPro.com/schedule or call 208.297.5700.

Collins builds on the idea that practically any company can overcome obstacles to become a great and lasting enterprise. Poorly run companies can be transformed. Middle-of-the-road businesses can iron out the kinks. Good companies can overcome whatever hurdle is getting the way of that push toward greatness. To understand how companies achieve greatness, Collins, along with a team of researchers, analyzed several businesses. His goal was to answer questions like,

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When I was young, I was often made fun of for being less intelligent than my classmates. Throughout school, I grew to have a reputation as the class clown, then the troublemaker, then the bad boy. I even embraced that last one a little bit. After all, who didn’t want to be James Dean? But I digress. Others saw me that way, and sometimes I saw myself through their lens. There’s a great poem by a Christian writer that talks about looking at yourself in a funhouse mirror and believing the image reflected back to you. I felt like that. I didn’t really begin to see myself clearly until I was about 16. I realized that while my brain doesn’t necessarily excel at unlocking the mysteries of chemistry or engineering, I can strategize like nobody’s business and am exceptionally good at seeing the bigger picture, choosing a crazy goal, and figuring out how to get there with the fewest hiccups along the way. Einstein said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

The realization of my own brand of genius led me to better appreciate the inherent genius in those around me. We’ve built Newsletter Pro around a series of nine core values. One of them is Multiply Native Genius. Basically, if everyone is able to focus on doing the things that they do better than almost anyone else, and not doing the things they’re not good at, we become more efficient, effective, innovative, and full of genius. Obviously, this system isn’t perfect. There are some tasks that everyone has to do, regardless of their feelings about them. None of us are going to get 100% away from our inboxes, for example. But for the most part, I find that I thrive when I offload the things I don’t excel at onto the plates of those who do and vice versa. By getting rid of the things I dread doing, I work faster and with more excitement. By trusting someone else to take those on, I give them an opportunity to excel and maybe even improve the process so that we can grow. When I first started Newsletter Pro, I handled every part of the newsletter creation. I used to sell the product, write the articles, edit them, design each one, print them, and mail them. The first Continued on Page 6 ...

CLIMB

RISTMAS

“Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long- term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?” The team pulled together a list of elite companies that made the leap, achieved greatness, and kept that greatness going for 15 years or more. They used several factors to define what “making the leap” looked like, including stock performance versus some of the world’s most prominent brands like Coca-Cola and Intel. Then they looked at companies that did not make the leap — companies that may have been good but never achieved greatness. In all, they looked into 28 companies and found what separated the great from the good or middling.

Leadership, work ethic, company culture, and more were instrumental to making the leap. There is one very important thing to keep in mind when reading this book: It was published in 2011, and the global business landscape was very different then from how it is now as we wrap up 2020 and head into 2021. In fact, the book profiles some great companies that are no longer in business. There are also companies that have since seen their reputations tarnished. However, this doesn’t discount the research from Collins and his team. There is a lot of fantastic analysis in “Good to Great.” It’s a mix of >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9

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