One of the most frequent questions I am asked when speaking at conferences goes something like this…
“I’d like to change the copy on our Website, and make it more personal and relevant to our readers. But my manager doesn’t share my views. What can I do?”
My quick answer to that is not to try changing the site, which involves a lot of work, expense and buy-ins’ from up above – but instead to make incremental, or ‘guerilla’ changes to your newsletter.
It’s much easier to put together a newsletter that carries a personal voice. Not with some bogus company’ voice, but with the voices of the editor and other contributors.
It may not be easy, but persuading your managers to allow some testing in the tone and voice of a newsletter isn’t going to be half as hard as persuading them to make changes to your site’s homepage.
Besides which, a newsletter is a far more natural environment in which to communicate on a more personal level. A site is more formal, carefully designed and constructed — so it’s often hard to find a natural, credible fit for the voice of an individual.
But with a newsletter, you can. You can open with an introduction from the editor. You can brief your writers to write in a way that is a little more conversational. And it fits. It works. Because you are talking to people one at a time within their email inbox.
If you don’t have a newsletter, I think you should. Without one you are cutting yourself off from the opportunity to connect with people in a more personal way, with timely, relevant information.
Newsletters are a key element in reaching your readers one-on-one.
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Nick Usborne is an advocate of good writing on the Web and author of Net Words, the definitive text on copywriting online. He is a writer, consultant and speaker. And publisher of the Excess Voice newsletter for online writers.
