Need a Holiday Newsletter Written?
T’is the season!
This time of year, if you’re not a writer, probably the last thing you’re looking forward to doing is the holiday newsletter.
I can write it for you! All I need is a bullet list of talking points (the news that you want in your holiday newsletter) and the images and I can come up with an attractive, engaging piece for you, one-sided, two-sided or multiple page, as long as you’re happy with a MS Publisher-created document. If you don’t have MS Publisher, that’s fine: I can create a PDF for you to send to your friends, family and business associates so you can easily email it or print it out.
If you’re in business a holiday newsletter goes a long way toward helping to establish a top-of-mind “fond bond” with your clients, customers or patients. This is the time of year when people are deescalating and taking time to smell the coffee while they sit near cozy fires (in the northern hemisphere) or beneath beach umbrellas (the folks down under). What better time is there to thank them for their business and let them get to know you as a person/family a little better?
Here are a few precautions (if you’re going to write your own or send me talking points to write a holiday newsletter for you):
- Remember, if your annual activities include things that could cause anguish to any of your clients, customers or patients, refrain from throwing a spotlight on them in your holiday newsletter. This would include (but not be limited to) hunting, trapping, politics, religion, and other pastimes that can cause a segment of your clients to feel less than kindly toward you.
- Write multiple newsletters for multiple ‘target audiences’. For example, if you’re the owner of a sporting goods store or a hunting/fishing outfitter, it’s perfectly fine to throw a spotlight on the deer you got, the limit you caught, etc. Just be judicious when it comes to issuing it. If you’re a sporting goods store owner, you also have tree huggers, wildlife photographers and other customers who may recoil at images that depict the killing of critters. Plenty of rifle hunters consider bow hunters and trappers barbaric. And definitely refrain from sending a dead-critter-laden newsletter to your vegan Aunt Mary whose repertoire of activities includes Greenpeace-like ‘interventions’ with folks she considers barbarians. You get the idea. If you have multiple target audiences, write multiple newsletters.
- If you’re going to sell or tout your services in your holiday newsletter, do it in as small a space as possible. If you do it well, your customers, friends and family might pass along their newsletter to a kindred spirit that they know who they think could or would benefit from what you offer. (In the above example–my own holiday newsletter–I used the entire back page to describe my services and an upcoming book that will debut in early January. The book is news, and the paragraph about my services willl be news to many of the people I’ll be sending it to because I wrote a dual-purpose newsletter this year; it will go to present and former clients, to friends and family, and it will be used in my portfolio and as an example newsletter when I make presentations during the coming year.
- Consider including a discount card or section instead of rolling out an extended ad. During the holidays, people don’t want to be sold to even though they may be buying like crazy! If they find your product or service gift-worthy, it’s highly likely they already have you on their gifts-to-get list. That’s why a discount coupon is just perfect, if you’re going to tout your products or services at all in your holiday newsletter.
- Have fun with your holiday newsletter! No matter what kind of business you have, this time of year calls for lighthearted banter and warmhearted sentiments. Be personable, affectionate and fun, fun, fun! If you do, your annual holiday newsletter will be read, shared, and keenly anticipated year after year. (I sometimes get requests for my holiday newsletter a couple months in advance. I sometimes think these ‘early requests’ are made so my ideas can be mirrored or emulated. And I’m okay with that. In my book, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!)