Making a quilt is a lot like doing your monthly newsletter! With a quilt, if you want it to be an heirloom, you have to invest time, materials and heart. If you invest those same qualities in your newsletter – I promise it will give you more results, than if you whip out a page or two of text in 30 minutes!
Here are the steps I go thru when making a quilt — and how they will help you transform your newsletter!
- You need to pick a pattern or design. If you have a pattern to follow – then you have a starting point. You don’t have to stare at a blank piece of paper — because the pattern will tell you what you need to do. If you’d like to download the “worksheet” that I use for my clients when doing their newsletters — click here!
- The quilt needs to appeal to the person you are making it for. It doesn’t matter how much you love it, if they don’t want to look at it. A quilt doesn’t get to heirloom status by being ugly. It doesn’t have to be complicated, it can even be asymmetrical (ie a crazy quilt) — but if they don’t look at it — it probably won’t be an heirloom. The same theory applies for newsletters. The newsletter should be written for your potential clients and your current clients. First you have to get them to open it, then they have to like what they see enough to read the information in it. If it’s not in language they can relate to — they’re probably not going to respond to your calls to action.
- The quilt has to be appropriate for what the person expects to use it for. The most gorgeous quilt I ever made sits on the back of a couch because it doesn’t fit any of our beds. If the reader of your newsletter is looking for information about getting healthier, and using movement to relieve pain – and your newsletter is all about where you did your Pilates training and what memberships you are offering — they’re probably not going to respond.
- In my world, any quilt I make is made to be used, so it needs to be the same quality I would want in my home, it needs to evoke emotions of welcoming, warmth and comfort, because it represents me. This one is a little harder to explain in newsletter talk – but you want people to get the same feeling reading your newsletter that they would if you were having a 1:1 conversation with them.
- The pieces of the quilt have to work together in the finished quilt. If one block has different fabric or gets put in upside down — it will definitely effect the entire quilt. The same theory works for your newsletter. One thought in each block, and each block should work with the rest to create the finished newsletter. The look and feel should be consistent throughout.
I’ve been focusing on helping my clients get results from their newsletters. I tend to think of each newsletter as a quilt. All the pieces need to fit together and make sense to both current clients and potential clients. It feels very similar to laying out the squares of a quilt top before sewing it together. Then I watch for the results. Do people click where I expect them to? Do we have automated emails set up to respond with more information? It is so exciting to watch the revenue column in the email reports or watch registrations go up for a Pilates workshop.
If you’ve got questions about getting more results from your newsletter — I designed a workshop just to help, and I would love to see you there!
