A few weeks before we published the January 2004 issue of Emi titled: The Can-Spam Act Of 2003, What You Need To Know. I had a meeting with one of our clients to talk about the new legal changes that were going to affect their corporate enewsletter as a result of the new laws.
As I sat in his office, briefly going through new changes, it did not occur to me that he wasn’t 100% focused on the discussion at hand and I don’t blame him. His job is not enewsletter marketing and the laws that affect us. That’s our job. Nevertheless we went on with the subject and the changes for about 10 minutes.
I communicated the changes clearly and he seemed to understand and agree.
After the meeting finished, I went about my business, leaving fairly satisfied with the outcome. Little did I know that my meeting did not go as well as I thought…
Two weeks later he calls me and he says, “I just read your eNewsletter on the new Spam laws [Emi Jan.2004] and we need to do something about that!” Here I am thinking to myself, did I not meet with him to talk about this? I know I’m busy and my head is in a thousand places all at once, but I could have sworn we met to talk about this…” I answered politely by saying “Yes, I agree but no need to worry. Your enewsletter has been Can-Spam compliant since before the law passed…” he was relieved.
OK, what happened to me was what I call the “The Law Of Read It To Believe It”. Apparently when I mentioned the new changes going to affect the company’s enewsletter he was not as receptive as I thought.
But when I wrote it down, published it and he read it, all of a sudden it became a clear, credible and certifiable reality.
You see what happened to our client, as well as what happens to you and me, is that we tend to believe what we read...that simple.
If we read it and if it makes sense we take it in as fact, obviously considering the source. But in most cases what we read comes from an expert.
Reading is one of our most important ways of learning and now more than ever with the Internet.
Think about this…name people you consider experts. I’m not talking about the friend that can open a beer bottle with just about anything; he’s not a bottle-opening expert. We have tools for that!
I’m talking about the established experts in your profession or any field for that matter. Most of them have one thing in common--they have published something, a book, a pamphlet, an article, etc.
Everybody I consider an expert has some type of published material, Chef Emeril Lagasee, Marketer’s Seth Godin or Prescott Lustig, Golfer Tiger Wood’s, etc..
What I’m saying is that achievements and expertise at any level reach a point of higher credibility once they are published.
How can you and I, simple people, nevertheless experts in what we do, gain credibility and stature?
Easy, we publish! There many tools for that, trade journals, local newspapers, websites, etc… but in my opinion not one of them work as well as an enewsletter.
You see, your company enewsletter will allow you to publish frequently to subscribers who want to read what you have to say. I’m not sales pitching -- this is just how I’ve lived it.
My client didn’t pay a whole lot of attention when I first talked to him about the Can-Spam Act, but when he read about it in our enewsletter Emi, he called me to ask what we were doing about it in his corporate enewsletter.
Bottom line:
Publishing an enewsletter will help you get established as an expert in your market and solidify your credibility with each issue launched.
That’s what I say…but more important what do you think? Let me know, just email me your comment.
By the way we got consent from the client to publish this story as long as the name remained anonymous. What, you thought we hadn’t asked him? Three words we live by: permission based marketing.
Marcos and Group- making eNewsletters that make experts.
Marcos J. Menendez is the President and Founder of Loop Consulting Group an industry leading in e-newsletter marketing company.
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