Article writing is an important part of the mix for most newsletter producers so it can be useful to look at ideas for using them as more than just newsletter content. The following piece is by Jack Jackson and covers the basics of article marketing for newcomers to the field. Don’t miss the links he provides in his bio (the last paragraph)  if you have a particular interest in the subject or if something in the article inspires you to enquire further.
Mike Alexander
For all your content needs go to ClipCopy Content Solutions

Advantages

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Topics

Submissions

Driving Traffic

Summary

About The Author

Looking to find the best deal on Article Marketing Strategy, then go here to find the best advice on Article Marketing for you.

The following five tips for freelance writers by Kyle M. Deighton (see the thumbnail bio at the end of the article) will, in her own words,  help you to go from a novice freelance writer to a seasoned pro.

Mike Alexander
For all your content needs go to ClipCopy Content Solutions

Getting Started

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Anyone who has tried their hand at it knows that freelance writing is a competitive business, and many times talented beginners get frustrated and discouraged. Everyone can relate to how hard it is to learn a new skill for the first time, so to help out new freelance writers, this article will go over five tips to help beginning writers get started.

Tip Number One

Start writing immediately! There are many lessons you need to learn about freelance writing as a career, but there is also enough out there to cause information overload. Don’t fall for “paralysis by analysis” syndrome. Get started now and adjust as you learn more.

Tip Number Two

Next, take care of the research. There are incredible opportunities for writers online, and many of them vary greatly. Taking a day to really research and dig in can pay off with huge dividends in the long run.

Tip Number Three

Make sure to diversify your efforts. Don’t concentrate on only website. Remember the old saying about not putting all your eggs in one basket? This is the perfect example. Write for several good online sources in order to maximize your online income.

Tip Number Four

You need to have drive and solid self-confidence. Freelance writing is a tough gig, and one that can come under a lot of ridicule from other people. To deal with the insults, rough patches, and general hardships that can come with a writing career, you need to have confidence in yourself.

Tip Number Five

Make sure that you under-promise, then over-deliver. This is the best way to build a great reputation as a freelance writer. If you think a job will take two days, ask for four. If it will take four days, then ask for seven. This way you get done ahead of deadline and can impress your employer with how quickly you produced quality work.

Conclusion

These five tips will help you to go from novice freelance writer to a seasoned pro. The freelance writing life can be difficult, but it has many benefits.

Don’t stop at this article, however. There are tons of great resources out there to help out beginning freelance writers, and the more you learn from them, the sooner you will be able to make a living as a freelance writer.

About the Author

For more great freelance writing tips, please feel free to visit this blog post on finding freelance writing assignments as a beginner. Thanks for reading and I hope you found this helpful!

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Article marketing goes hand in hand with newsletter writing for obvious reasons. Or perhaps for you it is not so obvious?  The fact is that newsletter content consists very largely of articles and publishers need to be aware of the potential for the dual role their articles can play. They can serve as content (provided the topic is appropriate) as well as a means of publicizing a website or newsletter at the same time. That’s the reason you will see article marketing (as a subject) feature in the Newsletter Writing category on this site from time to time, as does this one. My thanks are due to Cameron Perdue for the article that follows.

Mike Alexander
For all your content needs go to ClipCopy Content Solutions

High Quality Traffic

About the Author

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This article by James Kimmel is an excellent appraisal of an online article submission tool by the name of Unique Article Wizard. It truly is an amazing piece of software that produces amazing results and finding it is a real ‘Eureka!’ moment for most users. There are so many inferior ‘copycat’ products on the Internet that finding one that really works is like finding the Holy Grail.

Mike Alexander
For all your content needs go to ClipCopy Content Solutions

The Traffic Conundrum

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I’m not even sure that there is such a word as ‘readability’. But perhaps the fact that you probably know what it means explains something important about the objective of this article. It is not about precisely correct words. It is not about precisely correct grammar or precisely correct punctuation. It is about being easily and properly understood. To be properly understood you must make sure that you are precise in some important areas. Avoid anything that unnecessarily distracts the reader’s attention from your message. If readers have to keep re-reading some sections of an article in order to work out what it means they are being distracted from the message.

Mike Alexander
For all your content needs go to ClipCopy Content Solutions

Spelling

A good example is bad spelling. The number of public documents I read that are filled with spelling errors amazes me. I am not criticizing anyone’s ability; plenty of people understandably find the rules of spelling in the English language incomprehensible. It is just that there is no need for it any more. This is the era of the computer and tools such as autocorrect and spell-checking are at almost everyone’s fingertips.

Punctuation

The readability of your articles can be affected by many other factors. Poor punctuation is a widespread problem. The most common error is inappropriate use of the comma. In almost every case it could be resolved by simply using shorter sentences.

Avoid Malapropisms

Use of incorrect words is also prevalent and, again, these are often errors that could be settled conclusively by use of an ordinary tool such as a dictionary or thesaurus. Sometimes the problem wouldn’t arise at all if only short, popular words were used instead of long, less well-known ones chosen only to impress the reader with the author’s vocabulary. If you know a word which precisely conveys what you want to say, then by all means use it—provided you are reasonably sure your readers will also know it.

Plan Ahead, Edit After

Apart from using commonly available tools and simple tips such as those mentioned above, there are two other measures which can help towards readability in your articles:

Plan ahead and arrange the information you want to impart in a logical and easy-to-understand manner.

Re-read the completed work after a reasonable break (like overnight). It is surprising how much easier a proper appraisal can be when seen through ‘fresh eyes’.

© 2000 Mike Alexander (Revised 2009), All Rights Reserved

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To be successful a newsletter needs to contain lots of meaningful content. This doesn’t mean words of wisdom or correct grammar (these certainly help, of course) but content that the reader finds meaningful. The more you know about the reader, the easier it is to determine what content is meaningful.

Mike Alexander
For all your content needs go to ClipCopy Content Solutions

Niche Markets

Most newsletters, especially subscription newsletters, are aimed at very particular segments of the population, or in today’s buzzword terminology, niche markets. That makes choosing meaningful content a lot easier for publishers of those types of newsletter. As with most newsletters, the market is the readership. Find material appropriate to that market and you won’t go far wrong. Always bear in mind, though, that the degree of appropriateness still requires a little thought.

Not all markets can be neatly divided according to niche but it is usually not difficult to determine the demographic readership. For example, a neighborhood, or ‘corner’ store might send out a monthly newsletter to surrounding homes. The market, then, would be the people who live in that area. If most residents were young, struggling families on low incomes then ‘meaningful content’ would be orientated around child-rearing, budget shopping, education etc. It would very different if the average resident was relatively affluent and retired. Then the concentration might be in holidays, investments and so on.

The Need For Empathy

The biggest problem that most communicators have is understanding what type of material is most appropriate for their market. Their own product, or the service they offer, tends to dominate their thoughts to the exclusion of everything else. They fail to empathize, to see the world through the eyes of their potential readers. People are not (necessarily) interested in what you find interesting; they are interested only in what they find interesting. Now, this may sound like a statement of the obvious but you really do have to stop, put yourself in their shoes, then ask yourself what you would most like to read.

Avoid Alienating Your Readers

I’m reminded of a newsletter that I came across a few years ago produced by a young life insurance salesman. Full credit was due for having the initiative to put out a newsletter at all. And it really wasn’t so bad. It didn’t contain a whole mess of spelling mistakes and typos. He obviously had an in-depth understanding of his field and knew what he was talking about. The grammar was good and, if you like that sort of thing, quite readable. But notice I said “if you like that sort of thing”. After the first issue I didn’t read another word and I doubt if anyone else did. The technical difference between a term and an endowment policy does not come within my area of interest. I found a dissertation on the intricacies of actuarial calculations impossible to finish. It was hopelessly boring! That salesman was building his newsletter around subjects that he wanted to talk about and alienating his potential market in the process.

Offering Solutions

So, I hear you ask, how can a life insurance salesman’s newsletter be made interesting? That’s easy. Fill it with material that the target market would want to read! I can’t remember how the newsletter in question was distributed but whether it was hand-delivered to targeted homes, posted to previous customers, or put into the hands of prospects by some other means, the target market is the key to the inclusion of meaningful content. Does that mean it shouldn’t include anything about life insurance? Of course not, but it is most effective if it is low-key information written in language understood by the readers, like answers to frequently asked questions etc. As an expert offering solutions to your prospect’s problems, you will always have keen readers.

Provide examples, if you can, and include specific information where possible (times, dates etc) to prove the solution you are putting forward. The value of personal endorsements for your solutions, from people in similar situations to your readers, cannot be overstated. Use anecdotes freely, as well; people always relate more readily to situations that they can picture themselves in and this is the best way of doing it.

Using Pictures

Include pictures if they help explain a point or illustrate something discussed in an article. Always include pictures of actual readers whenever you can. Nothing is more interesting to most people than stories about themselves, or people just like themselves, or people close to them—and actually seeing themselves ‘in print’ is compelling. Don’t include unnecessary pictures that have nothing whatever to do with the text, especially if they have garish or distracting colors.

Using Humor

Do include humor whenever you can do so without offending the rules of good taste, particularly if it can be linked to a topic that appears on the same page. It may take the form of a joke, an amusing ditty, a cartoon, etc. Humor used properly is a very effective way of introducing balance to a publication. Too much weighty material can be depressive and have the opposite effect to that intended. Your newsletters should be optimistic and cultivate a feeling of goodwill towards you and your message.

Keeping It Simple

In conclusion, try to keep your language simple, or at least appropriate, to the degree of sophistication of the people who make up the target readership. Be sincere and try to ‘speak’ on a one-to-one basis. Honesty and sincerity have a way of shining through whereas insincerity invariably raises suspicions.

© 2000 Mike Alexander (Revised 2009), All Rights Reserved

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When producing a newsletter, try to focus attention primarily on your core readership. By ‘core readership’ I mean a representative group of readers that stay in the forefront of your mind when you are planning and putting together each edition. These are the people you need to stay with you regardless of other fluctuations in readership and whose likes and interests you’ve formulated the newsletter around. Understanding what ‘rings their bell’ then, is of paramount importance.

Mike Alexander
For all your content needs go to ClipCopy Content Solutions

Types Of Newsletter

First, though, you need to remember that different types of newsletter foster different attitudes towards content. For example, there might be a noticeable difference in attitude between readers of subscription newsletters as opposed to ‘free’ ones. Subscribers, naturally, have high expectations and assume that editorial content will be determined by their needs and wants. Conversely, in the case of those that are free due to advertising support, there is often an assumption, rightly or wrongly, that advertisers might try to influence editorial policy in some way, or even, to dictate content. Worse still, when a newsletter is free because it is the policy of the owner/producer to shoulder costs, then it might be perceived as a propaganda tool and the content viewed with a high degree of skepticism.

For these reasons, reader attitude is an important consideration. In practical terms it means that the volume of work involved in producing a free newsletter is likely to be at least equal to a subscription newsletter due to the effort required to overcome possible negative attitudes on the part of readers.

Subscription Newsletters

Subscription newsletters tend to require more concentrated focus on basic content than their free cousins. This is partly because the need to entice new readers is not so obvious and partly because the reader has paid for the content—therefore you are under an obligation to provide it. An excess of miscellaneous material can be viewed as an irritation and even, depending on the particular publication, superfluous.

Free Newsletters

On the other hand, free newsletters allow more flexibility. You can use more of the available space to cast a wider net, in terms of reader appeal, as well as in trying to overcome any reader resistance, as mentioned above. Humorous pieces, cartoons, crossword puzzles etc all have their place in most newsletters in order to ensure balance but you have greater scope in the use of these items in a free publication.

© 2000 Mike Alexander (Revised 2009), All Rights Reserved

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If you are not a professional writer, and don’t aspire to being one, but sometimes get burdened with the task of writing a newsletter or similar article, then you have probably found yourself at least once staring at a blank sheet wondering where to start. Welcome to the club! You’re not the first! The phenomenon known as ‘writer’s block’ has probably been around since the first hieroglyphics. However, that is no consolation when it comes to overcoming a bad case of it, especially with a deadline looming. Here are a few tips that might help next time.

Mike Alexander
For all your content needs go to ClipCopy Content Solutions

Give Yourself Time

The most obvious thing is to give yourself plenty of time so that ideas can form gradually and assume some shape before you put pen to paper. If you are one of that rare breed, a natural writer, and you organize your timetable to allow a lead-in time for idea development, the creative impulses might work quite naturally at the time you appointed for sitting down and committing yourself to paper. This rarely happens though if, like most of us, you are not a natural writer (meaning that it might be something you enjoy doing, even something you are thought of as being very good at, but you have to labor over it to get it right). Then it can sometimes be very difficult if you are not ‘in the mood’ at the appointed time. Far better if you allow yourself adequate time to think about what you are going to write and then set about the assignment when you feel ready and with plenty of time for revisions, proofing etc.

Show Your Expertise

Obviously, it can help tremendously if you are an expert, or at least a reasonably accomplished authority, on the subject concerned—but it isn’t essential. A working knowledge is often quite enough if you are willing to put some effort into research. Many writers do not relish this part of their calling but know the value of it and incorporate it into their everyday lives. They make notes of interesting things that happen around them, things they hear, and so on. You can do the same simply by always having a small notepad and pencil on you. They read avidly and become adept at spotting a well-turned phrase or an interesting new viewpoint. They adopt the habit of clipping items out of magazines and newspapers whenever something catches their eye.

Clip and Archive

Clippings can generate ideas for articles, provide material that can be used within a piece, or sometimes get archived for years until their time suddenly arrives. Many writers keep hundreds of clippings in files and folders, all categorized by topic, indexed by source and date stamped. One word of warning if you adopt this practice though: always double-check any facts that are gleaned from clippings.

Research

Systematic research may include public libraries, indices such as the Writer’s Market index and the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature (these are two of hundreds in the USA but similar indices are available in other countries), the Internet and other online services, encyclopedias, dictionaries and yearbooks, etc. Many industrial and non-profit associations and similar organizations maintain their own databases, some of which are searchable for a fee but many of which are free to anyone who wants to use them.

Interviewing

Interviewing experts is a popular and effective alternative to researching for a piece and, of course, lends a legitimate subjective angle. Be prepared to encounter all the same problems faced in a typical sales situation. For example, you may have to identify the key person in advance, if she is not already known to you, and make contact to set up the interview (even dodging ‘minders’ along the way). The interview itself is not unlike a sales situation except that your objective is to encourage the interviewee to open up a discourse with you. As in any well-conducted sales interview, the more input from the ‘prospect’ and the less from the ‘salesperson’, the better.

Ask short, pointed questions and encourage detailed and involved answers. Once again, planning is the key to success. You need to know exactly what questions you are going to ask and how you are going to broach them. Carry a list to be sure you don’t overlook the important ones. Don’t be afraid of admitting your ignorance of a subject, where this is the case; it often helps the interviewee to open up more and, after all, the information they provide is for your readers, not for you. Most ‘experts’ love to air their knowledge to anyone who shows an interest in the subject they are so passionate about. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Can you explain that in more detail?” is often all that is needed to get a reluctant interviewee to open up with complete enthusiasm. It is a matter of building up trust. Putting the interviewee in the position of teacher and appointing yourself as pupil gives her the feeling of being in command. Don’t allow your own ego to dominate the interview.

Getting Organized

Most articles are made up of a title, intended to command attention; an opener, being the first paragraph and meant to arouse further interest; the main body text or the ‘meat’ of the article; and the closing paragraph, which very often takes the form of a summary. Bearing this in mind, gather all your clippings, key idea notes, interview transcripts etc. and juggle them around until you settle on an order of inclusion that follows this logical pattern. Sketch out the final sequence on a piece of paper. This will be the basic structure of your article.

Using Titles

Put some thought into the title. People scan the contents of publications by reading titles and if you want your piece to be read then you need to make it as appealing as possible for the readership you are writing for. Many professional writers keep lists of article titles that caught their eye and adapt them later for their own use. Some get their inspiration for article content from working titles. The point about working titles is that they allow you to focus on the subject in hand knowing that your final choice of title might be very different. Very often you will find that your final title becomes obvious to you from key words or phrases in the piece before you have finished writing it. Do bear in mind though, that if an editor is going to be involved in the process, she has the right to change the title to fit the style of the publication so your choice may not, in the end, be used. That possibility is very much lessened if you choose a strong title yourself.

The First Draft

The first paragraph is the article opener. This is where you announce what the text that follows is going to be all about. A well-focused opener makes it much easier to stick to the point of the article in the main body. Keep your readership in mind as you write. This will enable you to write in a style that suits them. Write as you would speak. Some find the whole process easier if they dictate a whole article first and then edit the transcript. Try it using a tape recorder or dictaphone if you find that writing down the words prevents a proper flow from developing. But, most important of all, get it down. Don’t worry about grammar or spelling or even if it makes good sense. Your first draft should be just that and will need editing to fine-tune your piece ready for publishing. Expect a third or even a fourth draft before completion. A good tip for most people is to allow a gap between completion of the final draft and final proofing, preferably overnight. It is quite surprising how easy it can sometimes be to resolve a part that you previously struggled with given the passage of a little time.

The Summary

Use the ending to summarize the main points of your article. Draw a conclusion from the summary that emphasizes the main point, possibly by using an anecdote or a quotation. And finish off the piece with a straight statement about what lessons were illustrated or offer advice to show how to benefit from what was discussed.

Casual article writing can be a chore or a surprisingly satisfying undertaking. For the non-professional writer it’s all a matter of planning.

© 2000 Mike Alexander (Revised 2009), All Rights Reserved

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Article titles are not subject to quite the same rules of copyright as body text except where they may conveniently identify an original work. In other words, you may choose any title you like for an article, whether it’s an original work of your own or someone else’s, so long as you don’t intentionally mislead (for example, by deliberately using the same title as an already-published article on the same topic). This means that you are free, within reason, to be imaginative when creating titles to use within your newsletters. It also gives you more scope to tie into any already-established style you may be using within a publication. It is important to know though, that this applies to article titles only and not, for example, to paragraph headings or any other part of an article. Also, if you do choose a title other than that by which the author labeled her work, be sure to acknowledge the original title in the attribution.

Mike Alexander
For all your content needs go to ClipCopy Content Solutions

Announcements

Article titles are rather like newspaper headlines. On the one hand, they are a way of announcing what the article is all about but, like headlines, they can be used to achieve much more. They can offer the reader choice, allowing her to decide in what order to read the newsletter’s content. They can arouse interest in a subject where previously there was none. They can tempt, even seduce, a busy person into allocating time to enhance their knowledge on a subject. They can set the tone of the whole newsletter.

Working Titles

Most authors use ‘working titles’ as a way of identifying pieces whilst they are ‘under construction’. Then, when they have completed a work, they choose the actual title they want to label it with, or modify the working title based on a number of different considerations. These considerations may include the subject (which might have evolved into something different to that described by the working title), the tone (humorous, serious etc), the intended target publication if there is one, topicality etc. They realize that, whereas their rights as the copyright holder remain inviolable, their choice of title is only a means of labeling their work.

Having Fun With Titles

Titles may be long or short, sad or playful, make a statement or ask a question, contain ‘word-play’ of one sort or another (such as a pun or a rhyme); in fact any combination of possibilities you can think of. That is why some authors and editors find them so much fun. Some even collect and catalog them for future use. In general terms though, the strength of an article’s title lies in its ability to attract the attention of the reader. As a newsletter editor, your task is to attract the attention of that section of your newsletter’s readership that would be most likely to benefit from that particular item.

Attention Grabbers

When creating titles, look in the main text for key phrases and expressions that seem to sum up the article’s subject angle. These are usually the best starting points for title ideas. Use strong, attention-grabbing words like ‘amazing’, ‘frightening’, ‘new’ etc. Don’t forget the power of the words ‘you’ and ‘your’. Use surprise as a technique to encourage readers to take a second look at a title. Use subtitles, if necessary, to clarify imprecise but otherwise catchy titles.

Titles can fulfill a very definite and beneficial role in your newsletter. For this reason it is often worth spending a little extra time to get them right.

© 2000 Mike Alexander (Revised 2009), All Rights Reserved

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Would you like to have your newsletter virtually written for you? If so, you’re not alone! But that’s the promise that Michael Green makes for his How To Write A Newsletter complete toolkit! But is this kind of newsletter production actually possible? Well, not really! But that’s not to say that it should be dismissed out of hand. A little bit of hype is forgivable, in my opinion, when what is being offered is something of real value. That is to say, it stands up as a quality product—and at a very fair price.

Mike Alexander
For all your content needs go to ClipCopy Content Solutions

The Right Tools

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The truth is that any job can be made easier, sometimes a lot easier, if you have the right tools. This package will prove to be just that, I’m sure, for people who need to produce a regular newsletter  but who find the demands on their time too much, or who find searching for content boring, or who just don’t have the inclination to write their own articles, or don’t want to for any of a hundred other reasons. Does it sound as if I’m talking about our own ‘content solution’, ClipCopy, here? I suppose it does, because there are many similarities. Why would I promote a competing product then, you might ask. Well, I believe it’s a perfect companion rather than competition. An owner of both these packages really would have a head start, even an unfair advantage, over those without either. And both packages stand up on their own account too.

The Email Marketing Solution

I’ve said it before many times because I believe it’s a fundamental truism: newsletters are a great way to promote any business, to further the aims of any voluntary organization or just to communicate with friends. But I’ve never pretended it’s easy. It’s not. Producing newsletters is hard work, which is why you need the right tools.

Sound Advice

The manual section of the package is full of sound advice and excellent guidance that will soon have you turning out newsletters like a professional. It explains which tools to use and why, which DTP packages work best for the sort of project you have in mind, which HTML applications are worth trying, and so on. No off-the-library-shelf book or manual provides the kind of tools that come with this toolkit. It’s not just a tutorial full of theory that you’ll never put into practice. It’s a genuine toolkit—a new concept that takes the hard work, or most of it, out of newsletter publishing.

© 2000 Mike Alexander (Revised 2009), All Rights Reserved

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