When I was growing up, I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to be. My dreams were fickle. Aside from becoming a rockstar or an ice cream man (the van and the jingles did it for me), I loved the idea of being a cartoonist but:
- I lacked the illustration skills
- I didn’t realise how many people were involved in creating a cartoon and found the whole thing extremely overwhelming
Looking back, it’s pretty clear to see that:
- I didn’t have a vision
- I failed to look at the big picture and set myself goals
We aren’t all born with the talent we desire, and it’s pretty unlikely we’re going to have a freak accident that will give us incredible superpowers either. It’s important for us to remember - It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be. In this case it’s not how good our newsletter is right now, but how good it will be down the line. (so stick around)
With a vision in mind, work backwards and break your dream down into small achievable chunks. Little victories will keep you motivated. You probably know our vision for this newsletter already, in fact, I’ve touched on it twice in this email including the subject line - ‘not another agency newsletter’.
We want this newsletter to stand apart from what you receive from other agencies, with honest writing that raises a wry smile, inspires and makes you think differently.
And, when we make it to the top of the ascent to our NORTH star (pardon the pun), we’ll have achieved our outcome - to ‘create advocates of NORTH’.
If you’ve been in the game a while, you’ll already follow enough newsletters spitting out the same articles and insights as the next. The ones that stick out in our opinion, offer something much more memorable through personal, light-hearted storytelling.
A few of our favourites are:
Now, the intention of this edition of the newsletter isn’t to go through every single detail and tip of how to put a newsletter together. This is just an open introduction to tell you our plan for creating one. But, here are a few ideas we’re keeping in mind for our own:
- Be consistent. If you say it will be monthly then send out your mailer every month. (ours will be monthly)
- Write like a human, cut the fluff and avoid jargon words. Use language that’s easy to understand. Write like you’re having a conversation down the pub with your pals.
- Stick to one simple idea, make it clear and make it interesting.
- Tell don’t sell.
- Keep it short, sweet and to the point.
