How to Incorporate Useful Information into Letters
to Editors and Have Customers Come Back for More
BY JIM HUFFMAN
The trick with using letters to
publicize your work is using a low-key approach to incorporate
information into a letter, while keeping the letter relevant to an
issue. This is not that complicated, if you remember one cardinal rule:
See yourself as providing
information, and not selling your work.
In other words, write as
though you had no interest in people buying your services.
Write as though that was not even a factor at all. Simply
write as if you were just providing helpful information, and
the sales will come.
The difficulty is that
hard-sell might have worked at some point. Maybe the ancient
Egyptians were sold Pyramid condos by hard-sell methods.
Maybe. But people won’t listen to hard-sell any more. Not now.
Maybe not ever. I almost feel sorry for sales folks who have
been trained to use hard sell stuff. Aside from their being
annoying to deal with, nobody wants them to come near. And the
harder their clueless bosses push them to hit people over the
head, the more no one wants them near.
You’ve had experiences with
this, I’m sure. People selling insurance, and you couldn’t
pass them on the street without getting told about some great
product they had. And I’m not picking on insurance salesmen:
this kind of stuff happens with any field.
I have life insurance. And I
bought it from a guy who never pushed me to buy. Instead, he
would provide information when I asked for it. And that made
me a customer for life. Because I don’t like to be hit over
the head. No one does. And when someone writes a letter to the
editor that’s a shameless puff piece for their product or
service, my mind screams, “Next!” and I ignore it. Very
likely, you do, too.
So let’s give an example.
Let’s say you have a business selling baby-proofing services
to new parents. And there’s an article in your local newspaper
about how parents are worried about their children getting
injured on home playground equipment.
Now you’ll think that this is
just too perfect, that there will never be an issue brought up
that’s so tailor-made to publicize your work. But there really
are often situations like this. It’s just your job to provide
information about the problem, and suggest solutions.
What you do want to do is
provide helpful information, and just enough to interest the
reader to check out more about your work. And it’s easy to do.
Here’s an example of how I might handle such a case.
Editor:
In today’s issue of the
Daily News, readers spoke about being afraid that their
children might be injured on home playground equipment. And
while this is a real fear, there are solutions for such
problems, ones that will allow children to play, enjoy
themselves, and have a good time, as well as providing a safe
playground setting for them.
In my work as a child
safety consultant, I’ve found that often it’s as small a step
as providing softer surfaces for playgrounds that will prevent
many injuries. I’ve found that clients who change these
surfaces experience some 37% fewer injuries than those without
the softer surface. In addition, most surface changes cost
less than $300 per playground. I’ve provided more safety hints
on my web site at www.blah-blah-blah.com
Child safety is important
for everyone. And it’s not hard to do, and by providing
playground safety we protect our most valuable resource: our
children’s future.
Yours truly,
Jane Doe
Note several things. You
didn’t give away the store. Nor should you. In other words,
you provided information, but not enough that they can take
the information, act on it, and not need your services. You
also provide a Web address where you will have more home
safety information (you do have useful information like that
on your website, don’t you? I thought so). You also provide
solid information (while people like numbers and percentages,
and you should use them, you should also know that I made
those up entirely!).
Let’s say that your local
newspaper allows you to have a letter once a month. In almost
every business, there’s plenty of opportunities to tie-in
stories with your work. What kind of favorable publicity do
you think you’d get from a once-a-month letter in your local
publication? And by providing such letters on a regular,
systematic basis, you’ll find that readers will come to view
you as an authority, respect what you have to say, and buy
your services when they need them.
Jim Huffman, RN, specializes
in natural and alternative healing therapies. His first book
is
Dare to Be Free: How to Get Control of Your Time, Your Life,
and Your Nursing Career, and is aimed at helping other
nurses find satisfying, dynamic careers. Check out his
website and
health blog.
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