Tahmi’s Tips for Simplifying eNewsletter Planning in 2010s

When we were interviewing Tahmi DeSchepper (http://www.tahmi.com) for a recent blog post on holiday email newsletters, she gave us a great planning idea that we thought others could use. So we’re passing it along…

A lot of marketers have great intentions about getting out their emarketing newsletters on a regular basis, but things often get in the way of achieving that goal.  When we asked Tahmi about it, she said, “It’s on my to-do list to brainstorm out a whole year’s worth of newsletters in advance. I think that if I have the general subjects and outlines done, it’ll be a lot easier to send them out on a regular basis. I won’t feel like I’m starting from scratch each month.”

What a GREAT idea!   In a very small amount of time, you could have a whole year of planned enewsletter topics and — as the year goes along — be collecting ideas to support them.  It could make it easier to pull information together when you need it and save a whole lot of scrambling at the last minute.

We told Tahmi we were going to ‘borrow’ the idea from her and she said, “No problem – “steal” away!”

Tahmi apparently ‘liberated’ the idea from someone else, so didn’t mind sharing. “It’s a great way to fight writer’s block,” she said.

Here’s Tahmi’s tip:

1 — Brainstorm 12 things (or 6 or 4, depending on how many eNewsletters you want to send out) that you would like your customers to know about you.

2 — Write an outline paragraph for each topic.

3 — Voila! Instant newsletter starters for the year. Any ideas you don’t use, because other things come up, can go into the hopper for next year.

Wow! What a great planning idea.  In a couple hours of planning, you could have a whole year’s worth of eNewsletter topics!

Thanks, Tahmi!  It’s great to have customers who want to share great ideas…