The 80-20 Rule of Newsletters

80% of your results come from 20% of your customers. 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your sales funnel…

It’s funny how this natural phenomenon works.

It applies to Newsletters Too

The big problem we all face with the 80-20 rule is that we often don’t know what the under-performing 80% is while at the same time we don’t know what the hard working 20% will be.

This phenomena applies to newsletters – every once in a while we create some content that really strikes a nerve for our clients. We get a disproportionate response.

Part of the magic of our system for newsletters is that it helps our clients to take advantage of this natural phenomenon. We help you by creating for you the less essential 80% of your newsletter. That for us is the easy part. It’s the hard part for our customers.

We can help them come up with the hard working 20% – the part of the content that actually sells their products and services. But most of the time our clients know why they buy from us.

Then we take care of the most essential 4% of the newsletter (20% of the 20%). Getting the darn thing in the post for you at the same time every month.

It’s a complex thing to schedule and co-ordinate month after month. And it is the single most vital element of a newsletter’s success.

It changes your newsletters positioning in the mind of your clients from advertising to information. When a newsletter is seen as informative then it is read without advertising defences or sales resistance.

This is why you need to write your selling articles as advertorials – solving client problems rather than as blatant sales pitches for products and services.

Then your selling will be seen as informative too and that will persuade more of your clients to do what you are asking them to do.

Making your 20% work harder for you.

The temptation of the 80-20 rule is to focus on the unproductive 80, when you should be focusing on improving results from the productive 20%. It’s learned behaviour. You don’t see that sort of logic in people still living in traditional settings.

They inherently understand the laws of nature. You hunt the weak 20% not the strongest 80%. Nobody cares when you are back in camp eating dinner if it was tough or weak. Stay focused on the 20% and what you can get from them.