Bulletins

One of the most elusive, if not downright mythical goals in professional practice marketing is developing name recognition. The effort wasted in this endeavor is usually not merited. Name recognition has value, but name recognition alone won’t profitably improve performance. What I advocate is name plus idea recognition that wins you more business at less cost to acquire it…and that translates into more profits. Bulletins, particularly, will help you do this.

Emotional logic

People moved enough to think through doing something serious for themselves are usually provoked by learning about some similar situation others have also had to deal with; e.g., a friend dies and leaves a family destitute–or financially comfortable–either way impressing the observers to think about their own situation. Life happenings others must cope with remind and prompt people to focus on themselves.

Issuing bulletins that you author will also help implant in peoples’ minds that your good name is attached to situations you are expert at solving for people like themselves. They are not the only marketing vehicle for developing name plus idea recognition; they are simply part of the mix of marketing activities you may want to employ to profitably improve your sales performance. They do demonstrate authorship, however, which is the most effective form of recognition short of celebrity. Bulletins are:

• highly versatile, easily modified to target various market segments
• brief and easy to create on today’s great word processors and laser printers
• succinct, each bulletin focusing on only one issue
• readable, especially good for getting someone’s attention now
• inexpensive to produce, making issuing multiple bulletins economical
• in your own visually unique format, making recognition of your latest bulletin easy to spot from a distance
• produced as news, not as a scheduled publication, so the anticipation of the reader is that the bulletin has value now
• innovative, still unique in most markets
• different in an appealing way, making your messages all the more memorable

A simple format and formula

The basic format for bulletins is easy to create and to write to, once you get underway. The components include:

Masthead: your unique title for your bulletins, plus any graphics you want to employ to complete the image. The masthead equates to the format you use continuously for the blank bulletin–your stock. One CFP client who works exclusively with physicians, was educated by Jesuits and studied Latin. Part of his bulletin masthead includes the image of a prescription pad with his name on it (implying that this CFP is the financial doctor), and each bulletin includes a Latin phrase on the pad, prompting physicians who receive his bulletins to get involved by trying to translate the phrase and even discuss it with other physicians.

The basic features included in the masthead:

Title. This never changes. Example: News You Can Use

Date and Serial Number. Each bulletin you issue should be identified as part of a series of bulletins you author. Example: Bulletin No. 96-01, 12 January 1996.

Your name and identification as the author, which may be part of the title, sub-title, copyright or a simple statement that you are the author.

Far too much time and money are wasted by planners trying to get their image "just right" in the stationery design. Comparatively far too little time and effort goes into getting the right messages out to their selected market segments. If you want to make a great visual impression, pay a designer to develop your bulletin stock in consideration of your other stationery, collateral and image pieces.

Format

The basic layout for most bulletins is deceptively simple and designed to keep your writing—volume and effort—to a minimum. There are four parts: headline, situation, problem, solution.

The headline describes the bulletin’s topic in a manner that draws attention, just like a newspaper article’s headline is designed to grab your attention to buy the paper or to read the opening paragraph of a story. The best headlines do not simply cite the topic; they make it come alive in the reader’s imagination. Example: Succession Planning is nowhere near as grabbing as Parity for the Children Who Should NOT Inherit Your Business.

Situation is the first section after the headline. It describes as succinctly as possible the circumstances that give rise to the problem your headline implies, e.g., a series of IRS code revisions affecting certain tax deductions. Keep what you say factual, straightforward, almost clipped. Avoid stating the problem. Let the reader decide if this is a situation that could happen to him, her or them.

Problem is a simple statement that relates the contingencies that the situation creates, in terms that thoughtfully compel the reader to avoid. Try setting it in bold italics. By all means keep it brief, succinct and poignant.

The Solution section ends the bulletin, and works best if it is a series of steps to be taken to go about solving the problem, or alternatives to consider. Objectivity here is critical.

One of the major problems with bulletins: instead of sounding like news, they often sound like advertisements or infomercials. Readers view ads and infomercials as clumsily self-serving solicitations that intentionally stretch the truth. Consumers easily write off "Come to me for help" messages as self-serving devices to attract unsophisticated or unsuspecting readers. Objective, newsworthy and informative bulletins pleasantly surprise readers.

An effort worth considering seriously

You can see the tremendous versatility of the bulletin format as an efficient and effective communications tool to demonstrate your expertise to your target audiences. If you want to see a sample bulletin, click HERE.

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