It was a dark and stormy night, and our heroine sat typing away furiously on a Remmington Streamline typewriter. The keys click-clacked one after the other, as steadily as the raindrops beat down on the window outside.

Page after page piled up on the desk until, at last, she paused, added a few blank lines, and typed THE END all in capital letters. She pulled the last sheet from the typewriter, arranged the pages in order, and straightened the stack. Then, she left the office for the night.

The next morning, when she returned, she read through the story only to discover…

The ending was gone!

She looked everywhere in the office, but the last three pages were nowhere to be found.

At last, she sighed a deep sigh, opened up the telephone book, and found a detective she could hire to help her locate the Disappearing Conclusion.

Cue suspenseful music ;-).

Overly dramatic? Hardly. See, when your article lacks a conclusion, all your work is for naught. After all, what reader wants to be pulled along by carefully crafted sentences that build to a well calculated… fizzle?

No, your readers want drama, intrigue, and a payoff that crescendos at the end. A satisfying flourish, that delivers them to a place where they’re wiser and more knowing.

So, how do you deliver them precisely to this wiser “stop”?

With a carefully crafted, complete conclusion, of course.

And how, exactly, do you create such a thing? That’s not nearly so obvious (or what would be the point of this article?).

These five guidelines will help you write stronger, more effective conclusions:

1. Begin with the ending in mind.

Writing the conclusion is always easier if you started the article knowing where you wanted to end up. Before you begin a piece, jot down a few ideas, including your main points, and your conclusion. That’ll keep you on track and help you build evenly to the concluding paragraphs.

2. Keep things balanced.

The conclusion is always easier to write if your entire article has a balanced structure throughout. You probably know when the balance of a sentence is off without even thinking–it’s generally an intuitive feeling. But, the balance of an article can be harder. Key in keeping the balance is to keep all of your points intentionally similar or dissimilar in length.

3. Emphasize the important points.

While you’re keeping things in balance, remember that those points with more words will seem more important to the reader. So, use this to your advantage. You might start an article with your most important, and longest, point, and crescendo into the shortest point. Or you might stagger your points in length. Perhaps most importantly is to simply keep in mind that longer points will feel weightier to the reader–and will attract more attention than shorter points.

4. Mirror me this.

One of the easiest ways to write a conclusion is to mirror your introduction. So, if you began with a quote, wrap up with a reference to that quote (or to another quote that expands on the first). If you began with an anecdote about a client, conclude with how that client ended up. The mirror approach makes an article feel complete, plus it saves you the stress of building both an introduction and a conclusion from scratch.

5. *Never*, ever summarize badly.

The worst writing advice I ever received was that you should, “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them.” See, readers aren’t stupid. They don’t need all that repetition. At least, not in an obvious, heavy-handed way. Using this basic structure in your articles, well, it actually takes a lot more skill than the mirror structure. I’d recommend against it in all but the most straightforward of articles.

The conclusion of your article is more important than you might think. Sure, it’s the introduction that hooks the reader, and the middle that keeps them engaged. But, it’s the conclusion that gets them to contact you (or not).

So, the next time you’re banging out an article on a dark and stormy night on that old Remmington of yours, make sure you don’t fall victim to the conclusion thief.

Drive readers through the article with attention to word choice, taut stories, and fabulous advice. But, make sure to deliver them, full stop, at the end, wiser, and on the edge of their seat for more.

I get a lot of questions, especially from Spa members, about what program I use to manage Newsletters in Focus.

I use 1-2-All and I do recommend it. So, I thought I’d tell you a bit more about why I picked this particular program, and the pros and cons I’ve run into.

I selected 1-2-All because it had a couple features that were really important to me, namely:

• The ability to send several “welcome” messages.Something that can really boost the effectiveness of your list is scheduling more than one welcome message to go out to new subscribers. The first welcome message should go out immediately, and then you can follow up with a second (or even a third) message about 24 hours later. I recommend sending a regular welcome message, and then following up with the latest issue of the newsletter along with a personalized note at the top.

  (I.E. saying something like, “Again, welcome to our newsletter, FirstName. I thought you might like to see the most recent issue. I’d love to hear your thoughts on [the subject of the issue--"naming your dog," perhaps, or "teaching your children table manners," or "choosing a distribution vendor"].)

  With 1-2-All, I can schedule an “unlimited” number of these automatic messages. (I put unlimited in quotes because everything is technically limited–either by your web host’s space, or by your own or your readers’ patience ;-).)

• The ability to build an extensive database of information.1-2-All allows you to collect, essentially, whatever information you’d like to collect. You can ask readers for their names and email addresses, along with almost anything else you can think of. You can ask for mailing addresses, birth date, pet’s name, etc etc.

  One of the ways I use this is for Newsletter Spa members. In the database for members (which is also administrated by 1-2-All), I have a field for user name and another field for password. This helps me keep track of the information ;-). Because any fields you add can also be easily added to your email messages, it means I can quickly customize a message that includes your user log in information.

• User information is editable.Something that’s really helpful for your readers is to be able to access all their information. This way, they can easily change their email address, or they can go back and edit their interests, for instance. Any data you keep on your readers can be accessed by that individual subscriber through a “profile” page.

  Alternatively, you can keep the profile link unpublished, and then readers *can’t* change any of their information without emailing you about it.

• You can manage multiple lists.This was a must-have feature for me because I have lots of lists. To start, I keep the subscribers for the HTML and plain text versions of NIF separate because it reduces delivery issues (we can talk about that in another post ;-)). Plus, I have a list for testing out client’s newsletters to ensure the design will make it past spam filters. Then, I have a list for Newsletter Spa members. And I have a couple client lists that I manage there as well.

  All of the lists are 100% separate, but you can also send a mailing to more than one list at the time. This part of the program is very easy to use, and quite well designed.

• It allows you to run queries.This is a feature I haven’t yet used at all, but to give you an example of how it would be used… I ask all new NIF subscribers for their country. If I were giving a talk in Egypt, for instance, I could send a mailing exclusively to readers who were located in Egypt by running this query.

  You can run a query based on any information you’ve gathered, but it’s easiest if the information has a limited number of responses (so, for instance, running it by birthday month [12 possibilities] as opposed to birthday month *and* day [365 possibilities]).

So, those were the features that caught my attention. Now let’s look at the day-to-day pros and cons of the program.

Cons
You have to host it on your own server. And that means being really independent when it comes to technology. It can be a big commitment. But, I haven’t yet had a problem I couldn’t handle, and I don’t know much about php.

Pros

• Super easy to use. Sending each issue is a breeze.
• Really comprehensive. You can ask readers for any data, track their behaviors at a minute level, and run queries.
• You can preschedule issues. I love this feature–it means I can write an issue and load it into the system and not need to be in the office on the day the newsletter goes out. Seriously, I use it every week.
• Lots of personalization. Any field you ask for, you can return in an issue. This goes far beyond first name personalization and means you could say to a reader, “How’s the weather in [Country] today?” and a reader in Canada would read, “How’s the weather in Canada today?”
• Easy give-away campaigns. We talk a lot about joint venturing to grow your list, and 1-2-All makes it easy to automatically set up subscribe forms and giveaways. Simply create a new list, offer the gift (free report download link, for instance) in the welcome message, and add the subscribe form to your special JV page. Then, you can either merge the new list with your regular newsletter list, or simply check both boxes every time you send an issue.
• A built-in autoresponder so that you can set up email courses using the same system you use to send your newsletter.
• Unlimited lists–this is really helpful if you want to set up a new list for each product you sell or for each teleclass you offer.
• Subscribers can join by email *or* on the web. Most systems offer only one or the other, and I love that 1-2-All offers both.

All around, it’s a solid program that’s easy to use and does a great job. It offers advanced features and will grow with you. If you’re looking for a new distribution option, check out 1-2-All and see what you think. (It offers lots of features that I didn’t mention here, too.)

Perhaps you’re one of those people who think you do better off-the-cuff when it comes to your newsletter. Not for you are the schedules, the folder full of great ideas for upcoming issues, or even a regular template to follow.

You’re a *free spirit*, you say, creative, and unrestrained by the ordinary bounds of other folks.

Hogwash!

Let’s say you’ve been called to give a presentation to 10,000 people. Every one of those people in the audience will be ready to hang on your every word, buy the products you promote, and rush up to you afterwards to congratulate you on a job well done.

Or, they might just throw tomatoes.

Wouldn’t you take the time to prepare what you’d say in advance? If you were smart, wouldn’t you carefully craft your presentation so you could take advantage of every single second to really drive your message home?

A newsletter provides you with an identical opportunity. You have the audience, sitting at the ready, waiting to read what you’ve written.

You can either give them something outstanding–something that will have them flocking to your site to buy, email you with congratulatory feedback, and sending the newsletter out to everyone who might be interested…

Or, you can simply send them whatever you’ve whipped up this week with very little thought. Just be prepared for them to throw tomatoes.

Sure, there are professional writers who boast of *never* rewriting a single page of their bestselling tomes. But in all but a handful of cases, they either have a talented editor to do the rewriting for them, or their writing suffers for the lack.

(Yes, there are those writing geniuses who come along every few generations who churn out brilliant prose–I feel entirely confident in saying that you are not one of them, any more than I am.)

Writing is re-writing. Writing is planning. And truly great writing is a choreographed event in which each and every word is chosen with supreme care.

Perhaps you’re wondering why your readers are really deserving of well-crafted writing. After all, your newsletter’s just a throw-away piece that readers will glance at and quickly delete (wait a minute… that doesn’t seem right, does it?).

To counter that, I could argue that you owe it to your readers and you owe it to yourself to only distribute writing you’re really proud of–writing that will stand the test of time.

But, I know there’s one especially wonderful reason for you to think *bigger* about the writing you do–and that’s the impact it’ll have on your bottom line.

I’ve seen clients easily double, triple, and in some cases sell to more than 50% of their list, simply by taking their newsletters more seriously.

So, taking a new approach to your newsletter will have an enormous impact on your bottom line.

It’ll do other things for you as well–get you raving fans who can’t stop talking about how brilliant you are, get you invites to print publications, speaking engagements, and swanky events, and, perhaps, if you’re really lucky, a carefully-crafted newsletter could even transform you into a world-known bestselling writer.

There are five guidelines of publishing planning that, when followed creatively, passionately, and expertly, will transform your newsletter. Follow them or prepare to be doused in tomatoes.

1. Choose quality topics. The topic is like your fundamental ingredients in a really great recipe. Nothing will mask subpar ingredients–not skilled technique, or additional flavoring. It all starts with the brilliant topic.

2. Write it your way. Way back when you were in school, you were taught not to start a sentence with “and,” or “or.” And then, as you started writing for more public consumption, people told you to throw those rules out the window. It’s true, casting aside the rules of formal grammar makes your writing seem more conversational, BUT it only really works if that’s how you speak. If you tend to be a more formal type, making your writing less formal will seem forced. Instead, write in the way you’re most comfortable with–pretend you’re talking to your very favorite customer in your writing.

3. Polish, polish, polish. If you’re not setting aside each issue for at least 24 hours and going back to revise before it goes out, you’re sending out garbage. Pure and utter garbage. No one writes as well as they rewrite, and don’t buy into claims that off-the-cuff is more energetic. Digging into a bowl of pasta with one’s hands might be similarly called “energetic” or “enthusiastic.” But I’d just call it gross. There’s nothing wrong with a little restraint.

4. Put the craft first. If you want your newsletter to be really effective (read: make sales) you’re going to have to craft it carefully. You don’t want readers to feel like there’s little value in your newsletter–rather you want to entice them with such value that they can’t help but hunger for more. It’s rather like a bite of really delicious cheesecake–wonderful on its own, but leaves most people hungering for more.

5. Don’t write it if you don’t mean it. If you don’t really think what you’re saying is true, you shouldn’t be saying it at all. I’m not telling you not to lie (although that’s probably a good idea, too), but rather to avoid those topics you feel lukewarmly about. If you can’t stand behind what you’re saying 100%, fully present, you shouldn’t be saying it in your newsletter.

Next time you’re preparing to take the newsletter stage, instead of picturing your audience in their underwear, visualize them with tomatoes at the ready. *Now*, what are you going to tell them so that you don’t wind up covered in sauce?