“Allison, I have a project that is perfect for you. I need you to create a monthly newsletter that people will read.”

“No problem,” I said, listening as my employer explained what she hoped to accomplish.

On the one hand, I was excited about the opportunity to write this newsletter. I was a new employee and wanted to prove my worth to this company. And on the other hand…

I was fighting a losing battle against imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is this annoying little voice in your head that tells you you’re overselling your abilities, you’re a total dumbass, ill-equipped to handle the task, and then it reminds you of every typo you’ve ever made. Imposter syndrome is a lie people create about themselves that can talk them out of reaching for their dreams.

My imposter has a name: Judy. She’s also a judgy mom, constantly criticizing me because I don’t do crafts with my kids, I don’t hire event planners for their birthday parties, and I feed them food that’s filled with soy, gluten, carbs, red meat, nuts, dairy, and just about everything that’s unhealthy – except for alcoholic beverages. That’s still illegal.

Now, she’s in my head, calmly explaining that I should resign before I get fired.

Read More: The Judgy Moms

“It needs to be engaging and fun. Think you can handle that?” My boss asked.

“Absolutely.” How hard could it be to create engaging and fun material around hydraulic parts?

The Backstory

This was my first official position as a copywriter. A B2B company hired me to write product descriptions for various hydraulic parts in their catalog that I knew nothing about. Not that my lack of product knowledge discouraged me. I love researching anything and everything. Even hoses and valves. As my time in this position grew, so did my job duties, including writing a monthly newsletter.

The Newsletter Challenge

In general, the purpose of any newsletter is to inform a select audience about new products, updates, and other important announcements. My true challenge wasn’t to write the newsletter. The challenge was in getting the target audience to read it. Easier said than done, considering this target audience receives 2,307,922 emails daily regarding new products, updates, and important announcements.

This newsletter differed from the other emails they received because it was specific to one department. Essentially, I was tasked with compiling all new announcements and products each month for this department and putting them in one newsletter so the target audience wouldn’t have to dig through a gazillion emails to find them. And most of the parts we worked with were hydraulics. – hoses, valves, cylinders.

My challenge was to get the target audience to:

• Open the email
• Be enticed by the content of the email.
• Click the newsletter link in the body of the email.
• Read the entire newsletter, which highlighted hydraulics in a fun, lighthearted, and sitcom-worthy way.

Pulling this off was going to take a miracle. And a ton of research. But mostly a miracle. Since research is more manageable, I started at the beginning of my list: the subject line.

The adventure continues in the next post.

Writing newsletters or blogs doesn’t have to be stressful. I’m doing the research, so you don’t have to. Please get in touch with me if you need help creating content for your website/blog/business. I’m great at making words work for you!