15 Key Questions About Writing Your Own Tips Booklet

Marketing

15 Key Questions About Writing Your Own Tips Booklet
by Paulette Ensign



Everyone has something they want the world to know about and a tips booklet is a great way to do that. More than 500,000 copies in three languages of a tips booklet called '110 Ideas for Organizing Your Business Life' have been sold, all without spending a penny on advertising.

Here are some questions to get your tips (and cash) flowing. You can mine your own field of gold by looking at any promotional literature you have created, audio or video tapes you have produced, press releases or articles about or by you, your product catalog and even your business card.

1. What is the single most important subject from your experience or knowledge that you want the world to know about? If there are several topics, which one is most compelling to you right now?

2. How would you narrow that subject down into segments? Do those segments create additional booklets to develop a series?

3. What do you want the booklet to accomplish for you? Do you want to altruistically spread the word about something? Will a booklet be a marketing tool for your business? Can it be a profit center for you? Would you like it to be a marketing tool and a profit center?

4. What are you often surprised by that people do not know about your subject area? Is there something that seems so 'common sense' to you, while being highly helpful or enlightening to others?

5. What is the single most outstanding thing you want people to know? Is is a new skill, perspective, attitude, expanding general knowledge?

6. Does your information need to be presented sequentially or can it be random? Can a specific entry stand on its own or does it need whatever came before it to cause it to make sense to the reader?

7. What do you want people to do and not to do, be or not be as a result of your booklet? How will this information be benefit the reader?

8. Who besides the reader can benefit from this material? Are there manufacturers, suppliers, distributors whose business activities can profit by distributing your contents?

9. Is there language that is peculiar to your topic? Have you considered how you will monitor and treat that in your content?

10. What surprised you most when you learned about your topic? Is that useful to pass along to your readers in some way?

11. What resources are needed to implement any of your suggestions? What are the easiest ways to accomplish what you are recommending to your reader?

12. What do people need to know about you? What gives you the credential to write about this topic?

13. What other products and/or services do you have to assist the reader in this topic? Are they products and services of your own or of someone else's?

14. How would short anecdotes be useful in supporting your materials? Would they get in the way or enhance your content?

15. Do your tips need visual support with graphics to allow them to be more fully understood? Is clip art adequate or do you need original art?

'Everyone has something they want the world to know about. An informational tips booklet can be a great way to do that.'


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Paulette Ensign is the founder and CEO of San Diego, CA-based Tips Products International. Contact her at www.tipsbooklets.com for information about creating your booklets.