As the Internet evolves, we’re all learning how to leverage social networking and viral marketing opportunities to our greatest advantage. I learn a great deal from marketing newsletters and I value their content. It’s the style that drives me nuts.

These are my least favorite features:

The Local Weather Report

I don’t care if it’s snowing where you are. We’re having Santa Ana winds and it’s hotter than hell here.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

Am I supposed to extrapolate from the photos of you with celebrities that if you can do it, anyone can? I’m glad that you enjoyed Maui and the Italian Riviera, but reading Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer is the closest I’ve come lately to an exotic getaway. And I resent your trying to push my “jealousy” button. I like who I am, and where.

Shameless Self-Promotion

You and I know that newsletters and e-zines are supposed to educate, drive traffic to your website, and help promote your goods and services. I get irritable when I have to wade through 10 pages of product promotions and ads by other vendors to get to the paragraph with useful content.

Fonts That Look Like Ransom Notes

It’s been proved in marketing studies that large type and bright colors draw attention to headlines, subheads and key points, but some of these sales letters look like they should be featured on Without a Trace.

Goofy spelling to avoid spam filters

For years, copywriters have been artfully weaving the 12 most powerful sales words into their marketing materials. We know that spam filters are turning some of those words into red flags. Some authors are inserting extra spaces between letters or mixing numbers and letters to get past the filters. But whenever I read those secret decoder words, my forefinger activates the “delete” button.

When Cute Headlines Turn Ugly

It’s important to have a snappy headline to entice your readers, but I was turned off by the insensitivity of a recent headline in an e-zine by two professionals whose work I respect. During the height of a recent firestorm, they pitched their tele-seminar with the header: “Don’t Get Burned.” It’s not as if they didn’t know about the fires. They live here in Los Angeles and wrote about the disasters in their body of work.

Bonus Element:  Now You See it. Now You Don’t.

Busy people need an incentive to BUY NOW. You cannot convince me that your product is going to self-destruct if I don’t buy before I finish reading your e-zine.

Note:  I would have titled this post 7 Things I Hate About e-zines but frankly I’m tired of the overuse of the “magical number seven” by everyone including me.

Now that I’m done ranting, I want to thank all the people whose techniques I just trashed for helping me succeed in my own career. Although I complain about your style, I keep taking your classes and buying your products, so you must be doing something right!