Apply these marketing notes from all over to your own efforts.

1. The Personal Touch. My little public radio station probably has, at most, 5,000 members. My annual solicitation arrived the other day. At the top of the letter, the station manager had written a short personal note. It meant something to me. I know most of us don't know our subscribers, by and large, but I would not miss any opportunity to do things like this even if it's just writing "Hoping to see you again this year, Fred" on conference mailings to past attendees.

2. The Really Personal Touch. I don't know how many other marketers could use a technique like this one, but perhaps the strongest marketing copy I've ever seen was for Bill Donoghue's Money Fund newsletter where he noted that "my mother's retirement nest egg is invested in the funds we recommend in the newsletter."

3. Use Your History. When your newsletter has been around for a while, there are ways to play this up in your promotional materials. Sports Collector's Digest pointed out that their "average subscriber" has been with the publication for more than five years. Telecommunications Reports in Washington, D.C., tracked down some readers who had been subs for more than 30 years and got testimonials from them. (Because TR has been published since 1934, I think it's now safe to assume that no charter subs remain active.) To emphasize its guarantee, Travel Smart included a lift note reporting that they had been making the offer for 19 years and "1 in 323 takes us up on it."

4. Look North Again, Newsletter Marketer. More than four years ago, in 2002, NL/NL published a piece on marketing opportunities in Canada ("New California Discovered Due North of Syracuse"). It covered the hassles involved--printing and mailing in Canada, high Canadian postal rates, and dealing with the Goods & Services Tax (GST). What has changed? At that time the exchange rate brought $1.58 Cdn for one US$. Last week when I was there it was just below $1.09Cdn. Today you can offer subs to Canadians at basically your US price. This might change the marketing assumptions you may have made in the past.

5. Get Your Gift Offer in the Mail (they can work for many titles).

* Start early. The pros, like The New Yorker and Gourmet, are already in the mail by early October, even September.

* Offer discounts. Not necessarily three for one like Andrew Harper at The Hideaway Report, but some attractive discount. Perhaps so much for the first gift, a better deal for three.

* Accept bill-me orders. Pay-up is great. No one wants their gift subs canceled.

* If current subscribers want to use the Gift Discount to extend their own subs, let 'em. It's an almost cost-free advance renewal program.

6. Renewal Strategy. I read about New York magazine's latest revamping, which includes new retro graphics on the cover, which are intended, they honestly say, to attract "younger and more affluent readers." (One thing I love about newsletter publishers is that what they want are paid subs and they don't care about their age, affluence or trendiness quotient.)

But I also noted that the redone renewal series adds "two mailings and a second renewal wrap." I've almost never seen a renewal series that couldn't begin earlier, end later, and add at least one additional effort.

7. Talk About Spin-off Opportunities. Interested in details of the Reese Witherspoon-Ryan Phillippe divorce? Who isn't? Reese appears on the cover of Life & Style ("It's Even Worse Than She Thought") while Ryan is on In Touch ("Ryan's Side of the Story"). Both titles are owned by Bauer Publishing.

Why limit your newsletter to covering a story from only one point of view? For example, the following two points of view just might require separate editions:

FCC Decision Seen as Give-Away to Telcos

Telcos Irate about FCC Cable Favoritism

8. Position the Offer. Marketers making multi-year offers debate positioning on the order form. Which first? One-year ("Lowest Price") first? Three-Year ("Best Deal") first? Political scientists studying ballots have concluded that being listed first on a ballot is worth additional votes, at least as much as 4 percent. It might be worth a test to see if you could shift some percentage of your one-year orders to the longer-term deal by positioning your best offer first.