How To Create Your Very Own Client Newsletter

Using newsletters for business development improves your sales and marketing efficiency because they:

Think of your client newsletter as an education tool, as well. It's a place to explain to your clients what they should know about your area of expertise, and how it relates to their situation. Look around at what other advisors are doing, and see what you think will work best for you and your clients.

A little help from your friends

When deciding on the type of content you are going to use in your newsletter, keep in mind that you don't even have to write it yourself. The internet is a vast source of all kinds of free content (e.g. EzineArticles.com) that you can cut and paste into your newsletter.

Which format?

Convinced of the power of this tool yet? Good. The next question is which type to use: a paper version to be mailed out to your clients by regular post or an electronic version to be e-mailed. If you decide on a paper-based newsletter, you may wish to also consider an e-mail version. Why? For starters, it's cheaper.

Paper will cost you at least a dollar for each copy you have printed, folded, stuffed, stamped and mailed. But faxing or e-mailing as many as a thousand copies will cost you practically zilch (word of warning: I would suggest foregoing faxing altogether, as many people on the receiving end resent having their own paper wasted or their phone line tied up). An e-mail version is immediate and "in your face", whereas "snail mail" can take longer to cross the city than the ocean.

As most of the benefits of a paper newsletter apply to an electronic one, why bother with a paper version at all? More people have postal addresses than e-mail addresses. A lot of your prospects and clients may not have fax or e-mail access or might just prefer a paper version.

So go for both, but ease into your electronic version. Take a few months to get your routine established for consistent quality and delivery of your paper version before worrying about creating your electronic version.

Bringing it to life

When starting with your paper-based newsletter, keep it simple. When sending a monthly newsletter, I have always found one page to be enough