Do newsletters help your marketing??
Newsletters act as part of your "keep in touch" marketing
strategy. They provide a vehicle for keeping in touch with your
current customers or clients and providing them with additional
value. The newsletter also is a good vehicle for keeping in
touch with prospective customers and clients. Through the use of
the newsletter you are continuing to build your relationship
with the prospect. They become more and more familiar with you
and your services and most importantly the value that you offer.
A newsletter can also act as an incentive to build your
database, especially if it is a free newsletter. On your website
you can offer your "free" newsletter in exchange for the
person's name and email address. This gives you information
about who is interested in your service, but not buying right
now. It gives you the opportunity to develop a relationship for
future work together.
Newsletters come in a variety of formats and each has advantages
and disadvantages. Traditionally, companies used printed, snail
mail newsletters. The big advantage of print media and snail
mail is that it gets to the target. It doesn't get caught up in
spam filters and email blocks. It provides a hard copy of your
information and people tend to keep well produced newsletters
longer. Your newsletter could have a great coupon or article
that the person wants to act on and they put it in the pile on
their desk and eventually they find it, pull it out and
follow-up with you. The disadvantages of a print newsletter are
the costs for development, printing and mailing. It can be labor
intensive for the small operation that is doing the mailing
themselves. Personally addressing hundreds of newsletters is
time-consuming. If you are not good with software programs, you
might need assistance putting the newsletter together in a
presentable format, adding to your expense, and then there are
the ever rising costs of postage. You will also need to print
the newsletter, professionally. Bulk mail is less expensive but
comes with many rules and regulations and does not get forwarded
if the address is wrong.
Email newsletters or e-zines are much less costly but have other
disadvantages. The good things about the e-zine--are that they
are inexpensive. You can email thousands of people for little
cost. You can use an e-zine service to help with formatting your
e-zine and managing your database. There are e-zine service
companies that will write and produce your e-zine in it's
entirety, but this of course is more costly. Services such as
Constant Contact or Aweber or 1shoppingcart, each provide you
with the tools to create forms for your website that visitors
can fill out and then receive your e-zine. If you create a
website with a lot of traffic this is a great way to build your
database and potential customer base. These companies also
provide you with some great information about who has read your
newsletter, how many people clicked on links in your newsletter,
how many were blocked and undelivered etc. This becomes valuable
information to you in your marketing and knowing who you are
hitting and who you are missing. Some of the disadvantages of an
e-zine are that many do get blocked by spam filters; email
programs and never reaches their target. They also get easily
deleted and aren't saved in piles on the desk. It doesn't stay
in front of people.
There are many resources out there for developing an e-zine or
newsletter. You can subscribe to article lists and receive a
wealth of useful information that you can include in your e-zine
or print newsletter. You don't have to write each article. I
have many articles of value to my readers written by other
experts. You can also share your articles with these same
services and increase your exposure. This continues to build
your reputation, and it also improves your website ratings as
you have more and more links to your site from other sites (but,
that's a whole different article).
Whether you choose the email version of a newsletter or the
print version or both, you need to provide value to your clients
and potential clients. Both are a vehicle for you to build your
relationship and do new business or additional business. If
there is no value then people will "opt-out" and won't be
interested in receiving your information. Provide valuable
information, it builds your reputation as a resource and an
expert. Your reputation builds your business.
Newsletters can help you build your business, if they are
done well.
Compass Rose Consulting, LLC Copyright