Direct Marketing:
Newsletters:
Newsletters are a great way to bring your products and services directly to your customers every month, in some cases every week or even day. Newsletters can be on paper or in an email format.
People still love to get snail mail and open a letter addressed to them. Come on you can admit it, I still love it, even knowing that most of it is another bill. I get a couple newsletters each month and when they arrive I still like to open those envelopes.
I know that inside each letter are new ideas that I can use to help my business grow. That is exciting to me. Newsletters bring interesting information to your customers and allow you a sell more of your services or products.
Newsletters allow you to make a mini presentation every time you send it
They can be one simple page or a multi-page full color product. You can produce them on a simple word processor and then have someone spruce them up for you by adding graphics and images.
People love to look at pictures especially ones that focus on an emotion connected to your product or service. Your text or images should make your reader feel something. Evoking emotions from your clients or customers is an important step with all advertising. Use this psychological selling trick to your advantage. A picture can say a thousand words.
Doing it when they are reading your newsletter in their own living room, makes it more powerful. They are relaxed and more receptive to your offers and advice. Use this to your advantage when writing and designing your newsletter.
Inform and entertain your audience and you will build a large following. Give your reader useful and valuable information each month and they will stay on your list for years.
Share the space
Newsletters allow you a lot of space to make your message known. You can sell them in a number of ways and with a number of options or add-ons. The space allows you to expand on your sales presentation.
You can sell some of the space to other complimentary services or products that don’t directly compete with your services or products. In fact this is done regularly in order to help offset the costs of mailing and printing.
You simply need to figure out what other businesses can benefit from talking to your clients or customers. Once you figure out who these businesses are you can approach them with the offer to advertise in your newsletter. Sharing the cost is beneficial to you and to them.
You can take it one step further and offer to mail your newsletter to their clients. You can arrange for some kind of compensation for them on each sale you make or just agree on a price for being allowed to do the mailing to their customers.
Print or Digital
The good news is you don’t have to choose anymore. You can design the newsletter with any Word processor and then use it in both formats as email or in print.
Digital is of course the least expensive. Once you have a list of email addresses you can mail to them as often as you like. I do stress that you should have their permission to do this. In Canada, we have a law that states you now must have your client’s permission before you can send them an email or you can face fines up to $1,000,000 per incident.
This doesn’t hold true to a regular piece of snail mail. You can mail as often as your budget permits. The only issue is the extra costs. With good testing you can find out the right mix using both digital and printed newsletters.
Perhaps you can have a monthly print version and a weekly email version with weekly specials or tips and hints. Test both versions and find out which works best and provides the highest level of profit.
Always remember to offer the ability to opt out of your email list or mailing list. This will be a great way to be compliant with your government. If your customer no longer wants to hear from you, take them off your list or face the penalties.
Newsletters help touch your customers or clients
Keeping in touch with your customer is important in all business. Depending on your product or service it can be critical to your success in your business. If you have a product or service that is consumed every day or week than being in touch is important, you want to establish a great relationship, make it easy to order more products or services.
The more you communicate with a client the better your chance to sell them more often. In many cases, larger orders which in turn makes you more profit. A newsletter gives you a new opportunity to sell each time you delivery it. Do not underestimate the importance of this.
To get started
You want to write out a series of newsletters to begin with 4 to 6 if possible. This takes the pressure off you for delivering the first few newsletters. You can focus on building your client and customer list by promoting your newsletter for free or you can offer a monthly subscription.
Offer a free 1 or 2 month subscription and then you can start billing them monthly, or quarterly or annually at the end of the free trail. You give them a free look in return for their commitment to try your offer.
Building a large list is the goal. The more clients you connect with the better your chance of success. The more customers on your list the better your chances of success. You don’t have to have a large list, but it can’t hurt to have as many customers as you can profitably service.
Start by listing all the information you can that is helpful for your clients and then begin assembling your newsletter. Remember to build 4 to 6 versions so you are ahead of the game.