Improve the Effectiveness of your Newsletter
25 Feb 2014 Leave a Comment
in Design, Marketing, Marketing TIPS Tags: Ask the expert, newsletters, tips
Don’t believe that newsletters are a lost art..
Newsletters have a proven track record for creating front-of-mind awareness, establishing and maintaining credibility, and publicizing an organization to the community. Here are a few tips to improve the effectiveness of your newsletter:
- Become a resource by including how-to articles, helpful industry tips and tricks, and links to other articles and podcasts that may be of interest to your audience.
- Feature a special offer or promotion in each issue to track your newsletter results.
- Include a customer testimonial section to highlight customers who are finding success using your products or services. This will not only boost your credibility, but also increase customer visibility.
- Offer subscribers a “sneak peak” at new products. This will make them feel special and encourage them to spread the word about their insider knowledge.
- Create an “Ask the Expert” section, featuring industry experts to answer customer questions. Include the name and business of the customer who asks the featured question.
- Keep track of customer/recipient birthdays and send them a free birthday giveaway or discount.
- Provide highlights from an online customer portal or discussion board where customers can chat about industry trends, new products, and other relevant issues. Include a web link, and encourage newsletter readers to join in the discussions.
- Commit to a regular schedule. Readers will look forward to and expect your newsletter, so inform them if you take a hiatus from the regular routine.
- Post current and archived issues on your website with a link to subscribe.
Give us a call today if you’d like to see examples or need more ideas for creating a newsletter that your audience will look forward to receiving. Our creative experts would love to help.
Please Don’t Ignore Me
10 May 2013 Leave a Comment
in Marketing Tags: existing customers, Lifetime value of a customer, newsletters, relationship marketing
The bulk of marketing budgets is often reserved for acquiring new customers. Much energy, time, and money is spent pursuing prospects that have a marginally small chance of ever becoming a customer. There’s a flaw with this strategy.
The simplest and most effective way to boost your bottom line profits is to remember who brought you where you are today: your existing customers. If you aren’t consistently advertising and staying in touch with current and past clients, you’re missing out on the best way to continually grow your business.
For every month that goes by without making contact with your past and existing customer base, you’ll lose up to ten percent of the clients you’ve worked so hard to acquire. Retaining clients is therefore an extremely important business growth strategy.
Selling your services to new customers means earning their trust. It takes hard work to build this trust. When a prospect becomes a customer, you have only begun to earn their trust. You cannot expect to maintain that trust without consistent, frequent contact that adds some value for the customer.
One of the best ways to maintain and build that trust is to communicate regularly via a newsletter. An effective newsletter has a mix of about 80% infotainment (fun and informative content that may not have anything to do with your particular industry) and 20% information about your business or industry.
The recent trend of companies switching to all digital email newsletters is now reversing with the realization that actually getting the emails opened and read is far more difficult than many were led to believe. Also many survey respondents favor a printed newsletter that they can hold versus one more email that clutters their already overfilled inbox.
Sure, email newsletters are inexpensive and require no postage, but there is a cost involved when the recipients never see or open the messages. By contrast, a printed newsletter is still one of the most powerful and cost-effective ways to stay in front of your customers without overtly selling them.
The Lifetime Value of a Client
Perhaps one of the reasons past clients are ignored is because some business owners don’t really know the lifetime value of a client. An existing client who is treated right, is not ignored, and is communicated with on a regular basis will not only return to do more business themselves but will also refer your company to those around them. Therefore the actual lifetime value is often five, ten, twenty (or even more) times the value of an initial sale.
That’s the power of relationship marketing and the reason why your existing customers should get the bulk of your marketing budget. If you treat your existing customers well and communicate with them on a regular basis, you may not need to chase as many prospects as you have in the past.
To learn more about defining and understanding your lifetime customer value, please visit: http://hbsp.harvard.edu/
An Internal Newsletter Your Team Will Love
17 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Design, Inspirational, Marketing Tags: newsletters, Q&A, team building, teamwork
While newsletters are a great way to build relationships with customers, many companies overlook the team-building opportunity an internal newsletter offers within their own doors, as well. Internal newsletters are a great way not only to learn more about colleagues, but also to keep employees informed about company news, events, and other important announcements. Here are a few tips for creating an internal newsletter your employees will love:
- Create a plan by defining the frequency of your newsletter (such as monthly or quarterly) and the types of articles or sections you’d like to include. Also develop a template you can easily modify for each issue.
- Encourage teamwork by assigning a few people to specific parts of the newsletter each month, such as pulling company stats (sales volume, incoming calls, trade show outcomes, etc.), writing feature articles about company events, and so on.
- Create an idea library. Stockpile various ideas, photos, jokes, quotes, seasonal graphics, etc., to save time down the road.
- Acknowledge employee birthdays, corporate anniversaries, new hires, promotions, etc.
- Consider offering a “message from the president” to make employees the first to know about new products, company changes, initiatives, etc.
- Highlight successes. If a department had an outrageous month, highlight their achievements, and offer a company-wide congratulatory message.
- Share encouraging survey results, customer compliments, and thank you notes from appreciative customers.
- Consider a Q&A section where employees can submit questions and have a leader provide answers in an open forum for all to see.
