Increase Your Business Success With A Free Newsletter
Publishing a free newsletter is an effective and inexpensive marketing strategy with several business benefits. Here are some of those advantages:
Increases sales
Prospects only become paying customers when they know, like, and trust your organization. Publishing a free newsletter is a method of creating your readers get more familiar with your company. Because of this, this will increase sales. You will find that if you convert your readers into paying customers, they will repeatedly purchase more of your services as they get to know you more, like you more and trust you more.
Positions you as an expert in your area
Pros can charge more for their services, and they frequently get more media exposure. By offering helpful tips to your readers, a newsletter is just another vehicle for demonstrating your experience, and showcasing your knowledge and abilities. This will improve your credibility in the market and so attract more clients.
It is cost-effective
Publishing and distributing an electronic newsletter is cheap because it is delivered by email, and there is zero cost on postage and printing. Of course you can opt to print in hard copy format, but that will conquer the cost-effective benefit of a digital format. With the magic of technology now, you do not need to get a web site to have the ability to publish an electronic newsletter and distribute it through email. There are numerous businesses that provide templates you can use to publish and distribute your newsletter. All you need is an email address to send it from and a subscription approach.
Also, as it requires five to eight contacts to get a prospect to say"yes" to buying from you, a newsletter is a cheap and quick means to "warm up" your prospects.
Nurtures relationships with customers and prospects
Provided that you are in front of your customers and prospects on a regular basis, you are going to be on top of the mind when they are ready to obtain the sort of service you provide. Unless you do so, they will forget you. Publishing a newsletter is an effective way to remain in front of them without being a pest! As they read each newsletter issue, your readers will get to know, like and trust you more (that is if you are not bombarding them with only promotions). You'll be regarded as a valuable resource, instead of an aggressive salesman. Because of this, you will convert more prospects into customers, and turn more one-time customers into repeat buyers of your services.
Spreads the word about your company
Some of your subscribers may not be customers, but they may be groups that have influence and credibility with your target market e.g. the media, staff at trade associations, training companies and so forth. Such classes are called"the centers of influence" of your business. Keeping in contact with them through your newsletter may result in paid speaking engagements, referrals, tons of media exposure and profitable joint ventures.
Helps you construct an in-house mailing list
Many companies spend thousands of dollars on record rental for direct mail campaigns. Offering a newsletter is one of the cheapest ways of getting people's contact information, letting you market to them over and over again. This also means you will have qualified prospects on your own database... the more qualified your prospects are, the greater the odds of a sale.
Tips For Smooth Sailing:
* Do not publish a newsletter that's full of promotions and nothing else, or that goes on and on about your business schedule or staff party or current media exposure. Your readers do not care about such things. They just care about"what is -in-it-for-me" so make sure at least 80 percent of your articles focuses on useful tips for your readers.
* While you should concentrate your articles primarily on information that's of use and interest to your readers, you must always include a subtle marketing for your services. Your readers would not mind this, provided that you are providing valuable content. About 10-20percent of your articles must tell the reader how your services can resolve their problem i.e. the issue you have just addressed in the article.
* Your newsletter should not have so many pages. We are in an era of active schedules and your readers likely subscribe to other books. If yours takes over 15-20 minutes to read and digest, then you face the risk of getting your readers delete it without reading or they may unsubscribe.
* Contain a subscription box on your web site so that visitors can register to get the free newsletter. Make sure that the box is easy to discover. If you don't have a web site then you can spread the word on your free newsletter by printing a"blurb" about it in your own invoices, receipts, brochures, and other marketing materials.
* To build momentum quickly, publish your newsletter at least once every month. In some industries, it's far better to publish twice a month or per week.
* Be consistent with your publishing program. If you have decided to publish once a month then do this consistently, otherwise a"here and there" program will undermine perceived reliability
* As with any marketing plan, test and monitor to ascertain what works best. Factors to check include how often you publish, the period of your newsletter, the writing style, electronic vs. hard copy format etc.