Let me ask you, do you rely on referrals as your best “marketing and advertising” tool? If you are like most business owners, you have very little time to work “on” your business while you work “in” it. In this regard, you better be leveraging efficient methods to prod your customers, clients or patients to spend their hard-earned money on you.
Statistics tell us that referrals are the best form of advertising, bar none. But those stats also tell us that while 89% of your happy clients say they will tell friends and family about you, only 29% do it.
The monthly (or even weekly) newsletter is your most powerful, most effective means of telling your existing and potentially new clients, patients and customers about your business offerings and also remind them to tell others. These people are already leads to one degree or another – they are in your pipeline since they are on your list. Compared to Facebook, Instagram and the rest of social media, your newsletter email list is thousands of times hotter as far as potential to convert to a sale and a profit.
If you want your website content, your video or blog or new offer viewed, read and acted on put some attention on a good newsletter with those offers and incentives.
There are a few common concerns I hear when discussing business newsletters:
Concern 1: “I can’t think of that much to say.”
This is unfortunate. Get creative. Interview a friendly client about what they’d like to hear about. What new equipment do you have, or new ways to use your product? Do you have any new services? Do you have any new staff or specialists who you should tell your list about? What DIY tips could you offer your list about using your products? Does your office or shop have anything that might be useful to know depending on the season? What about upcoming holiday’s like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day or Thanksgiving?
Okay – there are some ideas for you. Don’t tell me you don’t have anything to talk about. Or do you just want to leave money on the table? Let’s continue…
And you have another option as well, get someone to do it for you. I have a friend who says “if it really deserves getting done for the company, then get someone to do it.” I think his dad told him that.
Concern 2: “I don’t have time to write newsletters.”
Okay, I can understand this one. I have the same problem. Some factors to consider in this regard:
- You can’t afford not to do it, and more importantly,
- It takes more work to put together the first couple times but after that it’s pretty fast. Seriously, like 20 or 30 minutes to knock out a newsletter once you’ve got the format figured out in MailChimp or Constant Contact or whatever platform you are going to use. I use MailChimp. And its free until you want to get into more advanced features or you get a huge list.
Further, you should be adding new content to your website all the time anyway which will be content you can put into your newsletter as “new news.” New content is key for your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy, gives people new reasons to visit and new stuff to share on social media. I’m most particularly talking about your Blog. Your blog is your best content for your newsletter. Write a blog every month at least and use that as your newsletter content. My blogs become the centerpiece of my newsletter and of my client’s newsletters.
If you haven’t already signed up to receive my marketing newsletter by email, simply scroll to the bottom of this page and put your email address in the “Join Our Mailing List” section! That might also give you ideas for your newsletter.
Concern 3: “People don’t want to hear from me that much.”
Not true. Yes, there are some people who complain loudly, unsubscribe and tell you to stop sending them so much e-mail. These are about 2% of the entire population. And you know what, they act that way towards everything and everything that comes their way. These are usually the same people that want free service and look for things to bitch about. Disregard them. As a sort of therapy you could even take their crappy email complaint and print it off, take it outside, burn it and then stamp it out under your shoe. There, feel better. Now let’s build your business and ignore the haters.
Here is another look at this same concern – it’s the rule of seven. It takes at least seven impressions on a lead before they are ready to buy something from you. The point: there are a lot of distractions today, so don’t back off from communicating over and over to push those potential buyers over the edge to being paying customers.
Now Let’s Talk About The Benefits
Warming your leads. We already spoke about the rule of seven. If it takes at least seven communications or “touches” before someone will act, then you need to be reaching out to your hottest prospects – those people on your list – as much as possible and telling them about your services, products and ways to use what you are selling. You’d be surprised how people will respond after months or even a year and say, “hey, I read your article about _______” and that’s exactly what I was trying to solve. Can we talk?” Keeping these prospects warm and then making them hot is critical.
Of course you have personal follow up through emails, phone calls or even Facebook Messenger or however you can communicate with your leads. But the newsletter is an efficient tool for mass cultivation and keeping the whole list warm.
Segmenting your messages. If you feel like a newsletter to your whole list is too impersonal then you can split and group lists. Then you can send tailored messages to the different lists. Check out this link to MailChimp on how they describe segmenting your list.
Statistics. Newsletter providers such as I’ve mentioned also give you very informative analytics of what happened with your newsletter. I’m talking very detailed data on how many newsletters were read, how many people clicked on which articles within your newsletter or what links, exactly who those people were, etc. You can also see comparatives to industry standards for your type of company. You can use this information for follow up calls or e-mails or for writing your next newsletter so you are providing what your customers are most interested in.
The newsletter is a key tool in your businesses marketing toolbox. Utilize it to keep your list warm and move those warm prospects over to paying customers, clients or patients. To not use this tool is costing you dollars and losing potential good income.
I hope this has helped. I’ll be posting updates on just about every aspect of digital marketing each week on Friday.
Cebron Walker