If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ve heard me say that how often you send a customer newsletter is the most important thing. It is more important than its style, color, size, name, or anything else you can think to ask me about. Some companies will send their customers a holiday card, a birthday card (not many these days!), and some might even send a quarterly newsletter. I consider this random, and while better than nothing, it is not enough to effectively build and strengthen client relationships. 

To determine the right frequency for your customers, ask yourself a couple of questions: “Am I communicating with my clients enough to convey how much I value them?” and “Am I doing enough to stand out among the thousands of marketing messages my clients receive every day?” 

Here is why a monthly newsletter is so important to your company: because it arrives every month, it is looked at as a regular “publication.” Think about it, magazines arrive monthly, and sometimes weekly; newspapers arrive daily; even bank statements arrive monthly! The point is that people see things they receive on a regular and frequent basis as having value, or at least important, and they generally anticipate them. Things like advertisements that arrive sporadically, including postcards and other marketing pieces, are just that — solicitations.  

So start off a new regimen accepting the fact that your customers will find more value in your newsletter if it arrives monthly.  

The previous concept is very important and worth rereading. In addition to frequency creating perceived value, frequency also increases brand awareness, which in turn will help to drive repeat and referral business. See how this works?! 

You may be surprised how many people resist my urging to do a monthly newsletter by saying, “It’s too expensive.” Quite frankly, this astounds me and I find it somewhat shortsighted. As a business owner, you need to figure out what you currently spend to attract new customers and clients, and also what the lifetime value of a typical client is to your business. If you can figure out what each new client costs your business, and what the lifetime value of a client is, I predict that you will start to see that building and maintaining these client relationships takes on a whole new meaning.