For my friends in the states, I hope you had a terrific July 4th holiday. Despite some questionable weather here is Philly; I managed to go kayaking everyday for the last 5 days! If you’ve never been kayaking, you should try it. It very relaxing (while being good exercise) and I get incredible clarity on the water. I was sharing with my buddy, Mike Capuzzi – creator of CopyDoodles, just this morning that I came up with a great new idea for a tele-seminar while paddling on Saturday. I will be making an announcement about this soon!

Here we are in the heat of the summer and it always amazes me when I hear some business owners or managers say something like, ‘I am holding off starting anything new until the fall’ or ‘no business in done in the summer!’  

I do not prescribe to that way of thinking and I’m pleased that we’re very busy here in “No Hassle” land! We are currently launching three new newsletter programs, writing two new books (due out end of summer), and I am also launching a hot new information product for affiliate marketers with my friend and Web master Adam Hommey.

Plus! My wife, Stephanie, and I are also squeezing in a well-deserved vacation in Cape May, NJ later this month and we’re also going to swing through New England in August. I grew up in New England – graduating High School in Duxbury, Mass and then went to New Hampshire College in Manchester, NH. It’s always fun looking up some old friends and seeing the ‘old homestead!’ 

As I mentioned, I am currently working on two books that you’re going to love, What Makes a Great (and Profitable!) Newsletter and Customer Relationship Marketing (not the final title). Last week I sent an e-mail to everyone asking for some examples of your customer newsletters and some of the things that you do in your newsletter that help you grow. I would like to share one example that I received from Julie Thorp in Australia. Julie and her family own a beauty salon and she wrote to me about the importance of personality in your newsletter and also how vital it is to mail it EVERY month. Here is a snippet of Julie’s note (I highlighted three key benefits of newsletter marketing and also made some additional comments in blue.

Our clients have told us that the newsletter has reminded them to come in for their treatments (increased repeat business!) which is a good thing and we have found that from the regular mailing of our newsletter not only have I found that we are staying consistently busier in the quieter months of the year, (newsletters are an investment that pays dividends!) but have found that clients seem to be more loyal to our business – as they generally think they know us! (Adding personality to you newsletter enhances your customer relationships). Also positioning my mother as the beauty guru has helped her seem “more expert” (establish yourself as an expert in your industry and more people will do more business with you!) so people will want to come to her for advice about skin and beauty treatments.

If you’d like to receive a FREE copy of my two new books when published (as Julie will), please click here to get the details on how to sending me your stuff! Thanks Julie – keep up the great job!!

I’ve been in and around the business world for almost 30 years, and I can tell you that while most savvy business owners understand that it’s important to maintain good relationships with their customers and keep them repurchasing for many years, most would be hard-pressed to give you a dollar amount if you asked them what the actual value of a lifetime customer is.  

I think this is important because once they knew this number, most businesses wouldn’t be so frugal (cheap!) on customer acquisition and retention (hmm, perhaps a monthly customer newsletter?) 

One of my favorite authors, Jay Abraham, wrote an awesome book, Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got, and chapter 5, “Break Even Today, Break the Bank Tomorrow,” addresses this topic in a marvelous way. The following excerpt is from Jay’s book. 

“The current lifetime value of one of your clients is the total profit of an average client over the lifetime of his or her patronage – including all residual sales, less advertising, marketing, and incremental product or service-fulfillment expenses. 

Let’s say that your typical new client brings you an average profit of $75 on the first sale. He or she repurchases three more times a year, with an average reorder amount of $300, and on each $300 reorder you make $150 gross profit. 

Now, with the average patronage life lasting two years, every new client is worth $975. You could theoretically afford to spend up to $975 to bring in a new client and still break even.”  

Now, let me ask you, when you see $975 as the value of a lifetime customer, doesn’t it seem a little silly to be so frugal in both your customer acquisition and customer retention efforts? When you consider that you could mail a customized newsletter – personalized with your customer’s name – for only $0.99 a month (or $11.88 per year), quite frankly, that seems like an absolute bargain! Check out bargains like these at http://www.NoHassleNewsletters.com

Before I dive into today’s topic (which you’re going to love!), I’m going to take a moment and be a proud father. Last week my twin girls each received awards at college. Amanda received an award for being the top sophomore in her major. Unfortunately her school is 3 hours away and we were not able to attend the ceremony. Jessica however is only 45 minutes away and we got to see her get an award for outstanding leadership. My wife, Stephanie, and I are very proud parents! 

And now, as the stage manager says … on with the show!  

Customer-focused marketing is the last refuge of the small or start-up business owner. This form of marketing, which uses newsletters as its main marketing tool, is a backlash against mass marketing. As a small-business owner, you can give your customers what the big corporations can’t – a real person to connect to and identify with. This is because a newsletter can have a “voice” – the personality you and your company.   

Most corporations can’t offer a customer much more than a big logo, an aloof Web site and a reply card asking for feedback. This type of marketing has gotten incredibly impersonal. 

Customer-focused marketing is an effective strategy for the small-business owner because it resists the big corporations’ tendency to make all customer relationship marketing about embracing the corporate identity. I discuss this and other topics in my book, Newsletter Secrets Revealed – How to Use Newsletters to Make Your Profits Soar. To the readers of this posting – if you would like a copy of my book at a discount, order it within the next 5 days and I’ll take 20% off your purchase. To get your discount, all you have to do is enter the word “bonus” in the coupon window. 

When you write a customer-focused newsletter, it is not about you – it is always about the customer. It is not about, say, a “happy face” logo (in the case of Wal-Mart) but about the needs, desires and wish lists of the customers. Even the way that copy is written for customer newsletters is an important component of this type of marketing.  In my next posting I’ll share some strategies to help you really connect with your customers. Don’t miss it!

The real value of a monthly newsletter is not calculated in terms of how much money you spent on writing, layout and design. It is calculated in terms of the ROI (return on investment) that you get out of it. For instance, if each newsletter you write costs you $500 to write, layout, publish and mail, it is well worth that cost if it brings in $40,000 of business. There is no rule about what the ROI must be – but by definition, the more profit you make, the better your ROI. As is true of many endeavors, the real value of a monthly newsletter is what it can bring you in terms of repeat and referral business. This is because it costs far less to sell to a customer you have already converted than it does to try and find new customers for your business. Finding new customers can be costly, especially if you need to purchase leads from a company so you can send out direct mail newsletters.  

A monthly newsletter can help you build loyalty among your current customers because in addition to amusing or entertaining them, it offers you an opportunity to connect with them one-on-one. A newsletter should also serve as a way to tell your existing customers about new products, sales you are having or incentives for them to help you find new customers. Getting your existing customers to spread good word of mouth (or “word of mouse,” as it is sometimes called online) can mean saving a great deal of money on advertising. In fact, it is apparent that the real value of a monthly newsletter is in its function as a viral marketing tool. This only works if you can provide really valuable and unique information that relates somehow to the product or service you are selling. Having quality content is absolutely essential, or your current readers will not bother to pass your newsletter along to new or potential customers. This is because nobody wants to read recycled or stale information – that’s yesterday’s news!

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.