Newsletters are one of the best means of communications that your company can use to develop and grow strong, healthy, profitable customer relationships.

Here are a few things to consider when you produce a friendly monthly customer newsletter. 

• Be consistent. Don’t start a newsletter campaign only to deliver two editions and then stop your efforts. People want to get regular updates and useful information. If you start a newsletter, only to lose steam and quit you will be doing your business a disservice. People also place a higher value on things that arrive on schedule every month, such as magazines and utility bills!
• Steer clear of excessive self-promotion. Newsletters should be focused on the readers, not the writers. Give real value to your readers by offering solid, helpful articles and resources. Don’t use your newsletter to puff up your ego or as a covert sales pitch. You will be doing better promotions for your business by avoiding these tactics and offering useful information to your readers instead.
• Use smart formatting. Don’t use large blocks of unbroken text. Format your information so that it is pleasing to the eye and inviting to potential readers. Use graphics, but don’t overuse them. Graphics should add to and accentuate your written content. Many people get too excited about fancy graphics and end up overshadowing the important information in their newsletters. Using graphics sparingly increases their impact.

Take a smart, balanced approach to the production of your company newsletter. Remember that you are producing your newsletter for readers, so keep the focus on meeting their needs. If you incorporate these tips into your newsletter, you are sure to get some great results in increased customer loyalty and converting prospects into customers. Remember that being successful in business today is contingent upon being relevant to your target audience. Use your newsletters as a way to show your customers and prospects that your company is relevant to their lives.

For more helpful tips on producing a great customer newsletter that gets results, please visit No Hassle Newsletters at www.NoHassleNewsletters.com.

The back page of your company newsletter is not simply the mailing panel. It is the first thing your readers will see when they take the newsletter out of the mailbox or when they come upon the newsletter in a stack of mail. Use that space to its best advantage and you’ll be surprised at the results you will get.

This is why the back page is so important:
The vast majority of newsletters are designed as self-mailers and folded. On one side of the fold is the mailing panel. On the other side is the prime real estate section, because when a newsletter arrives, other than the mailing panel, this is the first section of the newsletter that is seen—and usually read. You want an important message to go in this section.

The back page is also a great place to make a personal connection with your customers using “personality based” writing. What do I mean by personality-based writing? Well, if you’re a subscriber and you get my e-mails, most of those are personality-based. In my weekly ezine (www.JimsNewsletter.com) I talk about my family, my new dog, Toby, and the fact that my wife and I like to go kayaking, things like that. You want to share a little bit about your personality.

Watch my episode of Newsletter Guru TV on this very topic!

The best way to write conversationally on the back page of your company newsletter is to speak directly to the reader in the first person. Use the word “you” often, and include personal examples rather than general information. For example, “This month we’ve created a special deal just for you, our valued customer.” Your customers will feel more of an affinity with copy like that, that reaches out and uses the word “you.” Then they’ll want to read the rest of your company’s newsletter.

To learn more about back page design click the image and watch my episdoe of Newsletter Guru TV titled, Newsletter Design – The Expensive Real Estate. For other amazing newsletter marketing strategies, get a copy of my book, The Magic of Newsletter Marketing – The Secret to More Profits and Customers for Life at www.newsletterpublishingmagic.com. If you want to learn more about the best ‘ready-to-go’ newsletter program ever, check out No Hassle Newsletters at www.NoHassleNewsletters.com.

It’s a proven fact that a monthly customer newsletter can help your businesses grow. Here are seven ways a newsletter will help you market and grow your business.

# 1: Newsletters Help Keep Customers

Your current customers hold the best prospect for future growth. Plus, the longer they are customers, the more they are likely to spend with you. A monthly company newsletter helps you stay top-of-mind with your current customers. When your newsletter arrives, your customers start to think about you. Issue after issue, your newsletter reinforces your relationship with your customers and gives you a way to tell them about products and services they may not know about.

# 2: Newsletters Help Get New Customers

You want your newsletter to help you get new customers. Informative articles give your newsletter what marketing pros call “pass-along value.” Your newsletter makes it easy to pass on the information. Because people read newsletters as a publication and not a marketing piece, a newsletter is a great way to tell potential customers about your business.

# 3: Newsletters Help Build Credibility

When people read your brochure, they treat it as a piece of marketing literature. But when they read your newsletter, they read it like a publication. Your newsletter also gives you the opportunity to tell people stories about what you do and how well your products work. You can illustrate the benefits of your product or service with statistics and customer testimonials.

# 4: Newsletters Help You Stand Out from Your Competition

Since you decide the direction and content of each newsletter, you can differentiate yourself from others—especially the larger businesses who typically do not produce customer newsletters.

# 5: Newsletters Enhance Your Reputation

Your customers may not be ready or need your product or service today, but when they are, they want an experienced professional. People want to do business with someone they trust, so when they are ready for what you offer, they’ll turn to you.

# 6: Newsletters Help You Build Your Brand

Branding is the art of making people aware of who you are, what you do, and how you’re different from and better than the competition. You want to have a little bell go off in people’s heads when they hear your name. You want them to say, “Oh yes, they’re the people who . . .” When your newsletter is delivered at the same time each month, it will build up a level of importance. It will help build your brand, which will help your business grow.

# 7: Newsletters Have a Longer Shelf Life than Other Types of Marketing

Newsletters are portable; they go everywhere. Newsletters that are informative, fun, and easy to read are not thrown away. People pass along newsletters to friends, business associates, or even their neighbor. This is a huge benefit of producing a newsletter.

If you listen to some experts in customer relationship marketing they’ll tell you that good ‘old-fashioned’ printed newsletters are “back!” When it comes to tried-and-true marketing tools, those that mean evergreen profits for companies each year, printed newsletters always work. In fact, I don’t believe that printed newsletters are really experiencing a comeback at all because printed newsletters never went away!

There are a few reasons that many entrepreneurs and small-business owners don’t even like to think about printed newsletters. The first is that they think design and layout will be too expensive. Second, they feel that there will be enormous distribution and mailing costs. But the two most popular reasons people give for not producing a monthly print newsletter is that it takes too long and they don’t know what to write about.

So why are printed newsletters still so eternally effective?

• Print is still the preferred way to read larger documents.
• Print doesn’t have to compete with as much “noise” as e-mail does.
• Physical mail can be scanned quickly and the junk thrown away.
• Your customers look forward to it
• They’re not seen as just another sales solicitation
• Newsletters are an effective way to introduce new products and services
• Print newsletters are a highly-effective ‘referral’ tool

Yet another reason that the printed newsletter works well is that it shows the customer that you are successful enough to invest a little bit of money in your business in the form of a print newsletter. It adds credibility to what you say.

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