Where’s Your Newsletter?

Everyone seems to have a newsletter. Why?

Do they know something you don’t?

Newsletters are great marketing tools for small businesses. And if you don’t have one, you may be missing out on a valuable opportunity. After all, newsletters offer a simple and cost-effective way to provide value to both current and new customers.

Think it’s a waste of time? Here are three reasons to start a newsletter now:

1. Build a loyal following.

By sending out personalized, monthly newsletters, you can give customers important information to help them solve their problems. And if you provide tips and insights they can actually use, customers will begin to see you as a credible and valuable source of information.

Over time, they will tell their friends about you, and you’ll start to build relationships and a loyal following. Rather than just being a “cold” business selling products and services, you become a personal source of information and a valued expert with solutions to share.

And wouldn’t you rather do business with a real person who cares about your needs than a stranger who is just trying to sell you the latest gadget?

Plus, your newsletter-registration database becomes your sales list. You own it so that means you can use it to upsell current customers. And you can present special offers to turn newsletter-registrants into regular customers.

2. Increase communication “touch-points” quickly and easily.

When people sign up for your newsletter, they are giving you permission to contact them. And once they “opt-in,” you can send them a free eReport, an e-mail auto-responder-sequence, blog-entry notices, articles, surveys, and more. Just be sure to let them know what they will be receiving in advance, and keep their information private.

And the great thing about this is that you can write the materials once, and then send out the information automatically. Services like AWeber™,  Emma™, Constant Contact™ and others will take care of everything for you!

You can create your newsletter-registration form for your Web site, write personalized messages with simple templates, schedule distribution dates and times, and test various headlines, search-engine-optimization keywords and more. These systems even take care of spam and opt-out processes. All you do is write the copy and monitor results!

With today’s technology, it’s easy and affordable to create a newsletter process and communicate with customers. In fact, many services cost less than $20.00 per month to start.

3. Compete.

With a unique newsletter, you offer something different specific to your customers. You can sell your products and services directly to your opt-in list by providing value, news, expertise, feedback, and more.

With this communication process, you build a list of loyal followers and new customers who want to hear from you and how you can help them. Sharing your specific messages and discovering what your customers really want can give you a huge edge over the competition.

And just think… if your competitors currently have a newsletter, and you don’t, they are already stealing your potential sales! Ugh!

What are You Waiting For?

Newsletters offer a simple and cost-effective way to bring in new leads, market your products and services and get ahead of the competition by developing your own, opt-in list of customers.

And with today’s services, it’s easy to start the newsletter process and see results fast… so with this in mind, isn’t it time to take advantage of this valuable, marketing tool?

By Melanie Rembrandt