Yesterday I sent out my bi-monthly e-Newsletter to my subscriber list and added a few new clients. I received complimentary emails from all the clients on the e-Newsletter’s format and copy, which of course made me happy.
However, we’re not a large company. Even though it’s just The Cowboy and me, there is still great value in creating an e-Newsletter for customers, clients, and prospects. We’re able to deliver content that is helpful to our list, plus keep in touch with them, which as you’ll see, can be good for business.
I Wouldn’t Have Thought of You, But for That e-Newsletter…
Last year, I did several projects for a client that included web copy and trade show collateral. As with some clients, once those projects were finished, that was the end of my involvement with their marketing.
In May, I started my bi-monthly newsletter. Three months later, I get an email from this client, asking if I’d be available for more projects. During a phone chat, he said, “By the way, congratulations on your newsletter. I really like it. And to be honest, if it weren’t for your newsletter, I don’t know if I would have thought to contact you.”
That is a perfect example of why you want to offer a free e-Newsletter, even if you’re a solopreneur. In fact, I’d go so far as to say especially if you’re a solopreneur, you need one.
e-Newsletters Deliver Top of Mind Awareness
In marketing circles, the phrase “top of mind awareness” is a concept understood by those involved with email marketing and other customer facing activities.
The idea is this: customers and prospects are crazy-busy. Continual marketing promotions such as e-Newsletters are a way to remind them you exist and you’re available to help if they need it.
This type of outreach is vital for every type of business, no matter how large or small they may be. Although consumers are experiencing a deluge of promotions in their inboxes, 77 percent of them still prefer to receive promotions in this manner.
The well-known sales adage says that it takes seven “touches” to turn a “suspect” into a prospect. These “touches” can be anything from blog posts to videos to an e-Newsletter. This is why it’s so important to develop content and to publish it continually. Your prospects (who don’t realize yet that you exist), need multiple efforts to reach them in order to finally notice you.
Just yesterday, MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute partnered together to publish the B2B Content Marketing 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends – North America report. One finding was that marketers were using an average of 13 marketing tactics.
And the third most common tactic was e-Newsletters.
Consumers are starting to get used to e-Newsletters and now are expecting this type of outreach. However, they want useful information for their lives, not straight sales pitches.
We’ll talk more about what you want to include in an e-Newsletter, but I encourage you to at least consider it if you’ve not done so before. It’s probably one of the least costly ways to market your business.
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Photo credit: Paul 李加乂 Li / Foter / CC BY-NC
