Three times this week I’ve had the opportunity to talk to folks about newsletters so I figured it was time to reiterate the importance of these frequency marketing tools again.
Frequency marketing tools are instruments that we use to keep your business in front of your customers, prospects, vendors and referral sources. Newsletters are just one of a cadre of common frequency marketing tools. Whether you elect to publish your newsletter in hard-copy or via some e-marketing tool like Constant Contact or Emma, your ultimate goal is to keep your name in front of prospects in a way that boosts your credibility as well as good will.
One of the biggest (and often most painful) mistakes that well-intending business owners make in the production of a newsletter is to set their sights too high and attempt to publish too often.
The frequency of your publication should be largely determined by how often your audience has the opportunity to buy or refer. For some companies, that could be weekly or monthly but for other organizations it might only be quarterly, seasonally or even annually.
Going out too often with a frequency campaign can be aggravating for the business owner and the recipient. Once you publish your first “monthly” publication, you may find yourself spending the entire next month stressing about how to keep up. By the time you get to month three, you may be burnt out and the issue is late.
The same thing can happen when you strive for too much content. Why write 4 pages and 2000 words when 2 pages or just a few 150-word articles will do?
Setting your sights too high will be the ultimate demise of your publication. Instead, start small and grow as appropriate. It will be much more fun for you and much more rewarding for the reader. In addition, in an era where readers are inundated with both dmail and email, they will appreciate that you took the time to be thoughtful about your message and your delivery. You’ll be soundly rewarded with greater readership — and for e-publications — higher click throughs.
For more on this topic, see Feb 22 post about selecting an e-mail marketing tool.