Email newsletters are a great way to keep in touch with your customers. You can inform them about your business, keep top of mind and most importantly, deliver helpful information. If you own a service business, sending an email newsletter is a must. It’s a simple way to connect with your customers and generate more revenue per customer. So if you don’t send a newsletter, make it your resolution in 2014 to get started. Here are some tips to get you going:
- Don’t be a 13-year-old. We all know that 13 year old who thinks the world revolves around her. She’s the center of the universe, and doesn’t care about anyone else. And she likes to throw things when she doesn’t get her way.
Don’t let your newsletter act like a 13-year-old girl. It shouldn’t always be all about you. Sure, you need to have information about your business in it, but don’t be selling in every newsletter. If you’re a green industry business, deliver tips about how to keep a lawn beautiful or helpful information about new smart controllers. Remember: People read things that interest them. So write things that interest your audience, not things that are self-serving. - Be Hemingway, not Joyce. Have you read Ulysses? I did in college. And I vowed then never to read a book that required a companion book to understand just what the heck was going on. James Joyce may have a great imagination and lots of style, but it’s hard to enjoy a book when you’re already confused halfway through the first chapter.
So be more like Hemingway than Joyce. Write short, punchy articles, not long, confusing ones. Get to the point. And remember that your newsletter can only be effective if it gets read, so do everything you can to make sure it gets read. That includes spending as much time crafting a great subject as you do on the newsletter itself. - Think Vin Diesel, not Daniel Day Lewis. Vin Diesel is the king of the action movie. If you want to see action, you watch a Vin Diesel flick. In contrast, Daniel Day Lewis never met a character he couldn’t become. But driving a fast car and blowing stuff up isn’t his forte.
You want your email newsletter to be more like Vin Diesel. You want your readers to take action based on your newsletter. So include links to web pages with more information. Include eye-catching graphic design that makes your reader's eye focus on the buttons and links you want them to click. Make it actionable, and your customers will do what you want them to do. - Be Whitney Houston, not William Hung. When you hear a Whitney Houston song, you know who is singing immediately. She has a distinctive voice that you immediately recognize. William Hung, famous for his terrible performance on America Idol almost a decade ago, has a voice that you’d rather forget.
So make sure your newsletter is more like Whitney Houston. Develop a distinctive voice or persona for your newsletter. If your brand is young and vibrant, make sure your newsletter’s voice and content is a little edgier. If you pride yourself on your professionalism and experience, mirror that image with professional writing and tips based on your years of experience. - Don’t use a fork to eat your cereal. Have you ever tried to use a fork to eat cereal? It’s not very easy, and in the end you end up picking up the bowl and slurping down the cereal and milk.
So make sure you’re using the right tool to create and send your email newsletter. If you’re like most service businesses, you have a central database with all your customer information, including email addresses. And you’ve got an email provider that you use to compose and send messages. Getting information from your customer database to your email provider can be a pain. So find ways to integrate your data with your email creation solution.
Hint: With our new service business marketing tool, HindSite Connect, you can do just that. With HindSite Connect, you get the best of both worlds – simple email creation with Constant Contact’s tools, and the ability to send emails from within HindSite with a few mouse clicks.
Creating a great newsletter can take time and effort. But done right, it can vastly improve your business’ visibility and lead to more loyal customers. And, ultimately, more revenue for your business.
Want more great tips on how to improve customer loyalty? Download our latest eBook, 20 Ways to Improve Customer Loyalty: A Guide For Service Businesses today!
