One of the main reasons for having a newsletter is to build a relationship with your clients and prospects.
A way to deepen that relationship is to encourage readers to interact with your content.
Increasing the amount of interaction has several benefits:
- People spend longer with your newsletter – and hence with you
- People change from passive consumers to active participants, developing a more substantial relationship with the newsletter and with you
- People have reason to interact with you in multiple ways, such as visiting your website, asking for information or calling your office, giving your a further chance to deepen the relationship and make a sale
- You get to test the success of each edition of your newsletter by evaluating the level of interaction it creates
So how can you encourage clients to interact with your newsletter?
Special reports and free gifts:
Use your newsletter to promote some free, relevant information you can offer to prospects and clients. For example, if you are a real estate agent, offer a guide on staging your house to help it sell more quickly.
Offering free information reinforces your position as an expert – not a salesperson, helping develop trust and respect among your prospects and clients.
Encourage readers to contact you to request this guide. This will give you the chance to talk directly with prospects and clients and further develop the relationship. Perhaps even make a sale!
Quizzes and puzzles:
Include a fun quiz or puzzle in your newsletter. People love this kind of stuff and will keep your newsletter around the house until they have a minute to complete the quiz or puzzle.
Put solutions to the games on your website so that people are encouraged to visit your site.
You can count the number of visitors to the solutions page of your website to evaluate the effectiveness of that month’s newsletter.
Competitions:
Give away a prize in return for reader interaction. Launch a competition and then publish the winners in the next edition. Books or gift certificates make great prizes.
Reader contributions:
Give space to your clients to tell their own stories. You’ll add powerful proof that your product or service works, helping encourage further sales.
The idea behind all this is to keep people engaged with you, keep them coming back to you, and to keep your product or service at the front of prospects’ and clients’ minds. And the aim of all that, of course, is to increase your number of active, regular clients.