Let’s dig deep into my inbox to answer more of your questions about newsletters.
Here comes the first one.
How often should I send a newsletter? Is quarterly enough?
This is the #1 question I get. The best answer is that you should send it as often as you can. A small newsletter, more often, is better than a long newsletter every quarter.
If you send your newsletter too infrequently, please will forget about you and you will lose business. So, I suggest at least monthly.
Now, I realize that if you are printing and mailing a newsletter, there is a cost involved. But I urge you to think, over the long term, how much extra business will you earn by contracting people frequently? In almost all cases, the result is strongly positive.
OK, on to the next one.
Haven’t newsletters been overtaken by social media? They seem so old-fashioned now.
You should be doing both, but if you are going to choose one, choose newsletters over social media.
There are two reasons for this:
1) Newsletters allow you to show much more of your expertise and create a much deeper relationship than social media does, simply because you have more space.
2) Newsletters are more easily seen by your clients than social media. When you send an email, it appears in their inbox, and when you send a printed newsletter, it shows up in their mailbox. But social media posts can get lost in the stream of cat pictures, famous quotes and other trivia that cram our news feeds.
Oh, and one extra reason: with newsletters, you control the contact data of your client – you have their email address and mailing address. With social media, that data belongs to Facebook and Twitter. Do you want Mark Zuckerberg to control the future of your business?
Next question.
Where do you get all your content from?
Our articles are written especially for our newsletters each month.
Here’s what happens.
Around 20th of the month, our editor (Frances) is in touch with each of our writers. We have about 15 writers that we use on a regular basis. Some are journalists, others are writers who specialize in a particular industry.
Frances works with each of the writers to come up with topic ideas. This is particularly important when it comes to the specialized subjects as our writers are in touch with what his happening in their industry.
When a topic is agreed on, the writer goes to work researching and writing. The finished article is delivered to Frances about three weeks later, when it goes into the editing, proof-reading and production process.
OK, I think that’s quite enough for today.