Newsletters That Keep Clients Coming Back

Do you send out a monthly newsletter to your clients? Quarterly? Randomly? Maybe your commitment to the newsletter is tempered by the results; if you got new work from clients every time you sent out a newsletter, you'd be more likely to devote the time and resources.

Do you offer them a compelling reason to call you? Do you ask them to respond? Do you give as well as ask?

Here are some pointers to help you motivate your clients to respond when your newsletter hits their inbox: 

Package services with Microsoft promotions. While there are plenty of Microsoft license promotions that you can announce to your clients, how about packaging the license up with your services? Instead of just announcing a BPOS promotion from Microsoft, offer a BPOS-plus-migration package deal. Make it easy for your clients to upgrade to current versions with everything -- licenses and services -- in one predictable package.

Call to action -- don't forget to ask. Often overlooked when creating a newsletter is the "call to action." Ask your customer to do something -- either sign up for a webinar or download a report -- at least once in your newsletter. Offer your customer educational content that will help them with their business, like a report or video. Label clearly with "Click Here to Download." It sounds simple, but if you don't ask your clients to do something, they won't. So ask!

Give/get ISV content. If you are an ISV, are you offering newsletter content and promotions to your resellers? Don't wait for them to ask -- they are just as busy as you are. Make it easy and send them a batch of articles that they can use in their upcoming newsletters. Get creative and figure out how you can roll your reseller's services into a promotional package to offer to their customers.

If you are a reseller working with ISVs, are you asking them to contribute content and promotions to your monthly newsletter? Most ISVs are happy to partner with you providing articles, webinars and other marketing content.

Give back to your community. When you read about successes of your clients in the local business journal, do you make a note? How about asking if you can mention the news in your newsletter? You get content that shows how successful your clients are and give that client additional recognition. Help them promote their business and they will remember when it comes time to upgrade.

Do you engage your clients with creative content? Please let me know about it and we'll share the knowledge.

Posted by Barb Levisay on May 03, 2011