Email newsletters are a central part of Houston Technology Group's marketing strategy. I use them to inform clients of our expertise by offering compelling and educational expert content. In return I get a lot of leads.
While I receive electronic newsletters regularly, I get almost none from Bay of Plenty firms. Why do so few local businesses use this channel when paper after paper is published about the effectiveness of such marketing? I offer two main reasons.
Many people assume they are not qualified to write. They are fearful their writing may be scrutinised by other experts (maybe even their competitors) in their field. This is unwarranted. If you are articulating a subject on which you have built your business, then you are likely to know more about that topic than your readers. Also, you have control over whom you send your publication to.
The second barrier is simpler to understand, but much harder to combat. Most business people feel they don't have enough time to write. Writing for mass readership is a very time-consuming affair for the majority of us. You are judged not only on your expertise in the subject, but on the eloquence of your writing. You need to deliver value or the newsletter simply gets deleted or the reader asks to be unsubscribed.
I believe newsletters give businesses enormous marketing value. First, they assert the writer as an authority, a trusted adviser. Second, they allow the business to create regular touch points with its clients at very low cost. Business in New Zealand is based heavily on relationships, but they are very expensive to create and, once formed, they wane easily. Contact through meetings and phone calls is fantastic for relationships but very costly in time. Newsletters provide ideal touch points to augment the personal interactions.
To get even greater value out of your electronic marketing, you should try to customise your messages to different market segments. During the agricultural fieldays, accountants may want to write about farming financial matters and send that communication to just farming clients. Another newsletter about changes in personal tax rates may be directed at all clients.
This level of customisation will improve readership and client empathy but would be very laborious, unless you employ a technology like CRM (Client Relationship Management) to assist.
Here are three tips that can help to make your email newsletter a "must read" issue after issue:
1. Provide value. Your topic must be interesting, relevant and add value by improving the readers' knowledge.
2. Be succinct. Try and focus on only one subject and keep the article short.
3. Make it easy for your readers. Don't send newsletters as PDF attachments; use HTML instead. The effort of having to double click to open an attachment can have a deleterious impact on readership.
- Alan Chew is a chartered accountant and founder of Houston Technology Group, an IT firm operating in the Bay of Plenty and Waikato.