Constant Contact(R)

Trusted Email Marketing

Everytime I send out an e-newsletter for my business, I hear from a dormant customer or inactive lead asking me about my services.  Usually the email or call is from someone who doesn’t care at all about the subject in my newsletter. Just seeing “Ozdachs” in their inbox, reminded them that I exist and can help them with a web design or marketing problem.

Many of my clients send their own e-newsletters, and all of them but one say that they have the same reaction from their subscribers.  E-newsletters get them remembered, result in calls and emails, and earn them business.

On the other hand, my clients who don’t have newsletters yet say that sending out a regular communication to their clients sounds too complicated.  They don’t know how to start a newsletter and are too busy working in their business to spend the time to figure it out.

Here’s what I tell them: creating a newsletter to send to your customers is essential and doable.  

You need:

  1. Email addresses of your clients and of prospects who have asked you to keep in touch.  Your list should include friends,  people you know from professional networks, and anyone else who wants to hear from you about your work.
  2. An newsletter email service.  Normal email accounts limit you to some number — 10, 25, 100 — people at one time.  But, a mailing service will:
    • let you send to any number of addresses
    • provide you with professional-looking templates to improve your message’s impact
    • track bounced messsages, people who read the messsage, and clicks on the links in your e-newsletter
    • help you prevent your messages from being blocked as spam

    For most of my clients’ e-newsletters I use Constant Contact. In my opinion their templates are the most straight-forward to use, and their service has been excellent.

  3. Something to say. Something interesting. Your message doesn’t have to sell anything, but rather should inform your readers and remind them that you are available to help them. You probably have a few Frequently Asked Questions you can address in the first few editions of your e-newsletter.  Maybe you have a new product, a new service, a special to offer, too.  Each newsletter needs a call to action, and these can vary from “call us for more information” to “buy now”!
  4. Time to write the copy, layout the newsletter, and send it.  This is the most difficult step for my clients! Newsletter services let you create online, but all the products take time to learn and manipulate. And, although you need to write only a few paragraphs,  what you send should be grammatical! Your first newsletter can easily take 8 hours to produce, but as you get used to the tools and the process, a normal newsletter can be done in less than four.

Professionals — like Ozdachs! — can help with steps 3 and 4.   We can help develop your message, write it, format it, and send it.  Generally the cost is less than a traditional Yellow Pages ad and less than the cost of what our clients are simulatenously spending for Yelp and Google ads.

But, whether you do it all yourself or get production assistance, sending out an e-newsletter is no mystery.  You can do it in just 4 steps.