I do. I have been since the second year of my business. That means I’ve been producing a newsletter for around 14 years now on a monthly basis. I missed a few months here and there in the early days but it has been monthly for quite some time now.
In the early days, it was printed and posted and I would periodically hear from people who had a copy passed on to them from the recipient. That was always nice to hear. I would sometimes use a guest writer for the main article but mostly I’ve written the articles myself, teaching clients and others about our industry and the services we can provide for them with the various tools and technologies available to us. Without doing a hard sell – I just like to share information and stories.
The newsletter shifted to email delivery around 1999 but I didn’t save them! I should have. The archive I have online dates back to July 2000.
What is the value of a newsletter? It keeps your name in front of people. I’ve often had people say to me that they had heard from me just when they had a new ‘job’ that needed doing and they were thinking about who to contact. Me, of course! But ‘out of sight’ often means ‘out of mind’ as well so a timely newsletter is ideal to prompt their memories.
Yesterday is a perfect example. I sent out my monthly newsletter and got a reply email from a company who was just thinking about how to contact me because they had a new job coming up – a fairly large one. I knew that not everyone on my list had seen the email yet – my broadcast system lets me know that, so to already have gained one job from the mail out is a good thing.
If you’re not yet doing a newsletter for your business contacts, don’t you think it’s time you did?
Melissa Williscroft says
I’ve only been operating for six months or so and have been overwhelmed by all the different marketing suggestions – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, Newsletters – Aaahhhhh!
But, I do agree that newsletters play an important part in the marketing mix. I subscribe to a few html newsletters myself, and I must admit that I do actually read them and often click through to the sender’s website or recommended links.
I figure that if I read them and find them useful then the majority (or at least some…) of the population must too so I’ve decided to bite the bullet and start producing a monthly newsletter of my own.
Now, I just have to get people to sign up for it………….
Kathie Thomas says
And this is a good start for you Melissa because your comment here will lead many of my readers to your newsletter too. Thanks for dropping by.
Beverly Mahone says
I love creating my monthly newsletter and I love it even more when I get feedback. It’s one thing to create it but if no one’s reading it, it becomes meaningless. That’s why I believe it’s important to be creative and engaging in your newsletters–like your blog–so people will look forward to reading it.