Frequently Asked Questions

Let us answer some of the questions we often get by those who are curious about what newsletter marketing could do for their business.

1. Who should get my newsletter?
2. Why every month? How about 4 times a year?
3. It’s too expensive to do a newsletter?
4. Why not email my newsletter, email is free?
5. What can I do? I can’t write. I don’t have time to write and I am too busy to do my own newsletter!
6. How does this program work exactly?
7. What if it doesn’t work like you said it would?
8. What if I do a newsletter and it doesn’t get me any results?
9. Why are you guys able to do this?
10. How long will it take to get results?

1. Who Should get my newsletter?

Every customer, lead and person on your database whose mailing address you have. They all could become customers, refer you new customers, or provide you with repeat business. So you need to stay in touch with all of them. If you can’t invest another $50 or so per person, per year to maintain a relationship with them after all the money you’ve spent on marketing to get their mailing details in the first place, then perhaps you should be looking at ways to make your business more profitable per customer rather than getting more customers.

2. Why every month? How about 4 times a year?

Three months is a long time between drinks. Anything can happen. Your customers can wander off, forget about you or generally feel neglected – leaving them open to your competitors poaching them off of you. Generally, other publications that show up quarterly don’t get most people very excited. Like the magazine your health insurance company puts out 4 times a year.

‘Real’ publications tend to be monthly. Think about all those magazines that are in the business of keeping their subscribers up to date on trends and happenings on a topic. You should aim to be more like them rather than those quarterly things that get sent out.

Any respectable marketer will tell you that you should be doing at least 12 free touches a year to show your list that you care about them, although more is better. So why not get 12 free touches out of the way on autopilot?

3. It’s too expensive to do a newsletter

Okay. You may have a point. The question is, compared to what? Yes, it is cheaper to not send out a newsletter than to send one out.

A newsletter is actually fulfilling the role of customer retention.  So you have already spent money to acquire the customer, why would you spend all this money to get a customer and then not want to keep them? Let’s say you spend $100 getting the customer in the first place, why wouldn’t you be willing to invest $100 a year to keep them?

And that only measures their value in repeat business. What about potential referrals, purchasing other products through joint ventures etc…

In the end, you need to measure the Return on Investment not the cost. People in general tend to do what is cheapest, not what is likely to yield the best possible return.

4. Why not email it, it’s free?

Firstly, a month is a long time in cyber space. You really should be touching your database more often than monthly if you use email to stay in touch. At least once a fortnight and you are starting to remain relevant to their inbox. I know of many businesses that publish a daily ezine (online newsletter) for the purposes of remaining relevant to their customers and client’s inbox.

Compared to paper and ink, emailing a newsletter is cheaper.  However, there is something about receiving a present in the mail every month. When something arrives in the post, there is the joy of getting to unwrap your present.

It shows your customers you care enough about them to write something, have it printed and mailed to them. Email, despite being one of the most powerful mediums in the marketer’s arsenal, it doesn’t show you care about them in the same way. Besides, due to the nature of email, you are lucky if it even gets read once. And unless they think of someone in that exact moment that they get your email, it won’t get passed on. Once it is closed, odds are it is never getting opened again. Or put straight in the trash folder.

Printed newsletters tend to get passed around, shared and held onto long after almost any other form of marketing. So, why not take advantage of this?

5. What can I do? I can’t write. I don’t have time to write and I am Too Busy to do my own newsletter!

The best answer for a business owner is a little glib. You should learn to write and make time to do a newsletter every month. It allows you build a personal relationship with your clients and prospective customers. They get to see you are a fun, interesting person worthy of doing business with.

However at Newsletter Marketing Systems, we know that isn’t always practical. This is why we offer a turnkey newsletter solution. We create the fun, interesting content, we help you by writing articles specific to what is going on in your business, and put together offers that will mean that you have a measurable sales offer to put in front of each customer, every month. We handle the printing and mailing for you at a very reasonable price of around $30-50 per person per year. The price depends on the size of your list and few other extras – but that is about the cost.

A very good price considering many businesses couldn’t buy a customer for so little, and you get repeat business and referrals from the same piece of marketing.

6. How does this program work exactly?

During our newsletter suitability assessment, we’ll look at what’s right for you. You’ll probably fall into one of two categories.

The first category is “DIY”. This means that you have the time and resources and want to try implementing a newsletter yourself.  If this is the case, we will assist you with advice and guidance about what to include, how to lay it out, best practices etc. And we’ll also give you templates, general interest content, publication calendars, discount printing and lots of other bonuses.  However with this option, you are still the one behind the wheel, responsible for making things happen.

The second category is “Turn-key” or done-for-you. This has been designed for business owners who know they need a newsletter, but don’t have the time or energy each month to dedicate to getting it done. With this option, we agree on a publication calendar with you, each month we provide you with a professional designed newsletter for you to approve, we lay it out in your corporate image and include relevant and interesting articles and content. You can add as little or as much of your own content as you like each month or you can engage our writers to create specific articles or offers for you.

We’ve made this option as hassle-free as possible for you, so the only thing you need to do each month is supply us with an updated list of recipients and approve the newsletter content. We’ll do the rest! Writing, designing, printing and mailing. Generally, we mail on the fifteenth of the month.

7. What if it doesn’t work like you said it would?

We manage the mailings and your content so that you are at least 3 months in advance. We can handle changes in content up to 30 days out and additions to your mailing list 15 days out. The reason we do this is to have an almost zero chance of us not hitting our deadline.

If you are worried about results, we offer a 90-day money-back guarantee on this program. If you decide you don’t want to continue, we will refund your entire membership dues. We won’t refund your mailing costs – we aren’t in the business of financing your marketing.

8. What if I do a newsletter for a year and it doesn’t get me any results?

If you can’t track any results back to your newsletter, we will be surprised or more likely, be interested in your tracking methods.

However, if after one full year of using our newsletters you can prove that those newsletters didn’t make an iota of difference to your business in terms of more new customers, more repeat business from last year, then we will refund your entire purchase as our way of saying sorry for wasting your time.

9. Why are you guys able to do this?

Firstly, we have the combined experience in every aspect of creating and publishing newsletters. It is nothing more than ‘bread and butter’ for us. So it doesn’t worry us about what are we going to put in the next issue. We have all that planned out. We write and design for our respective livings. This is what we specialize in doing.

10. How long will it take to get results?

It depends on what shape your list is in. If it has been ignored for months or years or just pitched at constantly, it will take a while to nurture it back to full health. But all things being equal, you should be seeing good results somewhere between 6 to12 months. If you plan on ‘sticking your toe in the water’ and try a newsletter for a couple of months, then don’t bother. You are wasting our time and your money. You have to give before you will receive and with newsletters, that can take up to a year.

Get Started Now

Get started today by requesting our complimentary Newsletter Suitability Assessment. This assessment will clear the waters and make it obvious if a newsletter will work for your business or not. We’ll discuss your options, everything from DIY to our turn-key done-for-you options.  We’ll explain everything in detail and will even put together a publishing calendar to suit your needs. You can get started by clicking here.