Amazing! I run a company called Newsletter Marketing Systems and I am telling you that newsletters don’t work.
Well, it is true there are instances that they don’t work. The first is when there is lack of scope of opportunity within a customer base to mean that retaining those customers is worthwhile.
No point sending a newsletter to someone who has brought once and will never buy again from you – cosmetic dentistry for example – no point trying to sell them another ‘full oral rehabilitation’ package, you need to be out there looking for a new customer.
Many other examples of this are in fact the limitations of the business owner’s beliefs rather than the limitations of the business. It is largely definitional. For example, when I was out selling roof restorations I had the same problem. They didn’t need another roof restoration for 15 years. The average home owner stays in their home for 7 years. So the odds of the repeat sale are slim.
Since I was in the roof restorations business and I sold roof restorations newsletters weren’t going to work for me.
That said, putting on my marketers hat, those same customers could have been induced to buy new guttering, water tanks, water saving devices, candidates for a gardening service, best of all, they could have been induced to refer new roof restorations clients to me.
But because I was stubbornly in the roof restorations business that sort of entrepreneurial/marketing think was beyond what I could do at the time.
The second reason Newsletters don’t work is because YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. Newsletters need to be read to have an impact. I’ve seen people with some horrid looking newsletters get some great results because the content was interesting to the market.
Common Causes Of Doing A Newsletter Wrong:
- 1. Thinking that your customers care as much about your product or service as you do. We have a very specific content formula which we advise our clients to use, to prevent this exact problem. Nobody wants to read a blatant pitch from you every month. Give up doing that. Engage them in other ways – after all, they already know your products are good. They are a customer already.
- 2. Not being willing to send a customer newsletter monthly. Jerry Jones famously says “its monthly or don’t bother.” Our customers that have had the best results with their newsletter send it monthly. No question about it. Quarterly doesn’t work anywhere near as well. You need to earn engagement from your customers, giving you the opportunity to profit from your existing customers. That warrants the investment in a monthly newsletter.
So you want to argue that newsletters don’t work? You may be right. Usually, it is because of circumstances almost always of your choosing that prevent them from working. I tell potential customers that for what we charge to write, design and mail your newsletter for you, the relative investment is minor, compared to the costs of losing that customer. And if you say you “can’t afford it,” then all I can say is I don’t know why you’d want them as a customer in the first place.