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Marketing with Newsletters
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Business New Haven
10/19/1998
By: Deborah Ketai
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Marketing newsletters sure ain't what they used to be.
In the old days, they were printed, paper-based publications, typically four to 16 pages, mailed to customers, clients and prospects en masse. Today they could just as easily come in the form of postcards, faxes or e-mails - even as files available for download from a company Web site.
Still, their purpose remains the same: Newsletters fill a business' need for repetitive, periodic contact with a defined group of people. While they may no longer always qualify as direct “mail,” they are still a great tool for direct marketing, whether to 3,000 people or to 30.
Unlike commercial newsletters, which pay their own way with subscription fees, marketing newsletters come out of the marketing budget (though some defray expenses by accepting advertising from complementary businesses). The free “subscriptions” are used to build awareness, credibility and, most importantly, relationships over the long haul.
Newsletters shine when it comes to marketing products or services that prospects find confusing. Example: telecommunications consulting services. The quarterly newsletter put out by New Haven's TelPro Associates, for instance, explains how issues like the SNET strike or the Y2K computer problem affect business phone customers. Vice President Nancy Wickett says the TelPro newsletter tries “to take industry gobbledygook and present it in English so people can work with it.”
Which brings us to content.
Successful marketing newsletters accomplish two seemingly contradictory tasks: They satisfy their readers' needs for reliable information and impartial advice, while marketing - or even selling - to those same readers.
In fact, many marketing newsletters turn off readers simply by coming across as promotional material, rather than as value-added. The way to avoid this trap is to choose content carefully, concentrating on readers' needs and interests.
Wickett says TelPro's goal is to make the newsletter as informative as possible. In the past, content has skewed toward hot topics in the telecom industry. Lately, though, TelPro has been trying to get more specific feedback on what subjects concern readers most. Soon, the company plans to start sending out monthly one-page topical blurbs - in effect, a second newsletter - to its list of more than 225 clients, allies and prospects.
Will anyone complain about getting more mail from TelPro? Unlikely. Says Wickett happily, “We've had several people who have said, 'Whatever you do, don't ever take me off your mailing list.'”
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