#183
How do company newsletters make big sales?
Easy. If you do it right.
Does your company have a newsletter? Most companies do these days. If yours is a bunch of inside talk, photos of employee bowling parties, and birth announcements shame on you.
The objective of a newsletter is to inform employees, vendors, and customers alike what’s really going on and feature vital information that affects the way your customers impact (do business with) your company.
You see, without customers the need for a newsletter is nonexistent.
Why not make your newsletter a vehicle to increase sales, build customer loyalty, eliminate competition, increase referrals and let everyone live happily ever after? You can and the best part is, it’s easy and inexpensive.
Newsletters tell news through stories. Let the stories be told through your customers. Make them the heroes. You can still tell stuff about your people (and if you’re adamant about telling everything about all your employees to every other employee make two separate newsletters).
Here are suggested newsletter components. Not all have to be in every newsletter, but the common thread is customers and photographs:
Big headline about customer with their name.
Tell stories about happy endings that make the customer the hero.
Talk about partnership strategies.
Tell stories about industry trends and how they affect customers
how others are using our products (near by or far away).
Welcome new customers!
Feature story about success of a customer by using your product.
Feature story about our employees and how he/she serves customers, the community and their family.
Tell stories of employee achievement (ours and theirs).
Feature story about product application in a customer’s place of business (it’s more important to know how your product is used than how your product is sold).
Feature story about new product at a customer location.
Feature story about heroic customer service.
Lots of photographs of customers, customers, customers.
Lots of photographs of employees and customers working together.
Show the golf tournament, the trade shows, the seminars. Events where customers interact with employees
Get personal about the philosophy of selling, serving and success.
Show how your partnerships are working.
One absolute the newsletter is an example of your companies quality. It’s not just news it’s your image. It must be professionally designed, and printed on high quality paper by an experienced first class commercial printer.
After they’re printed, get them into the marketplace quickly. Lots of them. Here’s the distribution list: Your customers, your prospects, your vendors, and major people of community or industry influence.
Take at least an extra hundred copies to each featured customer (or whatever quantity they want they may want to mail it to all of their customers).
Frame one copy for the customer most featured. When you deliver the stack of newsletters you want them to mail to their customers, keep in their lobby, and give top their employees (especially the ones with the photos of them in it), you will surprise and delight them. It will be hung in a place of honor.
Here’s a few more things to think about:
Think the customer will show the story around the town? A hundred times? You bet.
Think those photographs will be reshown by the people in them? A hundred times? You bet.
Think the customer’s loyalty to your company grows? A hundred times? You bet.
How do you think your competition will feel when he calls on your customer, and sees your newsletter framed in their lobby with a bunch of happy people and a big headline? A bit deflated? You bet.
Think you may get a few unsolicited referrals from the gesture and the publicity? You bet.
Let’s see here a vehicle to increase sales, build customer loyalty, eliminate competition, get more referrals sounds like a sure thing. Almost. Last piece of advice do it before your competition does.
FREE GitBit… Want a sample newsletter? An example of how someone else is using a newsletter to build their business. Just Just go to www.gitomer.com click FREE STUFF then click GitBit register and enter the secret word, “NEWSLETTER”.
Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, and Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless. President of Charlottebased Buy Gitomer, he gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts training programs on selling and customer service. He can be reached at 704/3331112 or email salesman@gitomer.com
1999 All Rights Reserved Don’t even think about reproducing this document without written
permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer 704/3331112.
