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 the 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 a 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 (nearby or far away).
- Welcome new customers!
- Feature story about the 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 company’s quality. It’s not just news, it’s your image. It must be professionally designed and produced. Here’s the distribution list: Your customers, your prospects, your vendors, and major people of community or industry influence.
Here are a few more things to think about:
Think the customer will share the story? A hundred times? You bet.
Think those photographs will be shared by the people in them? A hundred times? You bet.
Think the customer’s loyalty to your company grows? A hundred times? You bet.
Think you may get a few unsolicited referrals from the gesture and the publicity? You bet.
Use your newsletter as a vehicle to increase sales, build customer loyalty, eliminate competition and 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. Go to www.gitomer.com, click Access GitBit, register if you’re a first time user and enter the word “NEWSLETTER” in the search box.
