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The Benefits of Email Newsletters
By John Meyer, Wellworks Inc.
This article is not about sending your
customers common email using your ordinary email application. Boring! Not
only boring but most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in their attempt to
eliminate or reduce junk mail, are making it harder and harder for you to
send emails to more than one person at a time. This article is about how
integrated email marketing publications can promote you and your business’s
personality, build customer loyalty, and reach new customers.
How much money do you spend on marketing?
How much time do you take marketing to new prospects versus existing
clients? How much time would you like to spend on marketing? And how much
money would you like to spend? Or should I ask how much time and money would
you like to save?
Let’s consider some of the benefits of
email newsletters.
Email
newsletters save money. When you put a direct mail campaign together
(postcard, letter, hard copy newsletter, etc.) you have several costs
involved. The cost of creating the marketing piece, employee time, your time
or cost for an agency to do it, the production cost of the direct mail piece
itself, as well as the cost of postage stamps. A recent study by McKinsey
and Company shows the average cost for direct mail is $2.00 per direct mail
piece versus 3 to 10 cents per email.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a cost savings
like that? You could invest it back into your business for equipment,
personnel, or the bank for the next rainy day.
Email
newsletters get results. When you send a direct mail piece (such as a
postcard, a letter) what kind of response do you get? How many postcards or
letters did you send? Jupiter Communications reports that the average
response rate for direct mail is 1-2% (that’s generous in my opinion).
Compare that to typical email marketing response rates of 15% - even higher
if you have good email list(s)!
Hmm, let’s see, a 15% response rate for
email marketing that costs on average 3 to 10 cents per message, compared to
a 1-2% response rate for direct mail that costs $2.00 per message.
You can
see, immediately, the effectiveness of your email newsletters.
The better services provide this. When you deliver a postcard or direct
mail piece, do you know when it’s thrown in the trash? What sections of your
brochure or hard copy newsletter are read? How do you gauge how your overall
marketing campaign is doing? The best email marketing and publishing
services, including
Wellworks Communiqué, provide detailed reporting. You can track how many
emails were sent, how many people actually opened your messages, how many
bad email addresses you have, how many unsubscribed, how many read specific
portions of your newsletter. It’s great, because you can review these
reports and see who’s reading your article, your new trainer bio, your
recipe. Using this information allows you to produce an even better email
newsletter next month.
Email
newsletters increases customer loyalty - not satisfaction, loyalty.
When you get email from a company whose product or services you appreciate,
do you subsequently do more or less business with them? If the email is well
written, and its call-to-action clear, you’re probably going to be a return
customer. With any business on-going client communication is essential for
building customer loyalty. According to Midnet Media, frequent
permission-based email newsletters reduce customer attrition. You will be
able to keep clients informed about what’s happening at your business, about
new employees, special events, and special sales. Midnet Media also reports
that regular email marketing to existing customers generates a 15-50%
increase in total business.
Once you have sent one or two of these
custom designed email newsletters your customers will know that it is useful
and informative information from a person they trust. Then that “send to a
friend” feature you’ve added to your email newsletter will really come in
handy and you can watch your client list grow and grow… in a very cost
effective, permission based way.
Good luck to you and your business. Save a
tree, send email newsletters!
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