You’ve read the statistics. Sending your clients and prospects a printed newsletter full of genuine, interesting, and beneficial content is the most optimal way to reach out on a consistent basis so they immediately think of you when they need your products or services. But subscribing to our monthly newsletter service doesn’t mean you’re entirely off the hook. As you’re about to read, you need a few tips to ensure printed newsletter success.
Have you ever reached out to a business, whether through email, phone, or social media, only to be put off for days or overlooked entirely? Just because you’ve decided to go rogue and do things the proper, old-fashioned way with a nicely packaged newsletter doesn’t mean you can ignore the rules of the digital era: be readily available and respond ASAP.
Clients are funny that way. They’ll take months to realize they need your service and then BOOM. They come calling from all channels, be it Facebook messaging, a phone call, an email, or your online chat, and they want to hear back from you NOW. We know. We get it. They took their sweet old time in getting there. But this is a population used to getting everything on demand or at least pretty darned close. Take 2-3 days or perhaps even several hours to respond, and you could very well lose them to your mediocre competitor, who has more time on his hands to answer the call of duty.
Here’s a few tricks of the trade: First, make sure that someone in your office is on email duty, checking for inquiries at least once per hour and responding within 15-30 minutes.
Second, unless you want to be checking your social media pages like mad, sign up for phone notifications in the settings of your social media pages. If you know you or your team members just don’t have time to respond to each and every notification, consider disabling your ability to receive messages through these channels. Keeping your message option enabled tells your customers and prospects, “This is a way to contact me.” Instead, include the channels you prefer to be contacted through, such as your email and phone number right in plain sight on your social media pages.
Note that messages are not to be confused with comments. You want to keep comments enabled, so you’re open for all the great potential feedback you can be getting on your posts. Just be sure to task someone with checking post comments at least once per day, but ideally three times: morning, lunch time, and early evening. This is especially important on the days you post, when you’re most likely to receive feedback.
Remember that printed newsletter success means that your newsletter will help bring in your customers. But imagine for a moment if you sent out a huge batch of newsletters, only to close your doors in the weeks following. That would be ludicrous! Nonsensical. A waste of great content and money.
Well, in the modern Digital Age, your website is an extension of your business. Even your current clients rely on visiting your website for important information, like your hours, new blog posts, or to use your online appointment maker.
As for your prospects, well, that’s a whole other audience to please entirely. In fact, we’d venture to say that not having a website for your prospects to visit is like online dating without posting pictures—you’re going to automatically be “suspect” and overlooked. And to think that you almost had them. They came across your newsletter. They loved the content. They thought you had great potential. But their natural inclination to do a little “online research” about you (a.k.a check out your website, your reviews, and your social media pages) proved to be a disappointing endeavor. Now they’re not so sure. Should they take a chance on you? Or should they contact your competitor, whose rockin’ website gives the appearance that they’re knowledgeable, fast, friendly, affordable, and all the other things they’re looking for?
Here are some things to consider for your website:
Imagine the following scenario. Your clients and prospects have just read an informative, wisdom-packed newsletter each month (great job on printed newsletter success!), written in a friendly, conversational tone. Thrilled at the prospect of having quite possibly found a “gem”, they call or send you an email, only to be greeted by a ho-hum (or even worse—cranky) voice. What a disappointment.
To your contact’s dismay, the voice you’ve presented in your newsletter and the voice on the phone (or tone in the email) aren’t matching up. Remember: your newsletter isn’t meant to be “just another marketing ploy.” But the minute your readers discover that the “face” behind the content is a sour one, the trust you’ve so easily established through printed newsletter success quickly dissipates.
Consider this: 78% of customers have abandoned a purchase due to poor customer service (Source: American Express Survey, 2011). Among your dissatisfied clients, 91% won’t willingly do business with you again (Source: Lee Resources). What’s worse…bad client service will reach twice as many people as good service (Source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs).
Now do you see? With printed newsletter success, you can easily round them up, but it’s up to you and your team to keep them dazzled. But wait. We like to think positive. And there’s a flip side here. 7 in 10 people will spend more with companies who provide excellent client service. (Source: American Express Survey, 2011). Wow! If that’s not incentive, we don’t know what is.
If you don’t subscribe to one of our newsletters, check them out here.