Newsletter Marketing Strategies

The real estate, insurance and mortgage industries have long known the value of printing newsletters; but newsletters are great for many other organizations as well. Unlike many direct-mail marketing strategies, newsletter marketing helps you connect with your customers on a personal level — establishing trust, authority and credibility. Here are the essential newsletter marketing strategies you should keep in mind when planning your next newsletter marketing campaign:

Just send it!

Sending to the right list is crucial to your newsletter marketing success. But how do you know who to send it to? For starters, you should send your newsletter to every current customer you have, and all leads you have not closed. To broaden your audience and generate additional leads and sales, try renting a good mailing list customized to your customer demographics and send your newsletter to them. Many people will read your newsletter if it's interesting, even if they've never heard of your organization before.

Create valuable content

Your newsletter should add value to your readers' lives: Craft relevant content that informs your readers and lends insight into current trends that affects them. Make sure you completely understand your audience and provide features, articles and sidebars that strike a chord with them. A newsletter aimed at commercial real estate investors could give advice for finding the perfect conditions for investing for short-term profit, for example. Include regular sections, features, columns and other exciting, entertaining and useful content — and skip the fun and games such as Soduku and comics — to keep your readers engaged issue after issue. Also, don't forget to feature your customers. Everyone loves to see their photos and images in print, whether it's a case study on how you helped them or a heartwarming story about a hobby relevant to your business. If your readers come to expect excellent content and resources, they'll look forward to your next issue each month!

Be conversational

Just because your newsletter content should be informative doesn't mean it should read like it was pulled from the annals of academia. Write with a light and conversational tone, one that offers a personal perspective your readers can relate to. You want your newsletter readers to call on you and other contributing authors as individuals. Include contact information and brief bios for each writer. It?s a great way to offer incentive for real estate and insurance agents to write compelling, interesting articles, because if your readers like their articles, they'll contact them directly.

Don't forget offers and calls to action

Your newsletter should not read like a sales pitch. Still, there's no reason you can't include advertisements for offers and calls to action that your readers should take to cash in on your offers. Highlight great discounts, free consultations, drive traffic to your website or even offer a coupon or free report in return for your readers' responses. Newsletters are a great vehicle for staying connected to your audience, so don't waste any opportunities to stay in touch. Continually greeting and helping each of your customers on a personal level can be difficult to do month-in and month-out. Newsletters bridge the gap between time and convenience. They offer a great way to let your readers know that you care, you know what you are doing and you're here to help whenever they need you.