Free Marketing: 101 Low and No-Cost Ways to Grow Your Business, Online and Off

CHAPTER 42

A TARGETED NEWSLETTER AS A MARKETING MACHINE

One of the easiest ways to stay in touch with your prospects and customers is to have a regularly published newsletter. For the past several years my own newsletter has been one of my strongest sources of income and influence.

While some businesses may benefit from having a printed and mailed newsletter, I believe that nearly all businesses can and should have an e-mail newsletter. In my case my newsletter is a simple, text-only e-mail that is sent to the customers and prospects that have asked to join my mailing list. Over the years I've had hundreds of thousands of people join that list. Not everyone will stay on the list forever, but those that have stuck around for a long time have developed a great relationship with my business and me.

Here are some of the excuses and issues I run into when I suggest that clients or students of mine begin using newsletters in their business.

AREN'T NEWSLETTERS USUALLY A WASTE OF TIME?

One of the worst things that could happen with your newsletter project is that it would take on a life of its own and become a project that's done simply because it's always been done. It reminds me of the old corporate newsletters that I used to get when I worked for a conventional company. Once every month the newsletter would show up on my desk and I'd watch as everyone nonchalantly dropped their copy of the newsletter into the trash, unless it just so happened that their name or department had been ...