Many business owners underestimate the importance of a newsletter when it comes to their marketing strategy. They assume a newsletter will be too time-consuming or require too many resources. Many conclude a newsletter is nothing more than a “nice thing to have,” not an essential medium of communication with their audience.
This is a critical mistake.
When it comes to building relationships with your audience, increasing your perceived credibility, and enhancing your brand recognition, we cannot overstate the importance of a newsletter.
Here are just a few of the key ways a newsletter can supercharge your business.
Who Are We?
Before we start, we want to clarify that we’re speaking from experience. Founded on Jan. 25, 2011, Newsletter Pro started when most marketing experts were certain print was dead. We’re living proof of how wrong they were.
It’s been over a decade since then, and we have helped thousands of business owners across the U.S. provide captivating, meaningful content to their audiences. We write, edit, design, and distribute both print and email newsletters that resonate with readers from all walks of life — and we’re proud of it.
That’s why we’re so keenly aware of the importance of a newsletter for businesses. We’ve witnessed the results firsthand and can’t tell you how many entrepreneurs have come to us saying how grateful they are for their newsletter’s impact on customers.
Here are just a few of the key benefits they have mentioned.
Meaningful Relationships
If you’re not investing time in actively nurturing your current, former, and future clients, then you’re putting yourself in a precarious situation. Without stable, meaningful relationships, your clients will always be one negative experience away from dropping you for a competitor.Â
This is even truer when the economy dips into a recession and people have to reduce spending. Coupons your competitors send in the mail might start to look very appealing.
You need to make sure your audience likes you enough to stay.
But how do you do that? After all, you might have hundreds or even thousands of clients. How could you ever form one-on-one relationships with all of them? That’s where your newsletter comes in.
When you share personal stories, valuable information, and entertaining content with your audience, you build long-term relationships with them. Every time your customers meaningfully interact with your newsletter, their perception of your brand (and, by extension, you) will improve. Over time, that can translate to the following benefits.
Retention
Consumers are much less likely to leave businesses to which they feel emotionally attached.
This is why we encourage our clients to share personal stories and experiences in their monthly cover articles. Their newsletters provide the perfect opportunities to show their audiences they are more than just business owners. They’re real people, too.
After receiving the newsletters for a while, clients report heightened levels of brand loyalty. They feel like they know the business owner as more than just a dentist or a physical therapist but also a friend. We have had hundreds of clients report how vital those personal connections are to long-term retention.
We have even gotten this feedback from our own newsletter. Many of our readers report feeling like our founder is a personal friend. Over the years, they have learned about his insights, family, fears, and more — all through our content. Those connections translate to durable, long-term relationships with our clients.
Referrals
These deeper relationships often translate to more referrals as well. When your clients are excited to engage with your brand, they are far more likely to share that excitement with other potential customers.Â
At a minimum, this usually results in more organic referrals for your business. At best, your newsletter can inspire your clients to become unsolicited brand ambassadors for your business.
That’s the power of a well-written newsletter.
Reactivations
Customers choose to leave businesses for a variety of reasons. Still, as long as it wasn’t due to a poor experience, you always have a chance to win them back over time.
Newsletters provide an excellent means to keep up with former customers. Even if they are not actively engaged with your business, they can still enjoy and interact with your content. This allows you to stay top of mind with these individuals and ensure they know you are ready to serve them if and when you are ready.
If they need your services again, they will already have a strong affinity for your brand — significantly improving the odds that they will return.
But the importance of a newsletter does not end with building relationships with your audience. A well-written and designed newsletter can also increase your public perception in the following ways.
Increased Celebrity Status
If you want to become a well-known figure in your local market, there’s no better way than through personal, branded content.
Personalized content allows you to brand your business as more than just one choice among many in your niche but as your business. When you take the lead and market yourself as the face of your company, you can increase your perceived celebrity in your community. We’ve seen this result firsthand from our own publications. Through his books, newsletters, and seminars, our founder has become well-known in many circles as a content marketing expert.
This increased recognition has resulted in invitations to podcasts, seminars, networking events, and more. These opportunities have had a ripple effect, where the more our founder puts himself out there as an expert in his field, the more people know about him. The more people know about him, the more events he is invited to. The more events he attends, the more content he needs to support our brand.
You could use various avenues to distribute your content (like podcasts, books, webinars, etc.). However, one of the best places to start is a newsletter.
Compared with other forms of content, newsletters are easier to organize, distribute, and customize. They are also in shorter form, which makes it easier to be consistent and provide an avenue for long-term celebrity building.
By using a newsletter to associate your face with your brand, you are investing in relationship capital that can have long-term benefits. A heightened celebrity factor can also contribute to higher perceived expertise, leading us to our next point.
More Credibility
It may seem silly, but branded print publications can greatly increase your credibility.
People view print marketing materials as more trustworthy than digital materials. Being published (even if it’s your own publication) reinforces the idea that you have valuable information worth sharing through physical means.Â
Even if you don’t distribute your newsletter by print, providing consistent educational content can help to raise your credibility within your industry. When readers realize they can rely on you to provide valuable, niche information, they are more likely to view you as an expert in your field and raise your perceived credibility and expertise. So long as your content is consistently valuable and educational, you can reinforce the idea that you are a trusted expert within your field.Â
Provided Value
The importance of a newsletter is obvious when it comes to building value for your customers.
Many brands provide value for their clients exclusively through products and services, but competitors can easily replicate that utility. This often creates very tenuous relationships with customers, who might leave or even simply forget about the business if they have one bad experience or have not interacted with it for a while.
That is where a newsletter shines.
Newsletters connect using unbeatable engaging content. When your readers come to expect and even look forward to your unique content, they will be more likely to continue engaging with your newsletter and, in turn, your business.Â
Even if they do end up switching to a competitor, they will still be interacting with your brand on a regular basis. Over time, that exposure might even persuade them to return or consider referring you to friends and family.
This leads us to our next point.
Boosted Brand Recognition
A valuable, sharable, well-branded piece of content can go a long way to boost your brand recognition. When your newsletter provides entertainment value, readers are more likely to remember your business’s name and keep your publication.
That can have a major ripple effect down the road.
We have had medical clients keep all of our newsletters and use them as casual reading materials in their waiting rooms. We don’t ask them to do this — they do it because they love our content. In turn, those branded newsletters have a long, public shelf life, perused by dozens of potential customers.
We have even had customers who read through our newsletters and share them with their friends and families. Some of these family members sign up to start receiving their own copies. Many eventually convert to paying customers.
Not to mention that every time your clients interact with your content, your brand recognition and industry perception improve. After enjoying your newsletter for several months, customers are more likely to remember your brand name and services, keeping you top of mind with them even when they typically only seek products and services from your business.
Talk about a great ROI!
You Stand Out From The Competition
While many businesses (especially major businesses) do send out newsletters, they are often poor quality. Brands can get caught up in the trap of believing they need to create overly specific, niche content for their newsletters. This can result in lackluster, repetitive stories that bore their audiences and do more harm than good.
And that’s not only the case for larger brands. It’s especially uncommon for small businesses to put together impressive newsletter content that consistently delivers value to the readers. If you can be the exception and create a truly great marketing newsletter, you will be in the minority of businesses.
This is even more likely if you decide to implement a print newsletter campaign as well. Most businesses deliver their newsletter only by email, which is a saturated market. This means their hard work is more likely to end up in the trash or a spam folder.
In comparison, a print newsletter has a unique charm and intrigue that is more likely to engage your readers. With very few businesses delivering print, your newsletter is much more likely to draw attention when delivered by direct mail.Â
These results can be even more impressive when you combine print and digital communications.
So, when it comes to setting up an impressive relationship marketing campaign, we cannot overstate the importance of a newsletter. An excellent way to connect with your audience, a newsletter provides a means for you to consistently deliver valuable content to your readers. Over time, this can translate to stronger relationships, higher perceived credibility, advantages over your competition, and more.
If you’d like to learn more about the importance of a newsletter for businesses, fill out the form below to claim your free copy of our founder’s book, The Ultimate Guide to Newsletters.
