Do Newsletters Work?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Deborah Yaffee CH CN on January 25, 2012 at 10:58am

Bill....are you already doing a newsletter?  I suspect you are because you stated very clearly that they are a lot of work...I know they are for me!  

I am finding that my newsletter doesn't do much in the way of getting new business but it does keep me in people's minds.   What is working for getting me more business is my video marketing tool suite with a trackable video email service.  I haven't tried this out with my hypno work , just with our cooking classes.   When people SEE you and HEAR you talking to THEM , they seem to respond a lot more...and when we create something fun or a live recipe tip, people forward the video email to their friends.  If you want to know what service I am using, send me a message here and I'll send you the link.  

I also think doing the free publicity activities is worth spending time on.

Hope this helps.

Debbie Y

Permalink Reply by Barry Neale on January 25, 2012 at 11:32am

Hi Bill,

 

Personally i think newsletters are great. In the "good" old days before the internet became popular I used to send out via snail mail quarterly newsletters and always got a good response. And that was with the extra cost of posting!

 

One of the reasons that I think this is useful is because many clients are not really aware of all the things hypnosis can be used for. A client who comes in for stopping smoking almost certainly won't know that hypnosis works for pain, IBS or fibromyalgia. An informative newsletter with client success stories can really help to spread the news.

 

I trained with some of the big names in direct marketing such as Jay Abrahams, Bill Myers and Gary Halbert and they all recommend keeping in touch with clients and enquiries with newsletters.

 

I have had several clients over the years who when I asked them, "have you been hypnotised before" they said yes and it worked really well. So when I asked them why they didn't go back to that hypnotist they said "Oh I can't remember who it was!"  Imagine that. You do a really great job and the person is delighted but they forget who you are so you don't get any repeat business or any referrals! Good grief! It makes me shiver!

 

I have had people phone me up and tell me they are moving so could I send the newsletter to the new address!

 

With free email marketing it is soooo much easier. I wouldn't recommend you do it overly frequently. One a month for a newsletter is fine or once a week for something like, "Weight Loss Tip of the Week"

 

It really doesn't take a lot of work either if you are savvy. Just go to elance and ask someone to write 12 newsletters on hypnosis/NLP. There are many writers there who will do that extremely cheaply. You can then ad testamonials etc or get the writer to add them in. It really doesn't cost that much. However do ask to see a copy of their work and read their feedback.

 

hope this helps

 

Barry

Permalink Reply by Bill Kennedy on January 25, 2012 at 2:04pm

Thank you very much Deborah and Barry.  No, I don't have a newsletter right now, but I used to write one for the consulting firm I worked for and I maintained a business blog for several years.

Are there any metrics you use to measure success in this area?

Permalink Reply by Craig Eubanks on January 27, 2012 at 11:42am

HI Bill,

Your question is really 2 questions in one.   Allow me to seperate them:

1. Does sending out newsletters bring in business?

2. Does email marketing bring in business?

Let me start with #2 first, and the answer is YES!!!

This happens to be one of my top areas of expertise.  I have used email marketing to bring in Millions of $$$ for my clients.

I set a record for one day sales on the Hypnostore with a single email. And with a couple of emails, I helped Melissa Roth sell more of her book on Physician Referrals in 4 days then she had sold in 6 months

In December I taught a marketing seminar in Tampa for Hypnotists, and I spent about 50% of the time on this topic.  Because almost no one in the hypnosis profession is using email marketing and the ones who are do it incorrectly.

I obviously can't cover all that material here, but one of my main points was this:

So EVERY chance you get to follow up with prospective clients, increases your conversion rate.

Email makes this easy and you can AUTOMATE it!  This requires work upfront, but you build it once, run forever. (with minor tweaks every so often).

Now about question #1.  Newsletters...

Newsletters can be very useful.  My experience has shown that for a client based business the newsletter is best at getting repeat business from existing clients.

If you try to send 'generic' newsletters to prospects, you don't focus on their burning problem and they will go look elsewhere.  For a prospect, a focused email series on how you can help them get over fear of flying will convert way better than a monthly newsletter about hypnosis.

If you wanted to put energy into sending out emails, I would build targeted autoresponder series for your TOP 3 money making issues.  Put at least 10 emails in each one.

Note: Do NOT use Constant Contact for this.  Their system sucks for this kind of email marketing.  I'll spare you my rant as to all the problems they have.

2 services I recommend are:

1. Send Pepper (http://SendPepperTrial.com)

Full featured email service provider and CRM customer database system.  Can also send out postcards as part of a sequence.  About $29/month.

This is the ONLY system I recommend to my clients.

2. Mail Chimp (http://MailChimp.com)

Much lower cost if you are on a budget.  Can actually use it for free, but you don't get automation unless you pay.  Can do a pay-as-you-go account starting at $9.  Easy to use and has a ton of videos on how to set it up.

One more thing, about newsletters being difficult...  you don't need to do fancy layout.  In fact you will get better delivery just sending out text messages like you would write to a friend.  This is one of the 'secrets' of high dollar email marketing pros.

You're writing style and content are more important than layout, pictures etc.  The key is to provide content people WANT to read.  I also covered this in my Tampa Seminar.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Craig

P.S. If there is enough interest I may do a 'virtual' version of the Tampa seminar in the next few months.

Permalink Reply by Craig Eubanks on January 27, 2012 at 2:56pm

Bill Kennedy said:

Are there any metrics you use to measure success in this area?

The only metric that matters is does it increase sales.

With a modern ESP (Email Service Provider) you can track all kinds of stuff like "open rates", "clicks", "website visits" etc.  which are moderately useful.

But as an entrepreneur, if it doesn't make money it's a waste of your valuable and limited time.

And good email marketing will be effective very quickly.  This isn't something that takes months to get results.

So what you would want to do is set up a way to track purchases that result from sending out emails.

Cheers,

Craig

Permalink Reply by Kathryn Beck on February 3, 2012 at 12:27pm

I've been using ByRegion for newsletters for years, and I've found that it does keep my name on people's minds.  I send one out at the beginning of each month.  Before I do my next month's newsletter, I check to see how many people clicked on the previous articles and went to my website, gives me an idea of what people are interested in.  I have clients that I haven't seen for years write me after getting my newsletter to give me updates on how they are doing.  I don't know how many clients I get from my newsletters alone, but I think they are worthwhile.  ByRegion is very easy and only $75 or so for 18 months.