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The
Challenge: How
do I keep in touch with hundreds (or even thousands) of
people on a regular basis in a way that is
easy, simple, cost-effective & well received?
For most
businesses & organizations, nothing beats a personalized,
fun and entertaining newsletter that is
hand-delivered directly to your reader's home or work.
Plus,
postal-mailed newsletters are more likely to be left on a
table or passed along for others to pick up and read - thus
multiplying their potential! We can help you put together
a fun and informative newsletter and even mail it out on
your behalf.
In
addition to postal-mailed newsletters, we also
offer our services in an interactive, web-based
format that can be e-mailed to your readers and includes links to your website,
direct response options
for your readers, feedback & survey forms, a powerful on-line
database portal or collecting and managing your contact
lists and much more. We call this our IncludeMeTooTM
program. (Click HERE
for more details.) |
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Our Newsletter services include everything you'll need - from
supplying a mix of fun and industry-specific content to the final
design, printing, labeling and delivery of your postal or emailed newsletters.
With each issue we produce, you can be as involved as you want (or not) in the process.
Some of our clients, for example, will supply their own content and
designs and/or handle their own
mailing in-house,
while others outsource the entire process to us. We also offer powerful
database cleansing, data capture, and database management
solutions.
With each newsletter we produce, whether it is for postal or email
distribution, you'll receive a proof copy
in plenty of time to changes. But the great
thing is you won't have to come up with anything - every
issue will already be personalized and packed with fun and useful
content so your readers will always enjoy hearing from you! You simply look over
the advance (proof) copy and let us know if you want to make
any changes to it. If not, you're done. It really is that easy!
Drop us a note
on our FREE
Samples Page to receive
a customized sample
newsletter issue.
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Some Common Questions
about our postal Newsletter
program:
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Who would I send a newsletter to?
To Your Current
Clients & Customers: Regular contact is
the key to keeping your business fresh on everyone’s mind. Remember
the adage: “Out of sight, out of mind.” Never stop selling just
because you made the sale!
To Past
Customers: Do you have any inactive people in your system? They were once customers of
yours and could be again! But only if you stay in touch with periodic contact. Many
customers “move on” or are drawn away simply because of a lack of effort on the
company’s part.
To New Prospects:
Growing your business requires adding new clients and customers on
a regular basis. Do you have a system in place to routinely
introduce your products and services to new people? Then, once someone
new has made
an inquiry, do you keep in touch with them?
To Your Support
Team: Employees, vendors, and associates all have a
direct impact on your business. Keeping everyone “in the loop”
with regular communication helps them support you.
TIP: Some of our clients
pass along extra newsletter
copies to schools and local businesses for general distribution among
their employees. In addition, civic meetings, barbershops, hair salons, medical
office waiting areas, libraries, social gatherings, etc. are also
great places to drop off a stack of soft-sell newsletters about
YOUR organization. Drop them off anywhere people have time to
kill. Newsletters are a low-cost, yet very effective marketing strategy!
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How much do newsletters cost to print and
mail?
It varies depending upon the total volume (the
more you do, the cheaper they are) and some other factors such as using
first class postage vs. bulk rate, full-color vs. spot color, the number of pages per issue, etc.
All that being said, printed newsletters can range
from about 25¢ each to $1.50 each. Our client average
is 75-85¢ each (this being a four page, two-color newsletter
printed on a high-quality paper stock and including our
doing the
labeling, postage, and mailing). Of course, the cost is lower still if you
only plan to hand them out and not mail any.
Our e-Newsletter subscription includes the first 1,000 emails
sent FREE each month. Higher email volumes average from just pennies a name
to less than a penny per email. We've structured our program this way to assist those who are just beginning to
build up their contact lists.
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How "generic-looking" are the newsletters
you produce?
We don’t pre-print millions of “generic”
newsletters and then give you a little white square to stamp
your name into. (Who is that fooling?) Rather, we custom tailor every
newsletter we produce with your logo, your address, your
phone numbers, your news, your photos, your coupons,
(you name it) all over it! We think your company newsletter
should look like ... well ... your newsletter.
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How much of
the newsletter can I change?
With our service, you can change anything you
want, on any page.
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What if I don't have anything to add?
Each newsletter issue we produce for you will already be
filled with fun and useful tips that your readers will enjoy so you
don't have to come up with anything. When you do have something
you'd like to include, simply let us know. Otherwise, you won't need to do a
thing.
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How often should I mail out a company newsletter?
If you have constant changes in your business or
industry that your readers need to be kept updated on, you may need to
produce a bi-monthly, monthly, or even a bi-weekly or weekly letter.
For most marketing purposes, however, a seasonal (spring,
summer, fall, and winter) newsletter is the ideal frequency to produce
and send out a postal-mailed newsletter. This is often enough that
people will anticipate and look forward to it, but not so often that
it loses its uniqueness or becomes a financial burden to send out.
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What if I want to make more frequent postal contact than
quarterly?
One idea to supplement a quarterly newsletter is
to have us send out holiday cards for you. In addition to Christmas,
how about Valentine’s Day: “We love our clients!” April 1st: “No
fooling, you’re one of our favorite clients!” July 4th: “Celebrating
Great Customers” Labor Day: “We’re working hard for YOU!” etc.
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Other ideas include special reports
concerning specific or newsworthy items or topics, special offers,
seasonal coupons, or a surprise gift certificate in a stand alone mailer or
email blast. By changing the format with each contact you make, you’ll
keep your clients “on their toes.”
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While the frequency of your contacts is
completely up to you, we find that a monthly email message combined with a
quarterly (mailed) newsletter or postcard along with a holiday card or two will
achieve great results for most businesses. It is frequently enough
that you achieve top-of-the-mind awareness without leaving
anyone out, but not so often that
your recipients get bored with your contacts. Plus this mixing up
of formats helps you stand out even more with each contact sent.
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Is it better to mail or email my contacts?
Ideally, both. The advantage of email is that it
is convenient, fast, and almost free, so why not? Also, email offers instant communication, and as more and more people become
tech savvy, the power and convenience of email just grows. The disadvantage
of email lies in the sheer volume of it that many people already receive on a daily basis. As a result, the perceived value of an
email contact can be fairly low. In addition, there are still a great
number of people who don’t even have an email account. And many who
do might only look at it once in a very great while.
A mailed newsletter, on the other hand, is printed out and hand-delivered to your recipient’s home or office. By its very nature,
it must be physically handled. A hard copy also gives your newsletters
a better chance of being picked up and read by other people thus increasing the exposure that your business gets. The only disadvantage
of a mailed letter is the added cost of printing and postage. And
while your cost-per-contact is still very low, if you have thousands
and thousands of contacts to keep in touch with, it can add up. This
is why we generally recommend a quarterly newsletter combined with a
monthly email contact. It combines the best of both and allows you to stay in touch every few weeks
without breaking your budget.
Both of these contact strategies have pros and cons, but when utilized
together, they complement one another to economically keep your
business or organization on the top of everyone’s mind!
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Why email people? Isn't that just more spam?
Spam is defined as unsolicited email.
When people "opt-in" for communications from you it means
they want and expect regular contact! It means they are
interested in your keeping them in the loop so you'd be
crazy not to take advantage of the benefits that both of you will
enjoy. It's win-win! All you need to do is stay in touch in a way that
your readers find useful, interesting, and entertaining. Do it well,
and you'll encourage sales and maximize word-of-mouth referrals.
With regard to "why email?" ... because it's so easy and
inexpensive. Nearly any budget can afford a campaign that can include
thousands and thousands of recipients. Actually, email is the perfect way to
launch a communication strategy - pull a database together -
orchestrate a message cycle - and keep everyone thinking about you. Later, as your business grows, you can add direct mail campaigns,
holiday cards, reminder cards, etc. (all of which we can help with).
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Aren't
there lots of companies that offer "templates?
What makes ClientContacts so different?
Yes,
there are lots of companies out there that offer templates
... BLANK templates. You still have to come up
with all the content, put it together, proof it, manage your own
database, upload files, etc. etc. If that's your hobby, or you've got
lots of free time on your hands, or you employ a staff person that can
concentrate on it, then great. If not, your best bet is to delegate the
task to someone who does nothing else, like us. You still maintain
creative control but are never faced with a blank slate or worse, a task
that gets procrastinated and never completed.
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So what are "Tips & Quips"?
“Tips & Quips” is what we call our
e-Newsletter program. The name simply reflects the light and fun
style that we believe a regular email contact should have.
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Consider
this: When people sit down to clear their emails, they typically do so
with a finger on the delete key. (Don’t you?) So at best, you’re
going to get a split second or two of someone’s attention before a
decision is made to read further into your email or to just delete it.
So to minimize the chances of a delete, you need to make your email
contacts informative, fun, and quick to read! Make it entertaining and
soft-sell. The trick is
getting people to pause and notice (think about) your business on a
regular basis. With repetition, you'll see results. That's how
marketing works.
So many electronic newsletters that are sent out these days are
overfilled with content and cluttered with confusing buttons and
endless links. Who has time for all that? The fact is if your contact
looks like “work” you are all but guaranteeing that it won’t be
read. At best, it will end up in a bottomless “pending” file with
only someone's good intentions of reading it later. (When was
the last time you sat down and read everything in your pending
file?) But if you make your emails fun, easy and quick, they’ll get
read (completely) much more often. They'll get forwarded more
frequently, too. And they’ll leave a much more favorable impression with
your audience.
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So what should an e-Newsletter contain?
To maximize the chances of being read, your
e-Newsletter should be fun, informative, and quick-to-read. If it
takes more than 10-20 seconds to completely digest your email, most
of your readers probably won’t. But give them a little break
from the drudgery of clearing out their in-box by sending
something fun and quick, and most of your readers will take the time -
right then - to read it ALL. They'll even begin to look forward to your
contacts!
With that in mind, the e-Newsletters that we’ll design for you will
always include funny and motivational quips plus a quick joke, story,
or riddle - everybody enjoys those. If you have important news or an
upcoming event to promote, we’ll include a short summary with
some convenient links for getting additional information. We’ll
include a couple of brief but useful and interesting
(industry-related) tips. Finally, we’ll thank your customers for their
loyalty and referrals and invite them to take advantage of any
specials you might be running. That's it. Short and Sweet. Of
course, if you already have your own design team and your own ideas,
you can always send us an “all-ready-to-go” email blast (HTML or
text), and we'll simply facilitate its delivery for you.
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But what if I have a lengthy or technical topic that I want
to cover?
The best strategy is to include a “teaser”
paragraph of just a few sentences. Then we add a link or an
attachment so that those people who are interested in reading more, can. This way, at first glance, your email contact always looks
inviting. Remember, less is more with email. To see the secret
of how this really works, click HERE.
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Will I have to do anything before each issue is sent out?
Not actually. When we initially set things up,
you’ll tell us how often you want to make contact with people (once
a month, twice a month, weekly, etc.) and we’ll discuss a calendar
of topics or specials that you might want to include throughout the
year, then, you’re basically done. We’ll fill in the rest of each
issue with items of general interest related to your industry and
schedule your contacts. Prior to each send date you'll receive an
advance proof to review. To make any changes, just call or drop us an
email. Otherwise, you can rest
assured that contact is being made to all the people important to your
business or organization on a regular, systematic basis.
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Will I see a copy of each issue before it goes out?
Every time. Prior to each scheduled send, we
will send you an advance copy. This way you can look it over
and let us know if you’d like to make any changes to it. If not, you
don’t need to do a thing—it will go out at its scheduled time.
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What if I want to make changes like adding my own ideas or
coupons to an issue?
Simply drop us a quick note as soon as possible
after receiving your draft copy. We'll make your changes and send you a revised proof to look
over. When everything is just right, we'll send it.
TIP:
Regularity is the key to maximizing results and people will soon
begin to look forward to getting your regular contacts. To minimize the
chances of missing these opportunities, you should always try to plan things well in
advance. For example, cycle coupons with the season, and if you have topics or tips
you want to include, send them over to us as soon as you get them so
we can incorporate them into future issues. This pre-planning will not
only allow your contacts go more smoothly, but it also allows you to better
orchestrate and dovetail your advertising and marketing campaigns
together.
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Couldn’t I just produce my own newsletter in-house?
Of course you could, but why reinvent the wheel?
It’s so much easier (and less expensive) to delegate the task to
someone else. Especially someone with the experience and equipment to
handle all the details in an efficient and timely manner. With
Client Contacts, you still maintain content and creative control while
someone else does all the work! Plus you get to tap into
successful ideas and strategies used by fellow business owners from
other parts of the country.
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Are there any contracts or long-term
commitments?
We have no contracts for
you to sign and no long-term commitments you need to make. If we begin
working together and you are pleased with our service and your
results, you’ll naturally want to continue or expand our
relationship so no contracts are necessary. Everyone Wins! If not, you can (and should) fire
us immediately. We don’t need to lock our clients into a “contract”
in order to keep their business. We would rather earn it - so we do.
As a result, our clients tend to stay with us for many years, allowing
our business to grow as our client's businesses grow.
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Top
of Page
Drop us a line on our
FREE Samples Page to receive
a customized sample
newsletter issue.
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