For the past five years I have managed a children's clothing store in Cape Town. Marketing became one of my biggest problems - newspaper ads are expensive and don't generate a great response for our store and direct marketing campaigns are completely out of our price bracket.

But I desperately needed a way to communicate with my customers. Two years ago, I decided to try using an email newsletter to keep in touch with my customers - and I've never looked back! Customers signed up enthusiastically to get on the mailing list, and soon I was receiving emails like this, which encourage me to keep going:

In an age of rising costs and increased use of the Internet, an email newsletter is something every business should consider. For the purpose of this article I'm assuming an email newsletter is targeted at existing customers, who have given you their permission to email them. As an email newsletter is essentially a tool to build a relationship with your customers, it won't help your cause to send them something they didn't ask for and don't want!

The biggest benefit of an email newsletter over a printed one is obviously the cost. 1 sheet of paper + photocopy / printing costs + 1 envelope + postage + the labour involved stuffing the envelopes will cost in the region of R2.00 to R3.00 per customer. If you have 1000 customers and you email instead of posting, the cost will be 1 telephone call i.e. you will save R2998.50 (1000 customers x R3.00 = R3000, based on 2.5 minutes to send an email to a newsgroup = R1.50).

Another benefit of using email to get a message out to customers is the faster turnaround time. There is no time delay waiting for printers, spending days stuffing envelopes, and then waiting ages for unreliable postal deliveries. In a matter of hours, your customers can be reading your news - and responding to it. Christian Book Discounters, for example, frequently uses their newsletter to offer discounts, valid only for short time period - and they start receiving email orders for the books on special within hours of the newsletter being sent off.

Email newsletters also make it easy for customers to respond to you. It is far easier for them to dash off a quick response and hit the 'Send' button, than to use the phone or fax. Just be sure you respond promptly to them. The speed of the Internet has made people expect quick answers - if you don't reply within 24 hours you are going to get irritated customers.

So how do you gather email addresses for your mailing list? You need to collect them at all points of customer contact. In my store, we have forms on the counter which customers can complete while we cash up their purchase. Customers can also sign up on our website. Credit application forms and any other forms customers may fill in, should always give them the opportunity to request your newsletter.

Referrals (or 'word-of-mouse') will also provide email addresses. This email from S.Harris is typical of ones I receive regularly:

Email newsletters should be sent out on a regular basis. I send mine out once a week as we receive new stock almost daily. Depending on the nature of your business, you may only send yours out once a month, or even once a quarter. But you must do it regularly. Our newsletter goes out on a Thursday night - in time for the weekend - and many customers have emailed me to say how they look forward to Friday mornings, as they know it will be in their Inbox when they log on.

The content of email newsletters will differ from company to company, depending on the products / services offered. I use mine to advise of sales, specials and new staff. I also detail every new item and include photos of most of them. Twice a year I send out a survey requesting feedback on our past season's merchandise, the service they received in store etc. Because it is easy to fill in the answers and email back, we get a very good response rate to our surveys.

Newsletters can also be used to provide in depth information about your products. For instance, a specialty cheese shop could explain how the different cheeses are made and what they can be used for. A hardware store could provide useful DIY tips. A travel agency could feature different destinations in each edition. In our newsletter we explain the fashion colours and styles for the coming season.

You can also get your readers to contribute to the newsletter. You could start a discussion forum on a certain topic or ask them to send in tips for the other readers related to the product(s) you are selling. We allow our customers to place adverts at the end of our newsletter for personal items they want to sell or services they offer. This creates a sense of community and encourages them to feel part of your company. Ultimately their loyalty to you will be increased.

The style of your newsletter must be appropriate to your subject matter and the people receiving it. I use a fairly chatty, informal style and write as one mom to another. From time to time I share snippets of personal information, such as when I go away on holiday, and my readers respond by sharing similar info with me. When my last baby was born, I included the news in my next newsletter (in case you're wondering - no - I didn't skip any newsletters!) and it was amazing how many people emailed me their congratulations. Although I had never met most of them (I don't spend much time in the store), they felt as if they knew me because of the newsletters.

Email newsletters allow a lot of creativity in their presentation. It's easy to include photographs, clip art, animation, interesting fonts and even music. Just watch the size of your newsletter. If you add in too many frills, it could take ages to download and this is not popular with recipients! If you know HTML, you can produce very sophisticated documents, which allow your readers to jump from one section of your newsletter to another.

It is a well known fact that it is easier to sell additional products to existing customers, than to gain new customers and what better tool to use than an email newsletter. Try it for yourself and you'll be astounded at the impact on your business.

Additional reading:
Email Marketing by Jim Sterne and Anthony Priore, published by Wiley
The Eng@ged Customer by Hans Peter Brondmo published by Harper Business

Back to www.bizland.co.za