Company Newsletter

Dear Dave
We’re thinking about developing a company newsletter to be mailed to clients as part of our overall marketing communications efforts. Any comments or suggestions you would care to share with us?
LP CO

Dear LP
I don’t know about you, but I get bombarded day-in and day-out with unsolicited mail, phone calls, faxes and e-mails. In fact, I find myself becoming increasingly resentful of having to take the time to wade through the stuff. So if you’re going to send me your newsletter, there had better be something in it I’m really interested in!

OK, get my overly-dramatized point? In today’s blizzard of information, a newsletter can work against you as easily as it can work for you.

To make a newsletter a worthwhile activity, the content should be of high value and produce a clear benefit to the intended reader. Please don’t tell me about your firm, or your latest marketing success, or your design awards, or your computers, or your staff. Quite frankly, I’m not all that interested. Instead, share something useful with me that will directly resolve my problems or increase my success. If you can’t do this, at least have your newsletter amuse me! Here’s a simple test to follow: any newsletter you send must make the reader eagerly anticipate and look forward to the next newsletter. Can’t pass the test? Don’t send the newsletter