Image courtesy of Jolante.

Newsletters are an excellent communication and marketing tool for your direct sales business. They help you connect with customers and prospects, provide value to readers, and keep customers up-to-date on promotions and product offerings. Some direct sales companies provide newsletters either by sending them directly to customers or making them available for consultants to send. If you are using a company provided newsletter, I recommend personalizing it as much as possible to make it more of a reflection of you.
 

If your company doesn’t provide a newsletter, create your own. Here are the steps to take to create one.

Step 1. Frequency: How often do you want to publish your newsletter? Remember each issue involves a few hours of preparation including creating the content. Establish a schedule you know you can keep up with. It is always easier to add supplemental issues or increase the frequency however decreasing the frequency can give a poor impression. Monthly or quarterly is probably a good place to start.

Step 2. Content: What is your newsletter going to be about? What are you going to include in your newsletter? Some newsletters have a single article and a promotion. Others have 3-5 articles and an equal amount of promotional content. What are your articles going to be about? Will you write them or will you hire a writer? Take a look at newsletters you like and consider why you like them. Consider what types of content will add value to your readers. What questions or problems do they have?

Step 3. Email or print: How are you going to distribute your newsletter? There are benefits to both. Email is very cost effective and instantaneous. Print is nice because it gives something tangible for customers to hold onto.

Step 4. Email Service: If you’re going to email your newsletter, consider paying for an email distribution and list management service. There are many available online. They offer newsletter templates, automatically manage the list subscriptions and unsubscribes, and enable you to create newsletters in advance and schedule them for future delivery. The price for services vary however many base their prices on the number of subscribers.

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AWeber Autoresponder and Newsletter Service

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Step 5. Subscribe Form: If offering an email newsletter, add a signup form on your website. This not only increases traffic and visitor value, it helps build a list of contacts and customers.

Step 6. Marketing: Let people know about your newsletter. Include a link to your subscription form in all email communications, signatures, and even consider adding it to your business card, brochure, and other marketing materials.

Step 7. Graphics: Graphics are a great way to make a newsletter visually interesting. Options include adding a logo or a header to each newsletter as well as including graphics, photos, and even charts within the newsletter. Stock photo sites are a good place to get started, however it is a good idea to make sure the reprint rights are available.

Newsletters are an excellent tool for connecting with and marketing to your customers and prospects on a regular basis. To make sure your newsletter is well-received, focus on providing quality content that will keep your readers interested and subscribed.

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• Remember, Direct Sales is About Selling