Marketing strategies that work from Heidi Sloss

Marketing Strategies that Work: Having an E-Newsletter or Blog

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Jun 262013

A few weeks ago I introduced a designer client of mine, looking to improve her business with marketing strategies that were doable, effective and profitable in Marketing Strategies that Work: Global Analysis of Your Business.

First we identified 5 easy and effective marketing strategies to reach her intended target market. Then we outlined what specifically she would be doing for each. In this week’s post, we will focus on: Having an e-newsletter or blog.
She saw the benefits of being able to stay in touch and follow-up with both prospects and past clients electronically by regularly educating and entertaining them, while periodically sharing information about her services. For setting up this strategy we started with focusing on who she was trying to reach, then what she wanted them to know and finally how she wanted to communicate it to them. I don’t have the space to detail out all that this entailed, but here are a few snippets.
Since her prospects and past clients were all homeowners and all living in a specific geographic location (The Bay Area), we focused her posts on areas of interest to this population. She was very concerned about how often to send it out so I assigned her to poll some of her past clients and we decided on every two weeks to start with. Please note, that I recommended more often, but this was what her comfort level was, and the big picture was to get it going.
Then came content creation. She started and then I finished a 9 month supply of posts for her. All short, most under 500 words, all original content, lots of photos and most with some sort of call-to-action: usually a link to click to, but sometimes something else as well. In less than a month’s time we created about 18 posts that were relevant and meaningful to her list.
She had set up a blog and an e-newsletter, but was confused about when and how to use both. I found the following info online that I share with clients when contemplating the different between the two:

“At the core, a blog and a newsletter is simply a webpage. Each communication format can contain text, images, and formatting styles. The important distinction between blogs and newsletters from general websites is that they are time based and are for an intended audience. Blogger and WordPress are a few examples of free tools that will allow you to quickly create your online newsletter. Most content management systems can also be structured like a blog and provide many of the same Web 2.0 features.”

While there are a lot of people talking up the distinctions between the two, for most businesses, that does not matter. Since her website was using WordPress, we decided to use the blog feature as a newsletter—this gave her the benefits of both. The point of her communication was to keep in the minds of the people on her list while providing useful and meaningful information without making it difficult for them to follow her.

By the time we worked on this strategy, she had already had several months working three of her other ‘new’ strategies: Updating her Website, Networking with Great Referral Sources, and Implementing a Follow-Up System. These new ones, along with an already sizeable database, helped to grow her list even larger. With a 3 to 5 year timeline for prospects in her pipeline, she needs a large list to keep people moving through her sales/marketing funnel.

Do you have a blog or e-newsletter? What are you trying to accomplish with it? How is it working for you? Do you get comments on it? Do people share it with others? Would love to hear your thoughts on using this strategy, please post below. Thanks!

Yours,

Heidi BK Sloss
Marketing Strategist & Follow-Up Expert
Best-Selling Author of Fortune is in the Follow-Up®
hsloss@heidisloss.com
www.heidisloss.com
650-248-1545