With the advent of social media advertising and effective “spam” blockers have caused many to cry that the email newsletter is dead. After all, why would someone want to receive an email when they could simply “like” a page and get information through their feed? Are people really so impressed with email these days?
The answer to these questions are complicated, but there are many ways that email newsletters can help a contractor growing their business. Now, I am not talking about sending out strictly “sales” emails asking for jobs; email newsletters serve to build a bond with your customer and make them feel as if they are part of a “club” of your company’s customers. Living in someone’s email is also a great way to keep your company in their thoughts, and generate sales.
The infinite web vs. the finite newsletter
The internet is a huge place-literally a world wide web in which anyone can find just about anything with a few clicks. While this is certainly convenient for the customer, it can present a real problem for businesses because it makes it less likely that someone will find you and more likely that someone will find your competitor.
Of course, there are ways to make yourself stand out, such as “sponsoring” a search engine or social media site so that your web page appears whenever someone searches for a keyword. The problem with this strategy is that it costs money, and there is no guarantee that jut because your link pops up first the customer will click on it.
A newsletter, however, is delivered directly to your customer’s inbox; they know who you are and what your information is immediately. You know you are going to get clicks because your customer is only looking at your company.
Building a relationship with your customer
The key to getting customers is to develop a rapport with them and make yourself seem more like a trusted friend than a salesperson; both of which can be accomplished with an email newsletter-if you provide the right content.
Rather than just using newsletters as sales pitches, use them to give customers information or advice related to your industry. You can do this in the form of blogs or links to articles. If you pass along this type of information in your newsletters (free of advertisements for your company) people will begin to trust you.
Trust is further built through the intimacy of email communication. Rather than just being a link to a product, a newsletter is delivered directly to your customer and makes them feel as if you were thinking of them. Remember how exciting it used to be to get a letter in the mail? You can replicate this feeling with your newsletter!
Product showcasing
This is simply an extension of the finite vs. infinite battle described above, only it applies to your products rather than your entire business. Rather than letting the customer look through your website, an email newsletter allows you to focus on one or two specific things at a time. This grabs your customers attention, something very difficult to do in the area of smartphones and other constant distractions.
If you lay out the features of a product correctly, you can increase its “wow factor.” This causes your customer to start thinking about how useful your product would be to them (or just how cool it looks).
These thoughts quickly lead to a feeling that they need to purchase your product right away to improve their life. They can’t live without your product for one more minute and just have it now. This can lead to “impulse buys” where the customer purchases without thinking-and generate more sales.
Any discussion of product showcasing wouldn’t be complete without talking about sales. When you put something on sale, your customer may not know about it unless you tell them via newsletter.
Sales build upon the feelings we discussed in the above paragraph, as well as add in the “deal factor.” This causes a customer to think something similar to “Well, I wouldn’t normally buy this, but since it’s on sale….” This can be a very powerful motivation to further sales.
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