By the way, I believe it is a great idea to have your staff read the newsletter and be familiar with it before it comes out. This way they will have an idea about why the customer is calling and they can answer with confidence. This can help them book more calls.

How We Track Newsletter Leads

While the newsletter’s marketing strategy may be mostly about branding, historically they have resulted in one call for every hundred and a Return on Investment of 300% at a cost per lead of $120.

In our case, they more than pay for themselves and we know that because we track them. However, truth be told, we’ll never know the benefits of how this interaction makes us trustworthy to our customers. We do know it keeps us top-of-mind with them.

You Don’t Have to Do It All Yourself for Great Newsletter Leads

Most of us are so busy doing our jobs that the idea of taking time out to put together a newsletter is beyond us. But it doesn’t have to be. You can find an outside company or hire a college student to do the physical work for you.

However, I strongly recommend personalization in a newsletter. As you look at third-party firms to help, you may see they provide premade newsletters filled with generic content that are ready to mail short of your logo. While these might be cheap, in my opinion, this does nothing for your branding or your relationship with the customer.

Personalization is key. Even though I recommend personalization, this doesn’t mean you are writing everything in it or figuring out all the details. For example, our vendor, EB & L Marketing provides us with a menu from which we pick different articles for different sections.

This way we fill up the newsletter with the content that we want for the frame they have provided us.

The articles are populated into the newsletter, then we get to see and edit it accordingly. We take personalization a step further by always writing the opening article ourselves. For us, that is usually done by our owner, Bill Kennihan.

If you are not the writing type, your vendor can create these for you based on what you want it to say.

FYI: I have found HudsonInk is also is a good source for newsletters. With them, you decide how much content to include in the newsletter and they will work with you.

When discussing newsletters with your provider, make sure you know what they include and what they don’t include. For example, if you decide you want them to write about a topic for which they don’t already have an article done in house, there might be extra charges.

Newsletters separate you from the crowd, just like your NCI certification does. It is one more way to show why you are not like everyone else.

Jose Montes is the office manager at Kennihan Plumbing, Heating, and Air Conditioning, in Valencia, PA. His industrial engineering background propels him to always look for improvement. As a contractor, he enjoys sharing what he has learned with others. Go to ncilink.com/ContactMe for more information.