Organizations that treat their newsletters like advertising billboards defeat one of the key benefits of this communications tool. Endless descriptions of products, services and specials only interest customers who see an immediate need for these offers. Newsletters that provide more engaging content capture the attention of customers issue after issue.
Instead, think of your newsletter as a magazine, with real stories, an attractive layout and graphics or original photography to draw readers into your content.
One of our clients is an esteemed consulting firm in the financial services industry. Our team collaborates with the consulting firm’s senior professionals on their quarterly newsletter, helping them plan and write stories of value to their customers. Our designer lays out the stories in an eye-catching format with graphics, and we distribute the newsletter for the client via e-mail. This type of publication is often called an “e-newsletter.”
We can tell which stories are of greatest interest by the number of “click-throughs” to the rest of the article. In a recent issue, the most popular article by far was one about merger and acquisition (M&A) trends in the financial services industry. The story quoted one of the firm’s top M&A experts and mentioned the consulting company’s role in a recent high profile M&A.
The article achieved the firm’s goal of educating customers about its M&A expertise, but in a way that many customers found valuable. If the article had focused only on describing the firm’s M&A consulting services, it would not have generated nearly the amount of interest.
