How to Stay in Constant Contact
There are numerous ways to stay in contact with your database: phone calls, post cards, birthday cards, etec. the most effectice least expensive way to stay in contact is by sending out a weekly newsletter. Sending out a weekly newsletter may sound obsesive in a world covered in spam. However, what we have discovered is that there are two important factors that determine whether your newsletter is accepted or not by yourcontact list.
- First, you must use warm e-mail addresses. A warm e-mail is one that someone has given you after a face-to-face meeting. If you have made a positive personal contact with someone, they are likely to look forward to hearing from you and will not remove their name from your list.
- Second, you must send out a People magazine not a Forbes magazine. Your newsletter has to be of general interest because people are not looking to buy from you all the time. Our typical newsletter usually includes the following: an article of general interest; an article about some local upcoming chartable event; a trivia article titled Fun Facts or Stuff You Need to Know; a riddle. These articles are simply a brief summary and include a web link to a more complete article or to more information about an event. There are several other strategies that can be used to get people interested in reading your newsletter. You can run a feature about one of your customer's business, or feature a product or service they sell.
Top-of-Mind Awareness
The key to remember when talking about sending frequency is that your goal is top-of-mind awareness. The newsletter you send will be opened on any given week by 20 to 30 percent of the recipients. More important is the fact that 100% of your contacts will see your name in their email inbox even if they do delete the email. That simply means that if they or one of their friends or family needs your product or service that week they will think of you first.
With the online newsletter service that we use we can tell how many people open our newsletter. Our newsletters are read by 20-30% of the entire database each week. But the key is that my name shows up in their In Box once a week. Whether they read my newsletter or not, at least they think of me as they scan their incoming emails. I just don't want them to remove their name from my list, because eventually, they or someone they know is going to need a mortgage, and I want them to think of me first when that time comes.