Are You Missing Out on the Power of a Simple Newsletter or Ezine?
Have you ever seen that bumper sticker, “the person who dies with the most toys wins?”
Well, in marketing, s/he who dies with the biggest database wins!
Building and maintaining your database is key to the success of your business and one of the best ways to build your business is by sending out a regular electronic newsletter (often called an Ezine – an electronic magazine).
The success of your newsletter strategy depends on the three golden rules of my Practice Building Success System.
The three golden rules are:
- Give value
- GIVE value!
- GIVE VALUE!!!!!!!!
Your database is GOLD and if you treat it that way you will become GOLDEN! Far too many therapists ignore this.
The fact is, you are missing a HUGE opportunity if you don’t have a way to keep in contact with the people you meet and the clients who have already used your services. In fact I’ve had several therapists double the revenue in their practice simply by staying in touch with people who already know and love them.
It’s much easier to have an old client return than to procure a new one.
A newsletter or ezine is a great way to bring old clients back or just to keep reminding them you are there. Even if they don’t need what you are offering right at that particular moment, at least you have reminded them you are still alive and kicking and ready to welcome them when they do need you.
If you consistently produce a quality newsletter or ezine, your subscriber database will grow steadily through word of mouth when you provide value to your readers. That last part of the sentence is bold because it is the key to the magic kingdom.
I don’t know about you but the ezines that hit my inbox and get read are the ones that educate and inform and these are the very type of ezine I have forwarded onto others because I knew it would help those people. While very few therapists can solely rely on the proliferation of their Ezine as their primary marketing vehicle, it is an effective way to allow other people to market for you while you sit back and watch the size of your database grow!
So by now I hope I’ve convinced you of the value of newsletters. Now lets look at what you need to avoid:
The three quickest ways to die in cyberspace
- Make it about you or your modality
- Don’t make it about them
- Don’t give value
My 90 Day Challenge is a very grand example of the “Give Value Golden Rule” in action. I have had over 850 people sign up to do the challenge from a database of zero. When I launched the 90 Day Challenge I had to re-sign my whole database onto my new shoppingcart. You might expect my ezine list, created at the same time, is about the same size. Well it’s not it’s double that and I can only put it down to the fact that people are saying such good things about me that people sign up for the newsletter despite not wanting to the challenge. When people sign on to the database the comment section usually goes something like “a friend who did your challenge told me about you”.
By steadily plodding along giving value at every turn I’m getting a name for myself that is now becoming unstoppable. It doesn’t happen overnight but it happens! The trick is to consistently turn out high content, high value newsletters that are designed to genuinely help people. Your secondary need should be to publicise events and products that might also help others whilst still keeping your bank manager happy.
So why do newsletters work so well
There are three key reasons why they work
1. Credibility
Chances are, when people first subscribe to your Ezine they won’t know much about you or your profession. Publishing a regular Ezine allows you to build credibility with your readers. Natural therapies, like most professional services, require a level of trust. An Ezine is an excellent way to build the necessary trust and credibility just by being yourself.
2. Enables Relationship Building
Perhaps you’ve heard the term relationship marketing. In essence, relationship marketing is the process of allowing people to get to know you and your services over time. Having an Ezine is an excellent way to build relationships with potential clients. Let’s face it, people are most comfortable (and willing) to hire a therapist whom they already know. An Ezine is one of the most effective and efficient ways to build relationships with tens, hundreds and even thousands of people.
3. Increase Your Knowledge
When you write articles for your Ezine your own knowledge and confidence will increase. As you know, the best way to learn something is to teach it! So when you publish an Ezine and invest the time and energy to research topics and write about them, your own skills, proficiency and knowledge increase.
Why are they so powerful?
It a numbers game. In marketing a certain percentage of your database will react to your offers. That reaction level is VERY low. If you are getting anything between 1 and 3 percent reaction you would be happy. Anything over 10 percent and you will be ecstatic. So if you aren’t into giving value you can see why a newsletter won’t work for you. So let’s just look at the numbers for a minute.
If you send to 100 people and 1% react – that’s 1 person. Lets say they have three treatments with you at $70 – it means that campaign grossed you $210
If you send to 1,000 people and 1% react – that’s 10 people and if those people have 3 treatments with you at $70 – well that campaign is worth $2,100! Now you are starting to see why newsletters work.
About now you are probably going into, “well it all alright for HER, SHE knows thousands of people”. Please know the absolute truth is that my first newsletter went to about TEN people – yes, you read right 10 family and friends. Ask anyone with a big database they built themselves and they will tell you the same story. Ali Brown, the Ezine Queen has a database of 22,000 people now. She inspired me to start by telling her own 10 people story.
The hardest yards are in getting your first 500 people, then the flow becomes a little easier. If you are a quitter, don’t start, it will break your spirit. But if you are a plodder like me who kept writing from the heart, kept giving value and bless all of you who told your friends, family and colleagues about me. But remember I also worked my little tush off in rain, hail, sunburn, sandstorms and tears to build my database and six years later I’m getting the rewards.
So if you are in this for the long haul and if you love what you do, your ezine will bring you a great deal of pleasure and profit over the years but the trick is to start NOW!
Confused as to where to start?
Well Karen in Levin New Zealand has requested I run a teleseminar on how to get started writing a newsletter– wise gal!! So I’m going to do a fr.ee one hour teleseminar on How to Write a Newsletter From the Ground Up. It’s next week so look for the details below.
So no excuses! Write a newsletter NOW! Start NOW!! One day you will wake up reaping the benefits!
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Then the Tough Love Business Boot Camp on the Gold Coast in Feb 09 is for you!
Mr Robert Rabbin joined the MOSH Pit to speak to us about writing. As always Robert was highly entertaining, despite being unwell he was still up to sharing a massive amount of really useful knowledge on how his writing career got started. Robert Rabbin has published 5 books and more than 200 articles, achieving more than 1,000 placements in magazines, journals, and newsletters so it was an information packed call.
The Utopia International Retreat will return The second Utopia International Retreat, a place for those who are on the spiritual path to rejuvenate, nurture, open to new skills and be with those who live from the heart will be over the full moon weekend of 
