1. The decision to make the newsletter So I’ve been doing web design and internet marketing for about a year and in that time I’ve built up about 30 clients. A few times over that year I had sent links to articles to a few clients that I thought would benefit from it, but apart from that and the occasional update or phone call, I haven’t kept in touch with a lot of my clients. The other factor that made me want to make a newsletter was that I received a newsletter from one of my competitors who had helped me out on one occasion. Seemed like a great idea to keep in touch with customers and a great way to leverage time to keep in contact and help all my customers at once. 2. Which newsletter software to use The three different sites I checked out were Aweber, CampaignMonitor and MailChimp. CampaignMonitor looks great and I will definitely be using that if any of my clients want a newsletter. However for me, MailChimp was more cost effective (I have such a small list), and I also got free credits for being referred by the competitor I mentioned earlier on. I got 600 free credits which, having such a small list at the moment, will last me a long time. (On a side note if you want a referral PM me) I really like the MailChimp system, and everything was quite intuitive and user friendly. 3. Writing the newsletter The sections I had in my newsletter were a. Letter from me about the newsletter b. Table of contents c. An article about emerging shopping trends (I also posted the article on my blog here if you’re interested http://www.lukevdp.com/2008/12/16/shoppers-search-online-take-advantage-of-emerging-buying-trends/) d. I mentioned the new servers we were using for hosting e. A piece about the sites I’ve recently launched f. A piece about my new blog g. A notice about moving into an office and my new contact details I also designed a template for the newsletter to match my website/logo etc. I then sent out the newsletter at 10am, I read somewhere that 10am is a good time because people come in to work, clear out all the email they get overnight, and yours arrives at 10am by itself. 4. Results I spent about 4 or 5 hours total getting signing up to MailChimp, creating the template, writing the content and importing the customer list. The immediate response from the newsletter was very good. The large majority of emails were opened and people clicked links from them. I also have already received questions and update requests from one client. I even received an email from a customer thanking me for the newsletter! However, more important than these results is • I’ve freshened the memories of clients who I did work for a while ago. It will help if they have any work for me on the back of their mind, or it might jolt there memory and help me get referrals. • I’ve now got a system setup where I can keep in touch with all my clients on a regular basis. It might take me 2 hours to write a newsletter and from that I’m keeping 30 (and growing quickly) clients up to date • Any direct work is a bonus! I don't claim to be any sort of expert, but I know people in the same boat as me 2 weeks ago would like this post!
I am quite interested to setup newsletter for my customs and visitors. But I don't find a free and good scripts for it .
Interesting information. I had been apprehensive about running a mailing list in case of being seen as a spammer. The response you got suggests previous customers can be happy to hear from you. The 10am idea is something I haven't heard before but it makes sense.
thx for the comments guys @justinlorder - phplist is a hosted script that can do it but I found the templates and all the anti spam and ease of use at MailChimp well worth it @Scopes - You raise a good point about being seen as a spammer. I think if you try to sell something directly in the newsletter you're more likely to have that problem