Newsletter Whitepaper

8/8/2019 Newsletter Whitepaper

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Optimizing your newsletter

An Advisor guide to successful newsletter

Whitepaper



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You spend hours networking, meeting clients, prospects, center of influence (COI) and other

ref erral source in order to grow your practice. You can¶t expect everyone you meet to be ready

for business now. A newsletter lets you stay in f ront of warm prospects, continuously keep in

touch with existing clients and top of mind to COI.

Main reasons why Advisor newsletter work«

y Solidify current client relationships

y Continuous reminder for prospects

y Position yourself as a business partner, expert and source of information for your

prof essional network

A newsletter is a commitment. Once you start you must deliver quality information consistently.

Before you decide if a newsletter is right for your practice, start by assessing your current

situation;

y Why do you want to write a newsletter? What are you trying to achieve?

y Who is your target market, what do you want them to do af ter reading your newsletter?

y Why should your target market care about your newsletter, what problems will it solve for

them? y What are your topics, every newsletter should answer two questions paramount to

readers: What¶ s in it for me? Why should I care?

y What f requency do you want to commit to?

y Do you have the time and f inancial resource to commit to a newsletter?

Convinced and ready to start a newsletter? Read on«



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Cognitive fluencyCognitive fluency is simply a measure of how easy it is to think about something, people pref er things that are easy to process mentally. Key points to ensure a successful newsletter;

Language Use language that is client-centric, it¶ s about your client, not about you or a product/service. Talk to your reader, not at your reader by using the word µyou¶. Use active verbs as opposed to passive verbs for a f aster read. Take a conversation tone in your writing; imagine your client is in f ront of you.

Use a language that is appropriate to your reader - not too complex for the average investor and a more sophisticated language for prof essionals. Ref rain f rom using industry lingo, f ancy or technical wording. When jargon is inevitable, use hyperlinksto Wikipedia or Investopedia to help your readers understand your content.

White spacePeople don¶t read they scan. Information presented must be simple, straight forward and presented clearly. Don¶t overload your newsletter with too much information. Use simple readable font, when you use a hard to read font, people automatically transf er that to a diff icult topic. Write your newsletter to look f ast, the f aster it looks to handle, the better your chances of getting a quick response.

Don¶t use sentences that are too long, maximum of 15-20 words. Limit your paragraphs to 2 or 3 sentences, use short, to the point, mini-headlines, this willhelp you separate section and attract attention. When using bullet points, limit number of items to f ive or less

Repeat, and repeat again

Repeat your main point at least twice (1) at the beginning either in your title or the f irst two sentences and (2) at the end in your summary sentence.

LengthThe more complex your topic or knowledgeable your reader is of the content, the longer your newsletter should be. You must answer your reader¶ s questions, anticipate their objections and provide turnkey solution where their issue isaddresses and resolved.

Presenting dataWhen presenting data use multiple formats to increase readers¶ comprehension: bar charts, pie charts and pictures.

Frequencies vs percentages; people have trouble converting percentages into realterms; it is easier to understand 1 out of 5 than 20% (obviously this does not applyto rate of return!).

TestimonialsPeople love testimonials, when possible include result-oriented testimonial (e.g. Client X saved $ in taxes) or a case study your reader can relate to.

People respond

better to

nformation

that is relevant

to them and

presented in a

simple

straightforward

matter·.



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Dynamic segmentationIf you want your newsletters to perform exceptionally well consider tailoring your content to each individual recipient group utilising dynamic content and segmentation techniques. Ideally all your clients f all into 2 or 3 prof iles; these prof iles should consider demographic criteria (age, size of portfolio, etc.) and

psychographic criteria (according to attitude, aspirations, etc.).

When mapping out the topics of interest and timeline of your newsletter, see how you can take advantage of side bars, add links to various article or diff erent language to customize your content to each client prof ile. For example, a generalnewsletter can be sent to all your clients and a modif ied version of your newsletter can be sent to the niche target market you want to expand.

FrequencyMarketing is all about f requency, you want your target market to see your name over and over again. Studies show; y Af ter 30 days people forget who they have met y A monthly newsletter is the best f requency to stay to of mind y It typically takes 6-7 touches to convert a prospect into a client y Loyal clients are contacted at least 24 times annually, and they invest more than

16 times the asset of µsatisf ied¶ clients

As previously stated not all clients will be interested in the topic of your newsletter at the moment you decide to send it. Consider sending a µyear in review¶ or µarticlesworth repeating¶ early summer and before holidays. This allows you to save time and money by re-using articles and lets your target market read, or re-read, past issues of your newsletter when they have more time to allocate to the subject at hand.

A successful newsletter is a three part series

#1 Attention grabber Studies show the three main f actors people read emails received are:#1 Subject line #2 content in preview window interesting #3 know sender

The f irst 5 seconds your reader spends looking and analysing these three f actorsare critical to the success of your newsletter. They determine if your target market will read or delete your newsletter.

Subject line

Your subject line is the biggest influencer in the mind of your readers. Take time tocraf t and re-word it in your reader¶ s language and grab their attention immediately.

Preview window (aka reading pane)The f irst 2-5 lines of your newsletter must tell your reader why they should continue reading, how can they benef it f rom the information provided.

Effective

marketing is the

result of

providing the

right

nformation, to

the right

recipient at the

right time.·



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#2 ContentIf you want to create a successful newsletter your readers will anticipate, read and act upon, you must include content that resonates with them logically, intellectuallyand most of all emotionally. Appealing to their aspiration is key to a successfulnewsletter.

Talk about issues that matter to them, not only market or products in the case of COI provide quality information that can help them in their practice.

#3 Call to actionYou must get your reader to respond and act af ter reading your newsletter.

Summarize your content and benef it to your reader in one sentence then end your newsletter with one call to action you¶d like your reader to take; o ask them to think about something o ask them to contact you for more information o ask them to call /email you to book a meeting

Make it simple for them to take action, use hyperlinks that automatically open their email program and send you preformatted email containing the title of your newsletter or action you want them to take. This will increase your response rate and allow you to respond quickly and appropriately.

Leverage your touch point

Network Take this opportunity to network by inviting your readers to forward your newsletter to f riends, f amily or network. For non-web based newsletter you can simply add one sentence at the end of your newsletter; Please feel free to forward this newsletter to a

friend by clicking µforward¶ from your toolbar.

SubscribeOnce your newsletter developed, forward your latest piece to everyone you meet along with a note stating that you added them on your distribution list, what theycan expect in terms of content and f requency of publication. You can also increase your readership by inviting third party recipients to subscribe to your newsletter: Was this email forwarded to you? If so, subscribe today to start receiving your own copy

Remember to always send new readers your privacy statement along with your mission statement (if you have the latter).

U nsubscribeIn this era where we are all inundated with email and out of respect to your reader, an unsubscribe option should always be available; T his message was sent from µEN T ER NAME¶ with FIRM. If you do not wish to receive future emails, please

forward this message to: µEN T ER EMAIL ADDRESS¶ and type in "unsubscribe" in the subject line.

The power of P.S.

If you send a

newsletter with

no call to action

you are just

wasting your

time and

money.·



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A postscript is a great opportunity to re-state the benef its of the content of your newsletter and your call to action to your readers. This should never be longer than on sentence.

Technical considerations

Print vs online newsletter Online newsletters are usually more appropriate for younger generations; if your readers are senior consider mailing your newsletter or using a larger font size.

HTM L vs text versionStudies show that ±5% of distribution lists cannot read HTML messages and cannot download images these are yahoo!, gmail, hotmail addresses. To ensure your clients can read your newsletter, don¶t insert any important information such asgraphs or charts into an image format.

Managing your distribution list It is imperative that you keep an up-to-date distribution list of your subscribers. Remove any hard bounce email address, a hard bounce is a permanent error sent by receiving server (eg. User unknown). On the other hand, a sof t bounce is a temporary issue (eg. content re jected as potential spam, mailbox full) should be monitored and reader should be contacted perhaps they would pref er a physicalcopy.

Alternative to CRM softwareIf you do not use a Customer relationship management (CRM) you can alternativelyuse Microsof t Excel along with Outlook in order to create a mail merge and personalize the µsend to¶ f ield of your email with your client¶ s name as opposed tosimply using bcc f ield.

Measuring your marketing effort A read receipt is the easiest way to measure the response of your newsletter; thisallows you to analyze which reader opened your newsletter and when. Open rate data is misleading due to numerous users simply reading your newsletter via the preview pane. Statistics show that the amount of people whom actually read an email is 2-3 times higher than the reported rate this f igure must be taken lightly.

Best time to send your newsletter For prof essionals such as accountants, lawyers and other COI the best time to send your newsletters is early Monday mornings, since your newsletter relates to their practice. On the other hand, for clients you can use a two prong approach (1) earlyevening when sending to their home email address or (2) when sending to their

off ice address, Friday early af ternoon works best. This will allow them to read and/or print your newsletter in anticipation to the week-end.

The success of

your newsletter

s difficult to

quantify in

direct revenue.

You can·t

measure it, but

you can·t deny

ts impact·



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In Summary

The success of your newsletter will depend on understanding and applying these principles, the

more you apply the greater the impact of your newsletter.

The ma jority of Advisor newsletters contain economic information and market updates but of ten

forget to answer questions paramount to the reader: µWhat¶s in it for me?¶ µWhy should I

care?¶

If you want your newsletter to perform exceptionally well:

y Use a client-centric language

y Information must be simple and straightforward. Leave a lot of white space!

y Get their attention by craf ting a strong subject line and headlines

y Tailor the content of your newsletter to resonate with your target market logically,

intellectually and emotionally

y Get them to act upon your newsletter

Starting today, collect email addresses f rom every person you come in contact with, add them to

your distribution list and make sure you stay top of mind all the time!

Sara Gilbert, FCSI, Chartered Professional Strategic WealthBusiness Development | [email protected]

Documents

Newsletter Whitepaper