Tips for Distribution: Newsletters

The most common way that people get their newsletters to their customers is through direct mailing, but how do you get people on that mailing list to begin with, and is this really the only way to distribute your newsletters?

This is an important consideration because to get the most from your newsletter printing you’re going to naturally want as many people as possible to read your newsletters, increasing the odds of developing strong ties with the people.

First I’ll go over direct mailing. The primary way to get people on a mailing list is to ask them after making a purchase if they have any interest in joining up to get your newsletters. Have a system where everyone is asked after a transaction if they have interest. Most will say no, but it doesn’t cost you anything to ask, and you’ll be certain to get a number of people who are interested.

If you do a lot of business online you can send out a mass email asking people if they want to join. You can put up different posters or other material around your store as well letting people know you have your newsletter in case they have interest.

Finally, if you already have a mailing list made but you want to make sure your customers actually want to get the newsletter, you can send a first copy to all of them and ask in the newsletter if they want to keep getting it. If they don’t they can send something in, or go to a website to get their name off the list. If not they’ll keep getting them.

Now let’s move onto other ways of getting your newsletter to people. One method is to find some prime locations where you know your customers frequent, similar to what you would do with posters. When you get your newsletter printing made up you should already know of some good locations to put them. Tack them up on various bulletin boards around town, and be sure that you have a note for people to join your mailing list if they want to keep reading it.

At any office you have you should always keep a copy of your newsletter available too, especially in any waiting room.  Hopefully a person will pick it up when waiting and start gaining more interest in learning more about what your newsletter has to say.

It can be difficult to generate a large and strong list of people to send your newsletters to, but if you make sure to give people a number of different ways to get on the list, you’ll greatly improve your chances. Try to find as many ways as possible to make things easier for people, and be sure that it’s never a challenge to get access to your newsletter.