Best Marketing Tool?
A Massage Newsletter
Your Newsletter - Page 2
Should I use a pre-made massage newsletter?
I suggest you create it all yourself. Make it professional looking and consistent in how it looks. But make the content yours.
For this reason I don't recommend pre-made newsletters. So many of the best reasons to do a newsletter are lost when you can't control the content. Most massage newsletters are only focused on education articles about health, which in itself is good. But as a marketing tool, your newsletter should be more balanced in all it does. Educate for sure. But have a section for specials. Have a section about your web site. Have a section that shows your U.S.P. statement. Have a section about your referral rewards program (you will learn about referrals in a later page).
It is hard to get all of that into a pre-created newsletter. And frankly, most pre-made newsletters are very boring. You want to be unique, not boring. A pre-made newsletter for all of these reasons could be just an expensive waste of money, not a profitable marketing tool.
Even if you don't want to write all the articles, you can still make your own massage newsletter. Find or buy articles written by other people, and write all the other parts of the newsletter, your promotions, U.S.P., etc.
And really it is easy to write your own content. You just write in exactly the same non-technical voice you use when you talk to them.
How do I make my massage newsletter? What software?
You can create your first newsletters in a basic program like Microsoft Word. But over time I think you will want to update your software to something that can incorporate images easier. More of a graphics program. Microsoft Publisher is probably the best first step for those who are not graphic designers. The next best step is probably Adobe PageMaker. You can also use a new software that writes PDF files that costs a bit less then Adobe - www.fineprint.com. Then you can have your back issues saved on your web site for your new clients to read.
If you plan to use an email newsletter, you may use special software of the internet company who hosts and publishes your newsletter. Make sure if you use your own software that you use a text editor, instead of a word processor.
What about an email/internet massage newsletter? Is it better than a physical one you mail?
On the whole I have to recommend email newsletters. They offer some stunning advantages over a physical newsletter. But a physical newsletter has a few advantages you should consider:
- It is physical. It comes in the mail. It is in your client's hand. I feel that an email based newsletter is easier to delete and ignore.
- A physical newsletter, if it is good, often gets passed around to friends, family, and co-workers. This can also happen very easily with an email newsletter, by forwarding.
- A physical newsletter can be read anywhere that is comfortable. It can be read on the bus, in a favorite chair, etc. An internet newsletter mostly is read only at a computer. Asking them to print the newsletter may overcome this minor problem.
- Depending on your target market group, they may be more or less internet savvy. But on the whole, studies show that the vast majority of people now use email daily.
Now, the amazing advantages of an email/internet newsletter are:
- No matter how big your mailing list grows to, your costs stay the same. Almost nothing. If you intend to grow your list beyond a couple of hundred people, this will represent a huge monetary savings. And for this reason you can send it to everyone you want, not just your current clients. Any prospect who walks in the door, or anyone who might give good referrals could receive your newsletter. Physically newsletters can get very expensive to send to everyone - paper, ink, printer costs, tape tabs, postage, and time costs for folding, labeling, stamping, and mailing. An email newsletter can be a stunningly more profitable marketing tool because of this. And the more people on your list, the higher your return on investment gets.
- Way less work. Unless you have done a monthly mailing, you just can't imagine how much work a physical newsletter can be. With an email newsletter, you write it, and push a button to send it. That is it.
- There are a lot of tools that can be used with an email based newsletter that work better than in a physical newsletter. You can have links in your newsletter that direct your clients to special offers on your web page. You can have a little form built right into the newsletter for people to forward the newsletter to their friends.
- Timing is also easier with an email newsletter. With a physical newsletter you must time getting it to the printer (or printing it yourself), then giving it to the mailing house (or folding, labeling, stamping yourself), and then you have to give it time in the mail. All of this may take weeks before it actually goes out. All of these organizational problems go away with an email newsletter.
Continue - Your Newsletter - Page 3
Back - Your Newsletter - Page 1
Return from Massage Newsletter to Massage Marketing Tips home
|
