To properly utilize the power of newsletter marketing, it is first necessary to understand the meaning and uses of Public Relations (PR), since most definitions of each are interchangeable between the two. In other words, you need to think of newsletters in this context as the ‘communication arm’ of a PR campaign where it makes use of one.
That’s why, in this article about the power of newsletter marketing, we talk mostly of how to use PR for promoting a small business and creating a congenial and winning sales environment.
Using Imagination
PR is the most widely misunderstood side of marketing. It tends to be associated with spin-doctors whose job is to gloss over dubious corporate or government schemes. I prefer to think of it as representing the word Promotions rather than an acronym for Public Relations. It sounds much more like the vital activity it should be.
Few would argue against the case for promoting their business but look upon PR as an unnecessary luxury that just costs money—and one that only the larger ‘name brands’ can afford. In fact, in the case of small businesses, it means something very different.
Creative Thinking
Imaginative PR requires creative thinking, which is why some busy readers might find this site particularly useful. No-one else can do your thinking for you, of course, but hopefully it might sometimes succeed in pointing you in the right direction.
Maybe sometimes it will inspire you to come up with your own original ideas whereas at other times you might find that you can adapt something suggested there to fit your own circumstances.
Don’t forget though: our main concern in this article is marketing by email and using newsletter content ideas to create newsletters that will get avidly read.
Marketing Power
Why is PR so important for small businesses? PR campaigns, of course, should be part of a long-term strategy, so assuming you are in for the ‘long haul’, what advantages can be gained? And where do newsletters fit in the picture? Study the possibilities and the answer becomes clear. There are 3 ‘payoff’ factors that give well-planned newsletters incredible power as marketing tools:
- They demonstrate expertise.
- They establish credibility.
- They engender loyalty.
These are priceless assets that many big companies would kill for (as the expression goes).
They spend millions trying to associate the first two of these properties with their company’s image by means of their name, their logo, their advertising jingles, etc.
They want to be seen as ‘the authority’ in their field and they know that these two attributes can lead to that perception.
They spend millions more trying to achieve the third item in the list by ‘good citizen’ ploys like Ronald Macdonald, supporting good causes through sponsorships, etc.
They desperately want to be seen as a ‘caring corporate citizen’ because that leads to the most elusive and valuable asset of all: customer loyalty.Rarely, if ever though, do they achieve complete success.
Small Is Good
Their size works against them. People don’t credit a company with expertise if their dealings are always with the lowest and most inexperienced minions. They don’t consider hollow-sounding canned responses by Customer Service staff—which are meant to project a caring attitude—to be credible.
As for winning customer loyalty, the more attempts that large corporations make to win repeat business from customers, the more cynical people become (think of Microsoft).
Contrary to most areas where small businesses compete with their larger cousins, this is one that small businesses should find easy and win every time. The irony is that they hardly ever try.
Today’s ‘name brand’ companies were once small concerns like theirs. So what did they have, what was that something extra, that allowed them to grow into giants?
Of course, it would be an exaggeration to say that an understanding of the importance of PR is all that singled them out but, make no mistake, it would almost always have been a major factor. Good PR, for a small business, can sometimes be the most effective promotional activity, at the same time as being the least expensive.
In fact, in dollar terms, it often costs nothing at all.
Make Your Input Count
You need to look around your local community (or your ‘marketing area’, if yours is not a ‘local’ business) for whatever opportunities there are for your input. And input doesn’t mean pulling out your wallet. In fact, I would advise making it a golden rule at the outset never to make any monetary contributions at all unless you can measure a return on your investment.
Such a rule makes it easier for you to respond when faced with a plea for a financial contribution. Rather than an embarrassed “Er, how much should I put in?” or something similarly weak, how much better to be able to say “Sorry, I have an unbreakable rule about giving money away but is there some other way I can help?”
Better still, suggest how you might help. If, for example, your business is electronic audio equipment and, let’s say, the event would obviously require a sound system of some sort, then suggest that they take advantage of your expertise in that area. If you considered it worthwhile you could go even further and supply the system at cost etc. You then become the official advisor or supplier or whatever and get credited accordingly.
Using Your Newsletter As A Service
If you have your own regular newsletter (and if you are a business supplying products or services within your local area, you certainly should have) then you could do the same even if your particular area of expertise is not appropriate for the event.
You could offer to use your newsletter to publicize the event for them, include a ‘write-up’ about one or two of the major participants, run a background story in the coinciding edition etc. (Why not, as a community service, run a Coming Events column in every issue?) You might even suggest appointing yourself as Publicity Officer or Media Liaison Officer. On the big day, you could be the local radio co-announcer.
Linking to Events
The first thing to do is to make sure that your calendar includes all planned events in your community as far ahead as you can find out about them. These should include sporting fixtures, local clubs and associations events, charity benefits, schools and youth organizations, church festivals etc.
When you know what is planned, you can look at them with an eye to your own involvement. You don’t have to embroil yourself in every one, nor do you have to sacrifice a whole day to every one you do.
Think in terms of your business, how you might link it to the event and how you might generate some publicity, preferably for both the event and your business.
Using Events and Good Causes
It is the small business’s job to create and sustain a congenial trading environment as if their life depends on it—because it does! It can involve many things, including, for example, such things as customer support, but if you had to find one word that sums up all forms of PR it would be communication.
Speeches, talks and seminars, product displays, open days, press releases and radio announcements, participation in public events, peer networking (the list could go on) are all forms of PR—and all fit naturally under the general heading ‘communication’.
Newsletter Power
That is precisely why newsletters have such powerful potential. They are the natural communication media for small business. A case can even be made that some very small businesses, of the ‘corner store’ variety or self-employed representatives and tradesmen, could and should rely on them exclusively.
When your market is in the surrounding streets what better way is there to communicate with your customers? However, it is not, in my opinion, a good idea to restrict your marketing to any one pursuit. Concentration of effort is fine but you still need to keep a look out for any fresh opportunities that might present themselves. However, this article was written to help you understand how to write a newsletter appropriate to your situation.
Event Marketing
One avenue that often presents just such opportunities is ‘Event Marketing’, i.e. how to effectively link your enterprise to pre-planned events, or even events that you might initiate. What we are mostly dealing with here are occasions like fairs, carnivals, parades, amateur sports meetings and so on but really any kind of gathering where the attendees have a focal point of common interest. It could be anything from a seasonal celebration with a purely commercial objective like a Christmas parade to a non-profit fundraising venture such as a telethon. Obviously, the more closely the common interest directly relates to the products or services that you offer, the keener you might be regarding your possible involvement. By the same token, some events, like the Christmas parade, might be so broad-based as to warrant your involvement because of sheer numbers, or the media coverage anticipated.
At one time in my career I was responsible for organizing a number of events and promotions for local retailers and other businesses. In order to focus a bit more specifically on how various businesses might relate to different kinds of events and to illustrate the basic principles involved I shall touch briefly on several real-life examples from this period to illustrate my points. I hope you can pick up one or two ideas that can be developed and adapted to suit your own situation.
A Practical Example
When I first started, I concentrated on developing events that were already established. One such case was the Christmas parade which is why it sprang to mind as an example above. The actual organizing, such as booking participants, arranging marshals, setting up a First Aid post etc, was, by tradition, taken care of by the local Rotary Club so things were considerably simplified from my point of view. All I had to do was arrange a series of activities to complement the main event.
The complementary activities that I used to support the Christmas parade took the form of 4 competitions. There was one for retailers (best Christmas display window). One was for children (they had to find hidden objects within the shop window displays). One was for children representing their schools (rate the Christmas displays on a scale of 1 to 10 and go in the draw for a prize). Finally, on parade day, there was a prize for guessing which staff member from one of the participating retailers was playing the part of Santa Claus.
Lessons Learned
Without going into further detail, what is the point of all these reminiscences?
Never hesitate to ask for volunteers; good sources are all around you (Service Clubs, schools, other children’s organizations such as Boy Scouts, churches – in fact any community-minded groups, particularly if they have something in common with the event). Provided there is some measure of ‘public good’ in your undertaking, they will often look favorably on your venture even if they can clearly see that you stand to gain from it. A pool of willing helpers can make a huge contribution to an event’s success. Volunteers tend to be enthusiastic, unstinting in effort and energy, carry out instructions to the letter and generally are a pleasure to work with. Also, the moment you involve volunteers your endeavor becomes a ‘community event’ and attracting the attention of the local media becomes a lot easier.
Use children whenever you can. If you run an event that attracts kids then be prepared for an invasion of adults. Local schools were our main means of announcing the coming Christmas parade including the competitions etc. Most schools were happy to run a series of morning announcements in the lead-up. It was very effective—and free (apart from the prize for winning school in the draw).
Don’t lose sight of the ball. In other words, make sure your promotional efforts pay off from start to finish. The shop display promotion caused a noticeable increase in foot traffic as excited children dragged their parents from shop to shop. The entry forms themselves were only available from participating shops. The entrants were easy to identify as they did a ‘face appraisal’ of staff and tried to memorize shop names in the hope of recognizing the real person behind Santa on parade day—and parents helped! The draw for the winning shops was held a week prior to the parade and was featured in the local press, complete with accompanying pictures, resulting in a further increase in foot traffic. This was followed by a press release, which was generously used to report the surge in visitors to see the shop displays. On parade day, the shopping center was packed with people and the local media were in attendance. When the mystery Father Christmas was announced that resulted in more publicity for the retailer who played the part and a photo opportunity for the winner.
Offer your own goods or services as prizes. A bicycle for the winning child, with photographs outside the retail cycle shop premises, was a major publicity occurrence after the main event, as was the local supermarket’s publicity and sales from the winner of the ‘Guess Who’s Santa’ competition.
That’s all well and good, you might say, but I have no intention of organizing a Christmas parade or anything similar and my business is completely different from those you mention. Fair enough, but what I am trying to do is encourage you into thinking about the basic principles of participating in community events.
Another Example
Let’s look at another example. I needed to come up with a plan to:
- Foster goodwill and promote a congenial environment, as mentioned above
- Raise funds to finance projects within our township
- Raise the town’s profile as a business center to a wider area
In order to do this I looked around our town for companies or organizations that might have similar objectives to the first two. After drawing up a shortlist, I soon realized that one of the outfits that exactly fitted the criteria was also a unique facility. I had discovered that, within our town borders and quite unknown to most people, was the Institute for the Blind’s Guide Dog Training Center.
‘Good Cause’ Marketing
What eventually followed was the first ‘Dogathon’ (a sponsored walk for dogs and their owners) ever held in the country. The funds raised were split 60/40 in favor of the Guide Dog School and publicized as such. Just about every business in the area took part in one form or another with lots of dog-oriented displays, competitions etc. On the day we had more fun happenings which everyone enjoyed such as ‘The person who looks most like his/her dog’, ‘Best-dressed dog’, ‘Ugliest dog’, ‘Best barker’ etc. The businesses that had profiles to match the event, as is always the case of course, fared best (like the local pet shop, local vet etc) but everyone found that, with a little thought, they could find a way to link in. For example, bookstores ran specials on dog books, butchers on dog food etc. Those that simply couldn’t think of an appropriate way to link in put up big signs announcing that they supported the cause.
More Lessons Learned
We achieved all our objectives by following the principles I spelt out earlier plus one very important extra one: we had linked in to a ‘good cause’ and generated goodwill for every business involved as a result. We genuinely wanted to help them (Institute for the Blind) whilst they wanted to be seen as an organization that played their part in the local community. They also needed the funds so we were able to succeed in several ways. We used lots of volunteers and children. We got the co-operation of schools to help us promote it. We followed through on all our promotions and got the maximum possible media involvement, including national TV coverage. And lastly, most winners of competitions went shopping in the town (the exceptions were because the country’s major dog food producer supplied many prizes).
Just Do It!
You may think I was lucky to find such a unique facility that was so easy to build an event around, and I was, but that’s only part of the story. It is something that doesn’t just happen; it has to be initiated. Someone has to do something to make an event happen. You too can put on an event to suit your own business or in co-operation with other businesses in your area but, you will find, the hard part is inspiring and keeping everyone’s enthusiasm up. Done properly though, you can reap worthwhile rewards—especially if you can link your efforts sincerely to a good cause.
What About Newsletters?
But where does the power of newsletter marketing fit in all this. Think back to where this article started and you’ll see the relationship again. Your newsletter should be the ‘communication arm’ of your PR campaigns. You will be able to gather a ton of interesting material from all your activities that will provide newsletter content fascinating to readers in your target market. And you’ll never run out of things to write about that will present your business in a favorable light and enhance your ‘sales environment’!