(Freedom writers) Communicate Your Business With Newsletters and Magazines

By Lawrence J. Reaves

  Newsletters and Magazines are a great way to communicate, not only with customers but the general public as well. You will get your name out there and people will start talking about your business with others. You will not only be getting the exposure of the magazines but also word of mouth. Any business can benefit from these opportunities.

Newsletters

A newsletter is usually mailed out on a regular basis, giving up-to-date information. So what can a business newsletter have and do for your business? If you create a newsletter and publish it quarterly you will have repeated exposure to your clients and prospective clients. You want to keep you name in front of them so they do not forget about your services.

This way when they have a need for them you are the first one they think of. You will want to create a layout for your newsletter and once you have one you like stick with it. If you are constantly changing the layout, it will be hard for your customers to find the information they are looking for.

If they get used to specific information in one place all the time you do not want to be changing it in every newsletter. Be sure that your business information is in every newsletter. Talk about your product or services. Mention all new services and any specials that you are running.

You can also consider placing a coupon in your newsletters, this will help you attain new customers and keep established ones. Remind them of any holidays or local events that your services or products may be relevant to; this will increase your sales during these time periods. Getting your newsletter printed professionally will give them the finish you need to represent your company the way it deserves. Try to make them colorful and fun for the reader.

Magazines

Magazines are a great addition to business communications. These can be a source of revenue on a few levels. You will be talking, of course, about your product or services and how they can benefit people. It is a good idea to target your area and stay with that topic rather than venturing too far off topic.

Talk about how your products or services are going to be of great value for an upcoming holiday; Christmas or Labor Day for example. Include articles about various items, events or anything that relates to your business. You can run specials from time to time. Get businesses to advertise in your magazine will be an additional way to earn money from your magazine.

Contact local businesses that may be interested in your field. You can also contact businesses that are only an online business; they may want alternate sources of advertisement from time to time. The last way you can earn from your magazine is by subscription. Creating a good magazine with a variety of reading, ads, specials, events and more will attract readers that want to receive your magazine on a regular basis.

Conquest Graphics specializes in cheap newsletter printing and discount magazine printing. Find them online at conquestgraphics.com

Three Ways to Increase Newsletter Signups on Your Winery Website
By Mitch Tarr

  There is no question that having a longer list of email addresses in your newsletter list should be a top goal of any direct to consumer marketing initiative.

I’ve noticed one mistake that is common on most winery websites. That is, they don’t make much of an effort to invite people to sign up for their newsletter list.

You may not know it but making it easy for your website visitors to do something can have a 2, 4, or 10 times effect.

Many winery websites feel that if they have a contact page or a dedicated newsletter signup page that may be enough to get people to join the list. The assumption is that if they want to join up badly enough, they’ll find a way. If you make it super easy for them to sign up, it stands to reason that more of them will do so. Signing up for a newsletter is more of an impulse and as such is a bit more unpredictable as to when that impulse will strike. One thing is for certain, if you don’t sign them up on this visit, you probably won’t see them again on your website.

Right now you might be collecting one newsletter signup per day–works out to 365 new subscribers per year–all done automatically by your software.

However if you were to increase that number to 10 per day, (which I have done) you are talking about 3,650 per year. It doesn’t take too long before you have a formidable list to send out offers to join your club, buy your wine, or visit your tasting room.

Here are three things you can immediately do to accelerate your subscriber list growth.

1. Put a signup form on your home page. Many wineries don’t offer a chance to sign up for the newsletter on the home page. And by sign up, I mean place a form requesting First Name and Email Address right on the page. More people will take you up on your offer because it is convenient for them. Most of your traffic is through your home page anyway isn’t it?

2. Put a ‘Newsletter Signup’ link in your navigation bar. In addition to having a signup form on the home page, put a link in your navigation bar to a signup page. Make sure this link is on every page in your site. Just because your visitor didn’t sign up on your home page doesn’t mean they won’t if they are somewhere else in your site reading about your wine.

3. Add in a hover ad. A hover ad is a box that appears on your screen at some point between 5 and 60 seconds after a visitor arrives on your webpage. Many people don’t like to use a hover ad on their site and in fact I have only seen one after reviewing over 1,000 winery websites. The argument is that the hover ad annoys visitors and sends the wrong impression. In actual fact this effect is so small as not to exist. But I have seen hover ads increase signups by a factor of 10 times!

Finally, it doesn’t hurt to make more of an effort than to say ‘Newsletter’. One of the strongest offers I saw on a winery site stated ‘Please Join Our Mailing List and Receive a $25 Coupon!’ You can be sure that small incentive encouraged more people to join the list (and generated a few extra orders too!)

So take some time to evaluate your website and ensure you are building your list as aggressively as possible.

Mitch Tarr is an email marketing guru and CEO of ZinMarketing Inc. Learn how to use email to cement winery-client relationships and create a buzz that sells wine and supports winery brands. For information and free reports visit Mitch’s exclusive website - http://www.zinmarketing.com

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