So, you know that you need to stay in touch with your clients and prospects, and you have your database all set up and ready to go! Now what? You need a plan, a simple strategy to keep contacting your past, present, and future clients. There are four basic elements that you can include in your strategy. Let’s talk about the first one, and maybe best known, the newsletter.

The snail-mail newsletter is usually what comes to mind when one thinks about staying in contact with past clients and current prospects. There are literally dozens of sources to purchase newsletters to send to your clients, or you could put together your own. Sharing a content rich newsletter with your clients and prospects helps them know that you really care about them and desire the best for them. In choosing to send a newsletter through the mail, you are personalizing your contact. You are showing that it’s worth your time and money to do this. But is it? If you are currently sending out a monthly newsletter to your database, are you seeing returns? Are your clients responding with transactions or referrals? If you are thinking about starting a newsletter, you might want to consider the following. Once you have your purchased or developed newsletter, one for each address, you will then need to fold, stuff, seal, stamp, and mail. With increased postage rates, this is becoming a more and more expensive option. And unless you are very unusual, you will always have a handful of letters marked “Return to Sender”. However, folks do respond to mail-outs or no one would be doing them! Disadvantages: cost, no way of knowing if they opened your letter or tossed it, difficult to follow-up.