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Article Title: Email Newsletters For Professional Service
Firms: Is Low-value Content Inevitable?
Author: Grant Aldrich
Word Count: 589
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The motivation behind an email newsletter is a positive thing.
It indicates a firm's understanding that knowledge transfer is
a key factor in selling professional services, newly acquired
knowledge needs to be published regularly to continually add
value, and that email is an effective tool to deliver this
information to existing clients and prospects.
Yet, despite the fact that all of these concepts are correct,
we have found that the email newsletter is not the ideal method
of execution for the professional service firm. After numerous
client observations, patterns have emerged that show the
continual production of a newsletter not only inevitably
results in low-value content, but receives relatively poor
returns in terms of conversion and revenue.
The first step in understanding this phenomenon, is
understanding that the professional service firm:
1. Relies on the transfer of valuable knowledge to sell
professional services
2. Does not have unlimited access to their professional'
for non-billable tasks, and
3. Cannot be wasteful with qualified leads that could result in
large profitable contracts
The finite resources of a typical professional service firm,
compounded with the high-value potential of qualified leads,
demand an approach that is efficient and targeted.
So, why does the newsletter typically fall short?
The primary reason lies in the high-frequency production
schedule of the average email newsletter. With quarterly,
monthly, or even biweekly deadlines, professionals are hard
pressed to consistently produce knowledge-rich content. A
dichotomy arises that motivates professionals to publish and
document "just because it's October", rather than when valuable
insights are discovered.
The newsletter methodology drives the firm to become a virtual
newspaper, rather than a thinktank. At the end of the day when
a cost/benefit analysis is performed, the considerable drain on
resources to maintain a newsletter timetable, are not justified
by the cailber of content and intellectual capital produced.
Secondly, the sheer quantity of information within an average
email newsletter guarantees the delivery of low-value
information.
Your prospect's professionals and executives are incredibly
busy. When their attention needs to be captured, your firm's
message must be direct, clear, and brief. Otherwise, you run
the risk of being ignored or passed on to the Junk Email
Folder.
Even if your newsletter recipients are highly segmented (which
is probably a generous consideration in most cases), you are
still bombarding the prospect with lots of information that
might not be directly applicable or of direct interest to them.
The quality of the content might be extremely high, but if it is
not relevant, it can be interpreted by the prospect as a waste
of his/her time.
The last thing that you would want to do, is to convey to your
prospects is that you don't value their time.
Why send an entire newsletter filled with information of
questionable value that demands a time-intensive review, when
you can send a highly focused whitepaper or case study that is
both direct and brief?
I would make the analogy that an email newsletter is akin to
carpet bombing, while the personalized whitepaper or study, is
a surgical strike. Less resources, with greater precision.
If your organization is currently publishing an email
newsletter, or if you are a champion trying to introduce email
marketing into your organization, consider looking into
dynamic, personalized email campaigns instead. I'm sure you
will find that they are more effective and resource-conscious.
Grant
About The Author: Grant L. Aldrich is an editor for the
http://www.Professi
years of internet marketing experience with professional firms.
He is Director of Client Services at http://www.leadtank
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