I’m a huge proponent of using e-mail to effectively communicate with clients and prospects. When done correctly, nothing is more inexpensive and effective at both selling and upselling.

I think eNewsletters are a great way to communicate with existing clients. They can be used o keep them up-to-date of what you have to offer (whether it’s just helpful information or a new service). It’s also a way to increase traffic to your website. And if you provide useful information, your clients might also forward the eNewsletters on to their friends and colleagues, which is an implicit referral for you.

One common misconception about eNewsletters is that they have to be incredibly designed pieces that look just like a mailed newsletter. In our newsletters, we like to have a nice layout with our logo and colors, but the most important thing is that we have the content there for our readers. A lot of e-mail clients don’t download graphics so if it’s very graphic intensive, it looks worse to your readers. If you can write 1 or 2 small blurbs that your customer would find useful, that’s all you need.

Another problem that most people have is that they just want to use the eNewsletters to offer their own products and services - big mistake! I think this is the worse use of both yours and your readers’ time. If you’re just sending them e-mails with offers of new products or specials on your existing catalog, people will just view it as spam and delete the newsletter whenever they receive it. However - if you are providing them useful information that they find valuable, they will look forward to reading your newsletter and also be more open to any offers you have to them. Now it’s a win-win.

Another problem I see what eNewsletters is that businesses are only sending them to half their possible audience. By sending it to one group and not another, they could be missing out on a ton of sales, upsell opportunities, and referrrals! Most businesses that send out eNewsletters just send them out to just prospects or customers. What about both? With the prospects, they could become your customer once you establish yourself as a valuable source of information - you effectively increase your conversion rate on the prospects just by adding them to your newsletter list. With clients, you can upsell them on additional products and services that they might not have been interested in before. They also might take advantage of a “refer a friend” promotion and generate a new client for you.

If you’re not doing any of this already, just do me one favor - start collecting an opt-in list on the home page of your site for people to sign up. You don’t even have to send anything right away but the earlier you start collecting names and e-mail addresses, the better you’ll be once you start your e-mail marketing campaigns.

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