As an independent educational consultant, you make a lot of decisions.
Some of those decisions are minute-to-minute decisions: What task do I need to tackle first thing this morning? What image would be most effective for this slide in my presentation? What would be a good time to e-mail that administrator back?
Some are more day-to-day decisions: What big tasks do I need to accomplish this week? What am I going to write my next blog post about? When am I going to block out time each day for working on my book?
Then, there are those decisions that are higher-level–big decisions that affect not just your daily or weekly schedule, but the very structure of your business and how it goes about marketing you to your prospective clients.
And one of those big decisions you have to make is whether or not you’re going to have your own e-mail newsletter.
The Arguments Against a Newsletter
Full disclosure—in a minute, I’m going to try to convince you that you should, indeed, have a regular e-newsletter as part of your business, and I’ll spell out the reasons why.
But I won’t pretend that an e-newsletter is a great idea for everyone. Despite the powerful reasons in favor of having a newsletter (detailed below), there are also some solid reasons why you might not want to try it. Here are the “biggies”:
- You don’t know the technical ins-and-outs of producing a newsletter. If you’re afraid of the (limited) technical aspect of putting out a newsletter, that might make you decide against it. But really, it’s not that difficult. If you already have an e-mail list, all you really need is to have someone create a nice-looking template for you inside your e-mail provider and use that template whenever writing your newsletter. Otherwise, it’s just like sending out an e-blast to your list.
- You’re not crazy about writing, or don’t feel that you’re very good at it. Now, let’s face it, if you have good ideas, the quality of the writing doesn’t have to be deathless prose…but it does at least have to be adequate. And, of course, the best newsletters are a fair step above adequate.
- It takes time. Writing a newsletter is a commitment. If you’re going to do it, you need to figure out how long it would take you to write each issue. You also need to ask yourself how often you think you can send an issue out–monthly? twice monthly? weekly? Whatever you decide, you have to be able to invest the time and stick with your schedule because your readers will come to expect the newsletter to land in their inboxes consistently.
So, if you’re a bit of a technophobe, or if you aren’t a strong writer (or just don’t like doing it), or if you just don’t see how you could make the time to commit to writing an e-newsletter consistently, then this might not be for you. (But don’t despair. Even if this does describe you, there’s still a way you can have a newsletter—I’ll get to that at the end of this post.)
But if you’re at least a little bit tech-savvy, if you’re at least an adequate writer, and if you think you can carve out some regular time in your schedule to take advantage of all the benefits that having a newsletter offers your business, then it’s definitely worth considering.
Here’s why…
Know, Like, Trust…and Hire!
In business, there’s a tried and true formula for getting someone to move from prospect to paying client over time. It’s called “know, like, and trust.”
The truth is, when you’re trying to sell services to a stranger, it usually doesn’t go well. And, by not going well, I mean that your chances of making a sale on a cold call is about one in a thousand. Do you feel like making a thousand cold calls just to get one paying client? Didn’t think so.
But there are ways to raise your chances of turning people who start off as strangers into prospects and eventually into clients. I talked about the beginning steps in a previous blog post: offer something of value (like a special report, a valuable checklist, or an infographic) for free to your site visitors in exchange for their contact information.
Once you get them on your list, you now have the opportunity to leverage that initial modicum of trust they’ve placed in you. And one of the most powerful tools for doing so is an e-newsletter.
Here are five reasons why a newsletter works so well:
- You can show your personality through your newsletter. The first step in “know, like, and trust” is know. People don’t like to do business with soulless corporations or mega businesses; they like to do business with people they know. If you show a little personality in your newsletter and let your readers into your life a bit by tying in your outside interests, stories about your family or pets, etc., it can go a long way toward establishing a relationship.
- You can give your readers even more value. When you offered them something in exchange for their contact information, it was an even exchange. They got something of value (your report) and you got something (the chance to continue to market to them). With a newsletter, however, you can give your opt-ins much more. You can give them regular information that’s of value to them. And this time, you’re not asking for anything in return. If you give them quality information consistently over time, they will move beyond just knowing you…they will come to like you. It’s just human nature.
- A newsletter establishes you as an authority. The fastest way to be considered an expert is to publish material (a blog, a newsletter, an e-book, a book) on a topic. If your material is good, you can quickly become the “go to” person on that topic for many people. In other words, people begin to trust what you have to say. And since, with a newsletter, you don’t have to convince a big publishing house to publish you like you do with a book, there’s no barrier to achieving this expert status. You just set up your newsletter and start writing.
- You can share your client success stories. Periodically, instead of just offering helpful how-to information, you can use your newsletter to share “case studies” of how a client had a problem, what you did for that client to help, and the amazing results that were achieved. Such stories help to expand on the trust you’ve already established by showing that you don’t just “know stuff,” but you’re also a problem-solver who achieves the desired results for your paying clients. At any time, the majority of your e-mail list is going to be composed of people who have never hired you for a paying gig…yet! Sharing success stories periodically through your newsletter is a powerful way to move them one step closer to making that commitment.
- You can give your readers a reason to hire you. If you’ve done everything detailed above, you will have elevated yourself in your readers’ minds to the status of a known, liked, and trusted expert on a specific topic, which means that, when they have a project where they have need of an expert consultant on this topic, you will be “top of mind.” Who else are they going to call but you? But it doesn’t hurt to explicitly state from time to time, “If you have need of a consultant or speaker on the following topics, I’m available to do that for you. Check my calendar to see what dates are available.” And your newsletter is a great vehicle for making such announcements periodically.
For all of these reasons, an e-newsletter is a powerful way to grow your consulting business. Yes, it takes commitment, but if done well, it can be the cornerstone of your marketing.
All the Benefits…Without the Headaches
So, what if you want all of the benefits of having an e-newsletter but don’t want any of the headaches it can entail?
In other words, you want to keep the people on your e-mail list happy by giving them regular content, you want the status that comes with being a published author, and you want to be able to leverage your clients’ success stories into other paying gigs…you just don’t want to write the newsletter.
What to do in that case?
You know the phrase, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”? Well, while that’s true, in this case there is actually a way to have your cake and eat it too (to mix a couple of food-related metaphors).
Here’s the deal. There are people who are knowledgeable about your area of expertise (or who can become knowledgeable in short order) and who can write your newsletter for you. You feed the writer content ideas. You oversee the writing and offer suggestions for revision until the writing meets your expectations. And the best part? Your name goes on the newsletter, even though you didn’t actually have to write a word. It’s called ghostwriting, and it’s one of the services we offer to our educational consultant clients.
And no, this lunch isn’t free, either. After all, we have to make a living, too. But writing, as the kids say, is “our jam.” If it’s not yours, but you really want to take advantage of the benefits an e-newsletter can provide for your business, we should talk. Hit us up on the Contact page. In a matter of weeks, you could have a shiny, new newsletter to call your own.
