Email Newsletter MMMM YYYY | Volume 1, Number 1
Staying in touch with customers
Often, businesses spend as much time and effort gathering new customers as they do on anything else. It is also one of the costliest functions of doing business. So, it is important to make sure you do not lose the customers you have spent so much energy to acquire. The alternative is to continue with the time-consuming process of finding new customers from an ever-shrinking pool of prospects. Since it costs much less to keep existing customers instead of constantly replacing them, it makes good business sense to do what it takes to keep customers coming back.
“Make sure you do not lose the customers you have spent so much energy to acquire.” Use big headlines. Make your articles short and to the point. All information should be of value to the customer.	Regular communication with your customers lets them know how much you value them and their business. Show them that you care by offering valuable information such as tips on how to use your products and services more effectively, event announcements, information on upcoming new products and expanded services, and special discounts on existing ones. Email newsletters – quick, easy Using an email newsletter can be an effective, low-cost method for staying in touch with your customers. It helps reduce churn and can easily generate more business from customers you have already spent a great deal of effort to win. Since there are no mailing and printing costs involved, it is also very gentle to your bottom-line. Another benefit is the almost instantaneous delivery that email affords. You do not have to worry whether the Post Office will get the newsletter to your customers in time for them to take advantage of a special offer. Microsoft Office Word makes it simple to create and send email newsletters. Customers will appreciate the regular communication and you could be rewarded with more business from your existing customer base. Create a customised template Add your company logo, change the colours to reflect the ones your business uses, put in your business address, phone numbers and website address – in other words, develop a basic template reflecting your company’s look that will stay the same for each issue.

Here’s an easy way to use text you have already formatted as the basis for a new paragraph, character, or list style:	Select the text. On the Home ribbon, expand the Style gallery and select Create a Style. Name your new style and click OK.
Fonts When choosing the fonts that you will be using for headlines and body text, a good rule is to never use more than two to three fonts in a newsletter. Too many fonts cause confusion and make your efforts look less professional. Be creative with the fonts you do choose, though. Use different sizes, colours, bold and italics to add variety without confusing the look of the newsletter. You can add these custom styles to your template’s style palette so that they are instantly available. Finally, delete any features that you will not be using. Once you are done with these general changes, save the result as a Word template.
Add Graphics Add graphics or pictures with captions to help break up the text and create some visual interest. But make sure that whatever you add relates to the adjacent text. Company address Phone Number Fax no. Email	Add articles and graphics One distinct difference between a printed newsletter and an email version is the amount of text to include. Unless you know that all your readers will be interested in a longer version, you should keep the amount of information to about 1,000 words or less. What to include Some items to think about including might be introductions to new employees, recent awards presented to your company, specials and discounts on products or services, announcements of new products, and information on new ways to take advantage of your products or services. Do not include items that might be of interest to only a few customers. Contact information Make sure that you include contact information in more than one place. Not only should it be part of your master template, you should include “For more information…” contacts in every article where it is appropriate. Proofread When you have completed your newsletter, it is time for one of the most important steps of all—proofreading. Take several passes through the material, looking for different things each time. UNSUBSCRIBE | GIVE FEEDBACK | CONTACT