If you’re not sending a newsletter, you’re missing one of the most important sales tools for marketing agencies.
To grow your agency, you need to regularly ask yourself this question: “What did I tell the world about my agency today?”
Because as agencies, we’re in the business of spreading the word. We do it excellently for our clients, but what about for your own business?
When it comes to getting the word out, we believe there is no better tool than a newsletter.
So, here are 5 reasons to back that up.
Reason 1: Sales are taking longer to get over the line.
One of the insights that came out of last year is that clients are taking much longer to get over the line. We’ve seen agencies reporting some clients taking 6 months or longer to sign on the dotted line.
What do you do when you’re faced with this? It’s tempting sometimes to grab your prospects by their shirt and give them a violent shake whilst screaming “What are you waiting for??”. Maybe we ought to start a business where we drive around bundling prospects into the boot of our car and taking them to an agency pipeline black site for some “gentle encouragement”.
But before we resort to that, let’s consider a newsletter.
Imagine you have a client that is kicking your proposal down the road.
Now imagine that every week/fortnight/month, he gets a newsletter from your agency.
And that newsletter tells them about the fantastic things you’re doing for your clients. It gives them some insights that demonstrate your expertise. There might even be some stories in there that show what a great team you are to work with.
That kind of “gentle encouragement” is legal. And grossly underrated.
Reason 2: You’re forgettable.
It’s not personal. People are busy and their attention is being sought after all the time, from all angles.
So, it’s up to you to remind them who you are. And not just who are, but about the great things you do for people just like them.
Remind them how much you know about the problems they face and the opportunities they have.
Create value-led newsletter campaigns in an entertaining and memorable way. You need to manufacture a relationship with your subscribers where they look for your next instalment because.
Reason 3: You’re a stranger.
When I met my wife I had to woo her. I had to persuade and convince her that I’m a good guy - reliable and dependable (the jury is out on all of this). I didn’t do that by telling her how great I thought I was; I did it by showing her how I could be great for her.
And so it is for your subscribers.
In your email list you will have these profiles:
Current clients who might not know about all of your services
Past clients who have forgotten about you
Future clients who need to be convinced you’re right for them
Use case studies and testimonials to build trust with your readers. If they see your content across a number of different platforms, it creates familiarity with you and your agency.
And you've heard a million times before but it’s true: people buy from people.
Show them why you’re the right people.
Reason 4: It could feed the rest of your channels.
If you’ve spent a bunch of non-billable time putting together a fantastic newsletter, what’s the next logical step?
Repurpose, recycle, reuse.
You’re far too busy, and your insights are too valuable to only say stuff once. Whatever your specialism, whether it’s social media, SEO, PPC, web development (or heaven forbid, email marketing), you should never shut up about it.
So, if you’ve written a great piece in your newsletter about LinkedIn’s new algorithm, or curated a list of Google PPC best practices, or preached on my keyword stuffing is bad for SEO, then say it again somewhere else.
Turn it into:
3 LinkedIn posts
An Instagram carousel
A TikTok video or reel
A podcast segment
A blog post
A webinar
Reason 5: It’s a key touchpoint. Everyone uses email, all the time.
Everyone uses email. Everyone. You can’t afford NOT to leverage this channel in your marketing efforts.
To put this into context:
It’s projected there’ll be over 4.6bn email users by 2025 (Hubspot)
~60% of people check email before anything else (Hubspot)
Email is the most used household internet activity (ONS)
So, not only is incredibly widely used (more so than any social media platform), but everyone who receives marketing emails from you has opted in. That means they literally want to hear from you.
Email is personal. If you’re clever, it’s targeted and personalised. Forget about shouting your marketing message on the proverbial street corners of social media: send marketing messages that hit the right people at the right time.