Build Credibility and Expertise with a Newsletter
Let’s be honest: Some advertisers have a way of massaging the facts to make their product or service out to be the best. As a result, when we see a commercial or read a flier promoting something, we may naturally resist the message. Print a brochure or run an advertisement—even with pure, honest facts—and your audience may be suspicious.
A good newsletter, however, communicates useful information without any direct persuasion or promotion. It is not a flashy ad; rather, it is a service to your readers that communicates the following:
• Credibility. Instead of loudly telling people that you are the best in your field, use a newsletter to share tips, stories or articles your audience would find valuable. If you are a physical therapist reaching out to patients, be sure to share with them tips on mobility, flexibility and preventing injuries. Or, if you happen to be a financial planner keeping in touch with clients, describe how the latest tax law impacts estate planning. A pediatric dentist using a newsletter to keep in touch with other dentists and pediatricians could publish summaries of the latest studies on infant nutrition, bottle feeding or oral hygiene for toddlers. When people read your newsletter, they will read it as a publication, not an advertisement—and that builds your credibility.
• Expertise. When you communicate valuable information to your audience, you become the expert in your field. Perhaps you are an attorney and your newsletter contains articles about a new patent law, buying a home or paying out unemployment benefits. Your newsletter recipients might not need those services from you when they receive your newsletter, but you are planting a seed that you are the ideal attorney to deal with these matters when they arise. Issue after issue, your audience continues to see you as the preeminent attorney—or accountant, financial planner, physician, dentist or physical therapist—in your area. People will want to do business with you.
A newsletter distinguishes you as helpful, competent and willing to communicate your expertise. Best of all, newsletters keep your name in front of clients, patients or referral sources on a regular basis.
[ Back to top ]
