Countless professional cleaners and restorers can testify to the effectiveness and return on investment of sending out a periodic newsletter to their customer base. You won’t find too much disagreement about the value of doing a client newsletter. What you will find some pretty serious disagreement about is what should be in your client newsletter.

In one camp, you will find the argument that client newsletters should be very “readable;” that they should include articles, inserts, and topics that would interest the recipient that have nothing to do with cleaning and restoration. Since with most professional carpet cleaners, the newsletters are sent to residential customers that are mostly female, this would indicate that the newsletter should include things that interest them other than cleaning and restoration related topics. Some examples of this include recipes, humor, human interest stories, amazing feats, and parenting topics. This camp would tell you that around 30-40% of the newsletter content should be focused on cleaning topics. The other 60-70% should be focused on readable topics of interest to the homeowner.

In the other camp, you have professionals who believe that a client newsletter should remain focused on cleaning and restoration related topics. They believe that including interesting and readable “fluff” is just that. They generally don’t believe that their customers really want “fluff” out of a newsletter coming from a cleaning and restoration company. They believe a newsletter that contains practical information that relates to the maintenance of their home makes more sales and is more effective.

What do you think? If you have tried a customer newsletter, what has your experience been? Let us know what you think makes up the most effective content of a customer newsletter.

 The good news is that even in these two different camps, there is more agreement than disagreement about customer newsletters. Here is what both camps agree on:

1. You should do a client newsletter. The return on investment is consistently high.
2. You should make your referral rewards program a significant part of your newsletter.
3. You should include testimonials from your clients
4. Your newsletter should be part of an overall education based marketing program.
5. Your newsletter should help be a part of what solidifies your company as “the experts” in the recipients minds
6. Your newsletter should reinforce the credibility and integrity of your company.
7. Your newsletter should include content that demonstrates your company’s commitment to the neighborhoods and community of which you are a part of.
8. Your newsletter should provide the reader with useful information about how to maintain the investments your clients have made in their flooring, furniture, and fixtures.

So now that you understand client newsletters a little bit better, the next decision you would need to make is whether to develop your own newsletter; subscribe to an existing newsletter program that is more customizable so that you can adjust and customize it; or subscribe to an existing newsletter and use it exactly as it is. Here are some links to places you can find that have client newsletters you can subscribe to:

www.ecleanadvisor.com

www.joepolish.com

www.howardpartridge.com

You will need to consider the frequency at which you will send your client newsletter out – quarterly, semi-monthly, or monthly. You will need to consider the delivery system for your newsletter – postal mail (standard or first class) or email or a combination of the two. You will need to consider how you integrate your client newsletter with your website, your company Facebook page (if you have one), your company blog or twitter account (if you have one), etc…

Whatever you decide to do, you can use www.cleanwiki.com as an excellent resource for information and valuable, proven content to include in your client newsletter. Over the coming months we will be pointing out some of this material to get your creative juices flowing. This month, we recommend you visit the Technical Resource Section of cleanwiki, and take a closer look at two areas:

1. In the marketing gems folder, you will find an example of a customer newsletter that was created in Microsoft word®.
2. In the “How to Care For” Folder, you will find many articles about how to care for carpet, upholstery, Oriental Rugs, Wood floors, stone, tile and more. These articles are designed to for you to use to teach your customers how to maintain their floors and furniture between professional cleanings.

Registered participants in Cleanwiki are free to use these excellent resources to include in their newsletters.