A better, less expensive way to stay in touch with your contacts

In any business, it's important to stay in touch with your contacts. Let's face it, people constantly need to be reminded that you are available to help them. People are busy and the last thing on their "to do" list is to check up on you to find out what you've been up to. Most people are lucky if they find the time to call their immediate relatives to say hello.

As you may have heard before, marketing experts say it costs much more money, effort and time to find new customers than it does to keep the ones you've got. To expand that thought, keeping the customers you've got, can also lead to finding new customers (at no additional cost, effort or time).

Many professionals like to use newsletters to stay in touch with clients. Newsletters work very well, however, they can require a lot of time to create and a lot of money to produce and distribute. Then, what happens when your audience receives your newsletter? I think most people look at it, see it's from you and that it's a newsletter and then discard it in the trash (or recycle container).

But, before the newsletter goes in the garbage, did it do it's job? If you have your photo, company info, and contact info on the outside of the newsletter and the recipient noticed it and thought of you, then the newsletter did it's job. Afterall, isn't the point of a newsletter to remind your contacts that you are there to assist them when needed?

Here's the bigger question. Did you need to spend all of the money, time and effort that your newsletter requires in order to get the job done? In my opinion, no. Newsletters offer a good solution to a task that needs to be accomplished, but is there a better solution? In my opinion, yes.

Visual Info Design provides a few solutions that will cost you less than the typical newsletter, and one of the solutions may even keep you out of the trash (or recycle container), at least for a little while:

1. Calendar postcard - This is an 8.5" x 5.5" postcard that (as you probably figured out already) includes a monthly calendar on one side. It also includes your photo and contact information on both sides, so no matter what side is up when your calendar postcard is pulled out of the mailbox, your photo and info will be visible. Since it has the a monthly calendar on it, most of your audience just might keep it handy for reference, instead of tossing it right away. Furthermore, since it only includes one month at a time, you can have a new one to send each month, so you are consistently staying in touch with your clients and other contacts. Here's a sample:
   
   
   
2. Monthly Newspostcard - This is a similar idea to the calendar postcard, except this falls in line with the newsletter idea. This item is also a 5.5" x 8.5" postcard. It includes a short "article", which usually offers some tips. Like the calendar postcard, the newspostcard costs much less to produce that the typical newsletter, so you can save some green on your trip to the trash (or recycle container). With the newspostcard, everything is already written for you and taken care of, you simply need to click on a download button and your newspostcard is ready to go.
   
3. Quotes of the month postcard - If you're still looking for the same impact as the above options (and the typical newsletter), but really want to spend less, then the "quotes of the month" postcard might offer the best solution. The quotes of the month postcard is 4.25" x 5.5", so it requires the least expensive postage rate. Again, it includes your information on both sides. On side one, there are three quotes from three different famous people, so chances are your mailing will actually be read before discarded. Since you can print "4-up" per sheet, the printing costs are low!
   
4. E-mail newsletter - It doesn't get any cheaper than e-mail, right? So, it makes a lot of sense to stay in touch with clients and other contacts through e-mail. The e-mail newsletter is the HTML version of the newspostcard. Nothing to do with this one, either, although you can add you own custom message if desired. With the e-mail newsletter, you click "download" and the newsletter is assembled, personalized with your information and delivered to your e-mail inbox ready-to-send.
   
5. There are also a few other items of value included in a Visual Info Design membership, like holiday greeting postcards (printable and HTML versions of each) and newsflyers.

A Visual Info Design membership costs just $6.99 per month (after a $49 one-time account setup fee). For more information and samples, visit: www.visualinfodesign.com.

Finally, since Visual Info Design is new to Active Rain, I would like to extend an opportunity to a few of you to try the service out free of charge. All I ask is that you share your positive feedback on AR for others to read. If you are interested, please visit the website and write me through the "contact us" form.

Thank you for reading this large post. I hope it was helpful to you.