E-Newsletters – Reach Customers for Only Pennies Per Person

Electronic newsletters are a cost efficient way to target your customers, clients, and potential buyers. They establish you, or your business, as an authority on an issue. Additionally, they can be shared via Facebook or Twitter, or simply forwarded to other email accounts by the recipients.

There are several email distribution services that will allow you to create a custom design for little money, and in some cases no money at all. Depending on your number of contacts, you can spend nothing at all with services such as Mail Chimp or slightly more than free ($8) with Mad Mimi. Others will charge you around $30 for approximately 1,000 contacts. Additional fees may apply – be sure to read the fine print. Other popular services include Constant Contact and My Emma.

Before you move forward create a plan and consider these following tips:

-Send it out once a month.

-Include a few sentences of each story and link to the entire story on your website or blog so you can track what your target audience wants to read.

-Delegate it to someone or hire out for the job – otherwise, it will never get done. Depending if you want to use a professional graphic designer and hire a writer, such as yours truly, you’ll spend approximately $300-$500.

If you’re still not sold on the idea – run the numbers. Say you spend $500/month and

you send it to a thousand people. You’ve spent 50 cents per person. Depending on your business – you may only need a couple of sales to cover the cost – now that’s a good return on your investment!

Why Twitter Can be Better for Research Than Google

Jamie Brown Public Relations gained several television placements for a Dallas health care client. Naturally, the company was interested in the return on investment. However, many of the media monitoring services are expensive and require contracts - making them unattainable for small to medium-sized businesses. Google searches only turned up the top tier companies with budgets for large websites and search engine optimization (SEO). Desperate to help a client, I went to Twitter hoping some of my public relations tweeps could provide a solution. Sure enough my tweet for help was spotted by a boutique company on the East coast. After a phone call and a few emails, we began working together. Without Twitter we never would have made our cyber connection.

A similar situation came about when another client needed a robust research tool. The popular low-cost electronic survey websites available just couldn't provide all of the requirements to get the job done. Google searches couldn't give me what I needed. Back to Twitter I went, and in less than 140 characters an answer arrived. A company following hashtags pertinent to their industry picked up my query, and not long after a relationship was formed.

I'm not promoting giving up Google, rather suggesting Twitter for the answers that are elusive in a SEO driven environment.

Can a Contract Controlling What Your Customers Say Prevent a Public Relations Crisis?

I spoke with a friend the other day who mentioned she was reviewing a contract for a vacation house rental. She couldn’t help but notice a clause that prohibited renters from writing reviews on websites that didn’t provide the owner an opportunity to comment on the complaints.

Attempting to control what your customers say about you with strong legal language doesn’t promote healthy customer relations – much less prevent a public relations crisis. Regardless of contracts you may have with your customers – people will talk, type and text about the experience they had with you. Taking customers to court is expensive. A public relations crisis communications plan will cost you far less coin.


Start with the following:

• have a public relations crisis communications plan in place

• set your Google alerts to notify you when your company’s name is mentioned

• and most importantly always think before you type

Finally, do what you can to patch up a misunderstanding, and do it publicly so that people can see that you care about your customers and are willing to make changes when you can.