How to make client updates more interesting and effective
Client updates, like newsletters, are a vital part of any firm’s marketing engine.
- They are a powerful marketing tool
- They show your clients that you appreciate them and care for improving their business
- They illustrate your expertise
- They provide insightful advice
- They offer essential information that they might not find anywhere else
This is just the tip of the long list of things that make client updates necessary. With that in mind, we wanted to dedicate a whole series of articles on the subject. So, stick around with our blog to read the entire series.
The importance of client updates
Most professional service firms are well aware of the importance of updates. They don’t only use them as newsletters – they also use them to inform the clients of any changes, promote offers and services, and more.
However, the problem with these updates is that they are often viewed as a necessity. Due to this perception, they are rarely made with care. The clients get very little value out of these updates, and they usually end up in the clients’ mailbox trash.
Yes, you might feel that you don’t need to bother with making them engaging, but, if you make the updates useful, you stand to gain:
- You won’t waste your time creating them. The time spent on making them will have meaning, bringing you valuable results.
- You won’t waste your clients’ time by sending them meaningless information about which they don’t care.
Besides that, with effective client updates, you can gain a competitive advantage over other firms and differentiate yourself from them. You become unique and valuable to potential clients, and you become a thought leader in your industry.
The basic steps to making practical and useful client updates
You can do a lot to modernise your client updates and make them effective. In the following articles of this series, we will concentrate more on:
- Targeting the right client with the right information
- Creating valuable and exciting content to send in your updates
For now, we need to cover the basics of getting your newsletter right:
- Talk to your clients! Understand what they want and need and use that knowledge to create updates that add value.
- Strive to differentiate the updates from the ones other firms use, as clients almost always ignore these. Look at how you can add useful information to benefit each of your clients.
- Follow the click-through rates for your updates. That way, you can see where the problems lie and what works and what doesn’t. Then focus on what works while continually trying out new and better methods. Once again, you can ask for feedback from your clients as they know best what format, style, and type of content they want – but don’t rely on this solely, as many will simply not respond and sometimes people don’t know what they want until they get it.
- Never overdo the updates. Your clients don’t have time to spend a whole hour reading your content. If it’s in a longer format, then make sure everything in there is useful. Use design techniques to cluster like information, use heading and bold to highlight important text.
- Use plain English. Don’t come off as too professional or expert-like as that results in rigid and boring content and is not engaging.
- Always innovate! Use technology and other types of content to your advantage. You can incorporate video blogs or audio podcasts into your updates and especially in newsletters. Videos are already very popular (and more effective than text!), and podcasts are continually rising in popularity.
With this, we conclude the basics of making client updates effective and useful. As we’ve stated, in the following articles, we’ll dive much deeper into the topic, so make sure you’re following us. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you want to know more.