In reality, it isn’t that difficult to write and produce high quality customer communications that keep you at the forefront of your customers’ mind whilst also positioning you as an expert in your field.

This point has been amply illustrated with a couple of clients of mine recently. The first, a maker of industrial components, approached me just over 12 months ago with a view to writing and producing a customer newsletter for them. They are a well established brand in their niche industrial market but admitted they weren’t great at keeping in touch with customers. They realised that some customers weren’t aware of their full product range whilst others were going elsewhere because they felt ignored or were being lured away by competitor communications.

Couple this with the fact they had no method for keeping in touch with prospective clients who had requested product information or quotes but never made a purchase, and you can see how important the desire to start a regular newsletter was.

Last October we produced their first bi monthly e-newsletter, with some trepidation on their part. They easily came up with a list of topics for the first issue but had a real fear that they’d dry up after one or two newsletters. Needless to say, 12 months on and the bi monthly newsletter is still going strong and is being added to with another communication during the alternative months.

A second client has recently launched a new website with a blog which they see as the main way to add keyword rich content and therefore improve the site’s chances of coming top of the search engines.

Their challenge was how to generate enough ideas for items so that the business owner could blog once or twice a week. Three months on and the site has 20+ blog posts, all helping to demonstrate the depth and breadth of knowledge of the firm whilst at the same time, providing the content for a monthly newsletter which puts the blog posts right in front of clients and prospective clients.

So how have these two businesses managed to overcome their reservations to generate great, customer focused communications which put them in front of customers on a regular basis?

Plan what to say, when and how

Developing a simple editorial plan, whether you are producing a full blown newsletter or a series of blogs will really help.

Ask yourself when are you going to write. Getting some space blocked out in your diary on a regular basis will really help. Whether that’s time to discuss the content of your next newsletter with your sales team or one hour slots once a week to write a blog based on business news. Book some time in your diary and stick to it.

What topics do you want to cover - what will interest your customers? How can you astonish, amaze, entertain your clients?

In both cases, with my clients, they were producing information pieces, not sales pushes. Once you realise you don’t have to have a compelling sales message it can often be much easier to write.

What overall impression or message do you want to convey? Be clear what impression you want to create – do you want to be seen as an aloof guru or expert in your chosen field, or an accessible knowledge base that clients know they can call upon? Getting the tone of your communications right from the outset will make things much easier in the long run.

Sourcing content

“But, what am I going to write about?” Is the question many clients ask when they first embark on this kind of marketing exercise.

Finding things to write about isn’t actually difficult if you approach the process with an open mind. Winning a new client or account, launching a new product, or finding a new application for an existing product are all worthy of a mention.

Breaking down what your business does into smaller chunks is a great way to generate multiple potential stories. Accountants for example don’t just deal with audits and accounts.They also advise on VAT compliance and tax saving strategies, help with business and succession planning, can advise if you are buying or selling a business and the better ones will provide support with management information that helps with decision making. Each of these facets of what they do generates individual stories – whether it’s ‘how to guides’, top tips or commentary on the latest changes.

Your own trade press and the general business press will present you with topics you can write on too. And using things like Google News or Google alerts can present you with prompts on a daily basis.

Don’t write it all yourself

If you are worried about finding the time (or the inspiration) why not delegate the task (either of writing or coming up with topics) to other members of the team. You’d be surprised how many businesses have a budding writer who would relish the opportunity to put fingers to keyboard.

Hold a regular ‘editorial’ meeting, get people in the habit of coming up with story ideas, case studies or customer feedback which can easily be converted into content for blogs or newsletters.

For my industrial client we hold a full editorial meeting and have a detailed schedule for information gathering, writing and approvals. You may not need to be as formal but the principles still apply. Set some deadlines. Have a clear date in mind when the newsletter or blog is due to appear and work back from that date.

You may choose to use specialist copywriters but they will still need your guidance on the topics to cover and where the emphasis should be placed.

Stick at it

There’s a real danger that after a few newsletters or blogs you lose a bit of focus or start to lapse when it comes to hitting deadlines. For my client the first couple of e-newsletters went down really well. Open and click through rates were higher than we expected and orders flowed directly from the newsletter. Issue 3 wasn’t so great. The main story didn’t seem to have as much appeal and the sales force had fewer enquiries. But they didn’t lose heart. Instead we analysed the content, looked at the reader behaviour, found out what was more popular and made sure issue 4 led with a topic that had more universal appeal.

Too many businesses fall at this first hurdle, they start communication, whether it’s a newsletter, blog, Twitter posts or even attendance at networking events, but after a few times or maybe a poor response they drop it and go back to what might seem like a conspiracy of silence as far as their customers are concerned.

Communication is at the core of all effective marketing. Get it right and you win with higher awareness in your chosen market, improved reputation and understanding of what you can offer as well as ultimately more sales. And if you need a reminder as to why communication is so important have a look at the Michael LeBoeuf extract in a previous Practical Marketing newsletter (Ignoring customers and other ways to help your business fail).

As George Bernard Shaw said – “The biggest single problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Don’t live under an illusion that you are communicating with your customers by simply being there, or leaving it to your sales force. Take control, plan and execute effective communications on a regular basis and experience the real, tangible results.