Email Newsletter makes Front Page Headline
We work with a variety of clients and provide a big portion of them with email marketing services. One of our clients, a city government in North Central Ohio, has been working with us to send weekly email newsletters to citizens and business owners during the city's Downtown Revitalization Project. The newsletters are designed to keep subscribers informed about the progress of the project.
The most recent email newsletter included information about some damage that was caused to a certain portion of the project, along with a request from the city's Mayor & Service-Safety Director asking citizens to respect the barricades and not enter the work area. A side note about the city's newsletter statistics. They've seen a pretty strong open rate, as we expected, because of the nature of their newsletters and the information they provide.
Here's where it gets interesting. The local newspaper, who's reporters are subscribed to receive the city's newsletters, ran a story with the headline "Damage prompts plea from mayor". In the article, the report not only mentions where the information for the story was found, he also quotes verbatim the content that is in the body of newsletter. The reporter used the email newsletter and its content to create a story for a traditional media outlet.
Moral of the story. Email marketing and email newsletters can be a great tool for customer retention, lead generation AND public relations. If your email newsletter content includes news about your business or your employees, send a personal email (from your email address) to reporters and invite them to signup for your email newsletter campaign. You never know when a story from your newsletter might show up as a front page headline in the next edition of your hometown newspaper!
Now, go forth and email!