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Inspiration




                       The many benefits of newsletters





                                                                     • Including irrelevant content
                                                                     • Filling your text with jargon
                                                                     • Sending newsletters too often, making them seem
                                                                       like spam
                                                                     • Sending newsletters so rarely recipients can't
                                                                       remember who you are
                                                                     • Bringing up controversial topics

                                                                Presentation matters
                                                                Your  newsletter's  formatting  is  important,  too.  If  it's
                                                                peppered  with  SOLID  CAPS;  contains  flowery,  hard  to
                                                                read text; or is decorated with cute drawings of penguins
                                                                and puppies, it's likely going to turn your customers off.
                                                                Solid blocks of dense text will do the same thing. So put
                                                                some thoughts into how you want your newsletter to look.

                   ewsletters are popular in numerous industries,   Here are some suggestions:
                   including payments. Indeed, there's some-         • Keep it simple. Business people will want some-
                   thing to be said for appearing in a customer's      thing clear and easy to read.
        N inbox on a regular basis. And the word "ben-
        efits" just about sums it up. Newsletters provide benefits   • Use headers and subheads. This will make it easy
        to ISOs, merchant level salespeople and other merchant         for readers to see what's included at a glance.
        service providers in several ways. They can help:            • Use bullet points. This will make it easy for people
            • Build long-term relationships                            to understand the message.
            • Increase engagement with your company and brand        • Use visuals. Complementary graphics can aug-
              awareness                                                ment your text and help readers remember what
            • Gather customer feedback                                 they read.
            • Lead to increased sales                           If you decide to send a newsletter, being consistent both
                                                                with the type of content you include and with your
        Value is essential                                      frequency of emailing is important. This is because
                                                                consistency helps:
        However, all these benefits will accrue only if you bring
        something of value to your recipients. Depending on          • Build trust and credibility
        what services you actually provide, as well as what your     • Reinforce brand awareness
        company's strengths  are, you could  provide customers
        with various types of content, including:                    • Foster increased engagement over time
             • Industry  news  and  trends  likely  to  affect  your   Back in the 1980s, Paul H. Green, founder of  The Green
               readers                                          Sheet, began sending an email newsletter to a circle
             • Product updates                                  of colleagues in the fledgling payments industry who
             • Tips on security and fraud prevention            were clamoring for information to help them build their
                                                                careers. Who knows what will happen if you start one in
             • Success stories                                  your circle today?
             • Customer support information
             • Special offers and promotions
             • Employee spotlights
        Be sure to keep your newsletters meaningful and helpful.
        With that in mind, it's important to refrain from the
        following:                                                                Kate Gillespie, President and CEO
             • Being overly self-promotional


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