Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Internal Sales & Marketing newsletters are a great means of communication for both groups. I have been a part of putting a few of these together for different companies.

I have used the internal newsletters to communicate new clients, case studies on how high level clients were obtained, how sales can overcome common client objections, lists of upcoming events and tradeshows, articles on pasts events and tradeshows, announcements of new marketing ads or other marketing materials and how sales should leverage those materials, for PR announcements, and any operation or finance communications.

We provided soft and hard copies of the newsletters for our staff, especially for sales personnel who traveled frequently and was not always online. With that in mind, however, it was made clear that the newsletter was confidential and was never to be forwarded to clients or persons outside the company.

Completely agree. Internal newsletters (preferably weekly, but depends how much "news" there is...) are a great tool for communicating selling and marketing ideas and successes, and promoting internal competition.

I'm guessing you're looking for some "War stories"...

I used to run one for a national network of 60-odd stores. The revenue of each store was rated weekly against its revenue target, and a league table published weekly. State managers were asked to contribute lead articles, while the manager of the top store each week was interviewed, and an article written around what had led to their success that week, mentioning key staff contributors and the whole team.

This was just before e-mail was available, and the newsletters were mailed on a Friday night so they reached every store Monday morning. If the newsletter wasn't in the Monday mail, the store managers would ring to find out why! So it was always well received, and a pole position in the league table was a matter of great pride for each week's winner.

Hope that helps.

ChrisB

Hi

I would like to know what kind of business will the Newsletter address, how long does it take to close a deal, what's the customer life cycle, what's your distribution channel, etc.

For instance, if you're in Naval Construction you probably won't need a weekly Newsletter since you will rapidly fall short of News; on the contrary if you are addressing a Real Estate Network, with lots of deals closing every week, you will probably have contents even for a bi-weekly issue.

It depends on business and number of people as well. If they're numerous and very dispersed (geographically) you will have to weight costs - will it be more reasonable to have both hard and soft copies, or will it make more sense just to have a e-Newsletter sent to a e-mailing list? On the contrary if the group is not so big, won't it make sense (and be more rewarding) to have a periodic meeting with everybody?

All these (and other) factors influence things like how many times during a month will the Newsletter come out, will there be enough news to keep the Newsletter coming out, etc. or even do you really need a Newsletter...

Just some thoughts, as you asked :-)

Best Regards
Antonio

Be cool to have it only online and then also have it download onto a cell phone or ipod in a combination of images, sound and text.

hi shajiajohn

first, i would say having a monthly newsletter makes it more realistic in terms of content, composition, publishing and distribution rather than a weekly newsletter or fortnightly one.

anyway, apart what you have listed i suggest you also include the following...

1.Best Team in terms of total revenue and volume
2.Birthdays of team members
3. New members joining the various teams
4. All-in-a-Day's-Work (members of teams can tell Funny-side of life while in work)
5. Quiz contest on various geographical locations whereby you have offices.

hope this helps.

cheers!!

Newsletter content for your audiences is very important, of course. Do make sure that you also create a workable timeline. This is necessary if people from different parts will be contributing to your newsletter or reviewing it. Re print and e-news, I'll share some info.

Years back I worked on a bi-monthly business newsletter that was printed and mailed to the company's investment bankers worldwide. It was usually 4-6 pages (11" x 17"), had text, photos and graphic images. Three issues were always in the works simultaneously -- about 2 weeks before an issue was ready to be printed, work was begun on a new issue; meanwhile, there was a third issue in progress that was mid-way in production. Issues usually required about 2 months each to complete.

Currently, one of my clients is a global professional services firm. I work on a bi-monthly e-newsletter that my client e-mails to sales and marketing personnel in APAC,EUROPE and the US.

The content consists of articles and short stories concerning:

recent business that the firm has won, some achievement, or award received, etc.

staff appointments and transfers

outcome of recently held business events (like client presentations and staff networking sessions)

upcoming meetings/other functions


The client has the e-news divided into sections so there is equal representation for the Asia Pacific, Europe and U.S. areas. Different people worldwide submit stories in English using Microsoft Word.

Since most of the contributors are non-native English speaking professionals (including my client contact, who is from Asia), I was contracted to rewrite their text to improve the grammar and message flow, etc.

In this case, the client has a usual 1 month timeline. The e-news generally has about 8 - 10 pages of text and photos. Sometimes the client delays distributing the e-news by a few days or a week so a last-minute article can be added (say if a senior executive is preparing content about a policy that the readers must be aware of).

Good luck and let me know if I can help you further.