An Easy Newsletter for Your Clients

Freelance confession: I don’t have a newsletter.

OK…I had one for a while, but after a few months of pretty much no response (no new subscribers, no opens, nothing, even from clients who loved my work), I let it die. It just wasn’t worth my time, and I was finding that cold marketing and time on bidding sites got me much better results.  I’ve run newsletters before, and had never had such poor stats.

Part of that might have been me not finding what resonated with my potential readers, but a big part of it is just how my niche is. Basically, it hasn’t fully embraced content marketing — at least not yet. In a few years, I really think it will have caught up with other industries, but until then, I’m focusing on what they want, and that’s to follow what the big boys are doing.

What I learned from a few blog posts (and this is one reason blogging is still important for freelancers, even if other business models are moving away from it) is that what did resonate with people was comparison. I had a post ranking the best in content in my industry and people read it. I had another that analyzed some big names in the industry, and people read it.

Instead of fighting that, I decided to go with it.

I decided to create a newsletter that’s basically just a collection of the best content in the industry. This is pretty simple on its own, but I plan on using Aweber’s new Curate tool — it’s a ridiculously convenient app that lets you put together a really good-looking newsletter with minimal work (you just add articles straight from your browser…I’m on iOS btw.)

So if you’re looking for ways to keep your clients happy that doesn’t require a lot of work on your part, try a simple, curated email newsletter. You never know what will resonate with the people who are looking for freelancers like you and win you the bonus of establishing you as a specialized authority in your niche.

Megan.