How to prepare a newsletter

To keep clients coming through your doors, it's important to stay in touch. So if you’re looking for a way to inform them about your latest services and shout about your achievements, newsletters offer the perfect platform. This month, Salon Smart's PR & Marketing expert Sharleen Hunter reveals her top tips for preparing newsletters that will enlighten, excite and entice your clients!

1. Objectives

Before you start, think about your objectives for the newsletter and your target audience, as this will affect everything from the content to the layout.

2. Content

Next, brainstorm content ideas by considering what will interest your clients and promote your salon at the same time. It could be a recent award win, a new service, or even useful hairdressing tips. 

3. Frequency

Work out how often you’d like to send out your newsletter. If you’re regularly involved in photoshoots, shows, awards and fundraising activities, a monthly newsletter may work best.  However if you’re short of time, a quarterly option could be the right choice for you.

4. Distribution

Post: Sending newsletters by post, means you’ll need to factor in design, print, postage, envelope and labels costs, plus allocate time to envelope stuffing and organisation.  However provided it’s well presented, a hard copy may have a greater impact and will give clients something they can read on the train or whilst relaxing at home.

In Salon: By distributing the newsletter in the salon, you’ll cut out postage and related costs, however you’ll be limiting the distribution to clients that visit you within that given time. To counteract this, ask local businesses whether you could leave some at their premises to widen the reach.

By Email: e-newsletters are very cost-effective. Once you’ve got the design and copy organised, there’s no postage or printing outlay. So whether you target fifty clients or five hundred, your costs are unlikely to change. However, if a client isn’t familiar with your address, that email could quickly be consigned to their ‘junk’ folder.

Providing a downloadable version of your newsletter on your website is also an option.
Depending on your needs, objectives and your wallet, you could combine methods by sending newsletters by post and also have them in the salon.