When you first start your independent consulting business, and there seems to be so much to do and so little time, it’s reasonable to question if marketing-tasks like designing and publishing email-newsletters are really worth all the effort.
The great thing about newsletters though, is that they really don’t have to take a great deal of time to create, and if you get them right, your existing and potential consulting clients will take the time to read them—and perhaps respond to your calls-to-action.
Like any marketing initiative, an e-newsletter doesn’t guarantee sales, but it can serve a number of useful purposes in addition to brand-promotion. In the following paragraphs, you can learn about three ways to use a regular newsletter to engage and inform your consulting clients.
Why Newsletters Still Work (When So Much Else Doesn’t)
I’ll be honest—when people ask me about newsletter consulting or whether they should bother with email marketing, my first instinct is to say “it depends.” Because most newsletters are rubbish. They sit unread, get filtered to promotions tabs, or trigger immediate unsubscribes.
But here’s the thing. The newsletters that work, really work. A bloke I know who consults on warehouse operations has a monthly newsletter that goes to about 2,000 subscribers. Nothing fancy—just industry observations, a tip or two, occasionally a case study. He told me roughly 40% of his new business enquiries mention the newsletter specifically. They’ve been reading it for months, sometimes years, before they pick up the phone.
The difference between a newsletter that builds your practice and one that wastes everyone’s time usually comes down to whether you’re actually saying something useful or just… existing in people’s inboxes.
Create Awareness
You can use a digital newsletter to make your consulting clients more aware of what your business is about, and to better understand each of the services you offer.
For example, not all of your potential or past clients will visit your website. Your newsletter serves to put information right in front of people and, with catchy calls-to-action and links, can encourage them to visit the detailed service pages on your site.
Provide Updates
Any newsletter worth its salt will include news and updates about the publisher’s business. Your past clients in particular, may be interested to know about new services you may offer, successful projects you’ve worked on, and other developments that arise as your business grows.
These snippets of current information can sometimes nudge clients briefly from their preoccupations and remind them that they need some help with a particular project or problem. The next step might well be a call to your office or an email inviting a proposal.
Establish Authority
You can use a newsletter to help establish credibility with potential clients. Do this by including short, but authoritative articles in your newsletter to inform business owners or executives and help them solve problems or make business improvements.
Remember the CTAs: Whatever types of content you publish in your digital newsletters, remember to include messages inviting clients to take some form of action, even if it’s only to visit your website or blog. The whole aim of a newsletter is to create engagement and keep your name in the front of potential clients’ minds.
The Newsletter Consulting Mindset
If you’re thinking about this from a newsletter consulting perspective—either for your own practice or as a service you offer clients—there are a few principles worth keeping in mind.
First, consistency matters more than frequency. I’ve seen consultants burn out trying to maintain weekly newsletters when monthly would serve them better. A reliable monthly newsletter that people actually anticipate beats a sporadic weekly one that feels like an obligation.
Second, personality isn’t optional. The newsletters that get read have a voice. They sound like a person wrote them, not a marketing department. This is actually easier for independent consultants than for big firms—you can be yourself, have opinions, even be a bit irreverent if that’s your style.
Third, don’t overthink the technology. I’ve watched people spend weeks evaluating email platforms when they should have been writing their first issue. Pick something reasonable—Mailchimp, ConvertKit, whatever—and start. You can always switch later.
Consulting Clients Want Snappy News
The most effective digital newsletters are those that can be distributed to a list of email contacts and opened directly from your contacts’ inboxes, rather than as attachments. However, that also means you should not make your newsletters too long.
Ideally, your consulting clients and leads should be able to read the entire newsletter in just three or four minutes. Keep newsletters short, snappy, and to the point, with the goal of encouraging readers to take action, rather than to provide them with bedside reading.
If you get the formula right and provide regular news (one issue per month is a good rule of thumb) of a consistent quality, your efforts will keep you in the thoughts of your consulting clients—or at least jog their memories each time they open the latest issue.
What to Actually Put in the Thing
This is where most consultants get stuck. They agree newsletters are worthwhile, they set up the software, they design a template… and then stare at a blank screen wondering what to write.
A few content types that tend to work well:
One insight from recent work. Not a full case study, just a single observation. “I noticed three clients this month struggling with the same inventory issue—here’s what’s causing it.” Keep it anonymous obviously.
A response to industry news. Something happened in your sector. What do you make of it? What should your clients be thinking about?
A practical tip they can use immediately. Small, specific, actionable. The kind of thing that makes someone think “oh, that’s useful” and then actually remember you said it.
Occasional personal updates. Sparingly. But people like knowing there’s a human behind the newsletter. Attending a conference, adding a new service, even just reflections on business. Don’t overdo it though.
The newsletters that fail are usually the ones that try to be everything—news aggregator, thought leadership platform, sales pitch, and personal blog all at once. Pick a lane, at least for each issue.