How to Convert Newsletter Subscribers to Design Clients
To make your newsletter marketing to pay out you must include an attractive call to action. What is a call to action (CTA)? It's the piece in your newsletter where you instruct your reader what to do next. The best call-to-action is to offer the potential client something 100 % useful. An offer they can't resist, and wets their appetite for more, but doesn't cost you that much.
To whom do you aim your newsletter's call to action? You aim it to the person that are ready to buy from you now.
This person already knows, likes and trusts you. You have stayed in contact, this person already knows what services you're offering, and you have persistently shared great content with them,
“Anyone coming to my site (or reading the newsletter), can see that I am an expert in my field, and speak in a way that is not intimidating to people not in the industry. Most often, by the time someone has contacted me they are 85% sure they want to work with me,”
Judi Knight. freelance marketing consultant and web designer
Your call to action is the offer that prompts your newsletter subscribers to initiate contact, to discuss a project.
The Judi Knight Example: Her $150 Talk It Out Session
Judi Knight, an Atlanta freelancer, helps businesses to establish their online presence. She sets up, maintains and fuels WordPress websites, blogs and social media accounts for her clients.
Judi's newsletter and blog posts has been, and is, her most effective tools to grow her business.
Judi started her newsletter, “Just a Digital Minute,” in 2010. In roughly 4 years she has grown the newsletter to 2,500 subscribers,
In Judi's newsletter the “Talk it Out Session” is her call-to-action. The “Talk it Out Session” is an 1-hour strategy talk about your online presence. Always in person, either by phone, or a meeting in her office.
Her newsletter goes out every Wednesday morning, and in every edition, near the end of her newsletter, Judi offers her subscribers to book a Talk it Out Session.
Judi does charge a fee of $150 for a session. Why? The fee makes sure the client is a bit invested, and keeps the number of monthly sessions to a reasonable level. The client pre-pays the fee via PayPal. The client fills out a questionnaire beforehand.
Judi does two to three Talk it Out Sessions a week.
Half of these people go on to work with her, usually immediately.
That means 4-6 new clients each month.
More Call to Action Examples
Here are three other, real-life examples of call to actions used in newsletters:
- Jill Lynn, a web designer, offers “a 30-minute complimentary chat.” Interested clients fill out a questionnaire beforehand.
- Lisa Smith Youngdahl, a graphic designer, offers “a free design audit of the client's existing marketing material.”
- Laura Foley, Powerpoint Presentation designer, offers “a free makeover of the client's ugliest slide.” Laura also uses the makeovers as “Before and After” case studies in her marketing.