Sending out an interesting and informational newsletter is a great way to stay in front of your clients, prospects and networking referral sources and the better the content, the more recognition and respect you’ll receive for your expertise and knowledge.

And that’s great BUT that’s not all. You must follow-up in order to get the maximum ROI from your newsletter endeavors.

Most of the newsletter services like Constant Contact and Mail Chimp offer insightful reports so that you can assess how your newsletter is doing in terms of opens, click throughs and opt outs and while the statistics can be interesting it’s even more important to take a close look at “who” is taking these actions.

Open

I’m always keen to see who opened my newsletter and while I know this doesn’t specifically mean that he or she pored over every word it does give me some insights into who has demonstrated even a small degree of interest in either me or my subject. I peruse this list carefully and will take the time to call or email select people on this list. The result has been some excellent conversations that have led to business opportunities or introductions to referral sources. It’s never been a “waste of my time.”

Click through

I’m always interested to see who clicked on the links in my newsletter and of course, what they clicked on. The recipient’s interest in a particular link provides me with the foundation for the follow-up conversation and also provides overall insight into what my readers find interesting.

Opt Out

Since I ask permission before adding anyone to my newsletter distribution list my percentage of opt-outs is quite low. Even still I am fascinated to see who has decided to opt out of receiving my newsletter. I’ve often reached out by phone to these folks and in general find out that they make it a point to opt out of ALL newsletters in order to keep their onslaught of email as small as possible. The conversations are always friendly and in some cases, some people that opted out asked to be put on the distribution list again.

Remember that the effectiveness of your newsletter is wrapped up in three things:

• The content of the newsletter
• Your distribution list
• Your follow-up strategy

Pay attention to all three things and you will find that you get much better results from your newsletter marketing efforts.