Waldo,
We did our own newsletter for quite a few years on a quarterly basis. The format included:
1. A personal letter from yours truly to our customers.
2. A recipe from one of our customers. We always ran an ongoing contest and offered a 20.00 gift certificate to the "winner". The reality was that everyone who sent us a recipe won. One time we had a typo and made it a "$200.00" contest. Yup, I bit the bullet and did 200.00 worth of cleaning free.
3. An employee profile. This is great for two reasons. First, customers love seeing what type of individuals are going to be coming through their door. I always tried to include facts on wives, number of children, etc. (this was assuming my tech KNEW how many children he had fathered!) However another reason we really liked Employee Profiles is it made techs feel really "special". Lets face it. Pushing a scrub wand is not a high prestige job. Anything I could do to raise my employee's self respect was great.
4. Community calendar. Here you can run charity events that your customers are part of. The nice thing about this is you also include who asked you to run it. Especially in a small town it is great to subtly let your other customers see who uses your services.
5. A technical column for the homeowner. We ran articles on proper vacuum selection and use, spotting tips, carpet selection guides, etc.
6. Humor (clean) is always appreciated. We also would run trivia contests.
I hope this helps, Waldo.
Steve Toburen CR
Director of Training
Jon-Don's
Strategies for Success
PS HOWEVER, Waldo, even after saying the above I gotta say that I am with Scott Warrington, Richard Chavez and Rambo above. (Even though I must say I like Rambo's comment best!) CAN you do your own newsletter? Sure. I did for years and it was agonizing. SHOULD someone do their own newsletter? In my opinion, unless you just LOVE doing it and view it as a fun hobby, I would say NO WAY. Why not? Let me count the ways:
1. Your time can be spent much more profitably cleaning/ marketing/ collecting back due money/ playing with your kids. All of the newsletter programs out there are economical and you can't do it cheaper than they can if you count the true cost of your time. (Remember that a turkey newsletter's cost is tax-deductible. Your time isn't.)
2. They need to be regular. We tried really hard on this but still found they inevitably get pushed off due to other deadlines. (I even struggle with procrastination on my
SFS TIPS mailing to our members and I get PAID to crank these out! Sorry guys!) If you are part of a program, especially if the mailing is done for you, it is a turn key done deal.
3. Most of the programs (including Jon-Don's) allow extensive customization. Your time here is well spent on putting in personal details.
4. Better graphics. Professional companies hire good artists that will probably make your newsletter look better than you will. (I intend no disrespect for any of you budding graphic artists put there.)
Anyway just my opinion. BTW, I have no connection with Jon-Don's newsletter program either financially or organizationally. My comments above are generic in nature and apply to all the programs available out there.