The Tribune

By D’Arcy Rahming

A friend of mine owns some funeral homes in America. So imagine my surprise when he told me that he puts out a regular written newsletter. Of course I immediately used the joke

“I bet your customers are dying to read it.” But, alas not only did he not think it was funny, he also said that he had heard that one a few hundred times before. He explained to me that he actually puts out information on financial planning for the aged, exercises for the aged, jokes and other material. He distributes it free to Geriatric homes and often gets calls from people when they are planning their own funeral.

I am going to make the bold statement here that every business can benefit from a written newsletter. Surely this is proof of that. Written newsletters for businesses may seem old fashioned in the age of when you can just send an email, but they are actually a valuable tool that is often overlooked. In fact because people are so inundated with junk mail, a written newsletter is kept longer and actually more of it is read.

Now a lot of people may believe that the purpose of a newsletter is to be as professional as possible (translate professional to equal dull). But I assure you that if the newsletter is boring, it is the surest way for it to end up in the trash can. People want to be entertained or at least have their curiosity sated. Even if they are reading about a subject that is not terribly exciting.

Full disclosure here. I have used written newsletters in my Judo business since the early 90s. but I never really gave newsletters a lot of thought until I attended a seminar a couple of years back when marketing guru Bill Glazer gave a session on them. He said that his research had revealed that you can do a newsletter on any subject provided that you put your personality behind it

I guess why that struck a chord is that the comments that came back to me about my newsletter seemed to always be related to personal notes or stories that I wrote in them. People seemed to glance over the information and really read the human interest parts. So when designing your newsletter have a little fun with it. People don’t mind reading about your kids or even your dog. It builds relationships and trust when you reveal something about yourself and increases your brand awareness.


• D’Arcy Rahming holds a MBA from the prestigious Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. A Lecturer at the College of the Bahamas, Rahming has clients in General Insurance, Retail, Health and Medical fields, Sports Federations and Financial Services. To receive his marketing newsletter FREE go to “http://darcyrahming.com” http://darcyrahming.com