Superstar Showcase

7. Courtney Read (Next: Liz DeWolf)

Courtney entered her newsletters into the 2011 Newsletter Marketer of the Year contest.

Here is her entry.

Describe your business before using newsletters

Tell us about any issues you had about getting clients, making sales or developing your business.

We are an insurance agency.  And, unfortunately, there is a stigma attached to insurance.  Insurance is one of those things you tend to pay for, but hope you never need.  So, generally, when people do contact us it is with a problem.

Courtney used her insurance company's newsletter to communicate with clients after storms and tornadoes struck the area, telling clients how they could get claims administered.

Describe your business after using newsletters

Tell us how your business changed. Did you get more clients? If so, how many? How much extra income did you make? Did they benefit your business in any other way?

We have begun to open lines of communication with our clients.  Instead of them feeling like we are some nameless entity they send money to every month, we are an approachable group of people who are there to help them.  We added an “about us” section to our Newsletter and our clients love it! We include marriages, new babies etc. from around our office.  It makes our clients feel that we are people with names and faces; not just an extension they call when something goes wrong.

Describe how you used newsletters to get these benefits

Tell us how you distribute your newsletters, how often, and who to. Tell us anything else we need to know about your newsletter program.

Since we have started sending out our newsletter we get emails from clients that are not just involving claims.  We get emails requesting the “bonus articles” and the monthly quiz answer.  Also, some of the articles we use have led to current clients requesting information on new lines of coverage they did not know existed.

However, the most important use so far has been communicating with our clients during and after the recent storms in our area.  Our offices were without power, phones and internet for several days after the tornadoes that struck our area.  Being insurance, this was when our clients needed us most.  We were able to access our newsletter from an offsite computer and let our clients know what was going on and give them contact numbers and information that would allow them to begin the claims reporting process.

Next: Liz DeWolf