When you address your correspondence to "Dear Valued Client," you send the wrong message. It says you don't care enough to personalize your message.
So, check out the email solutions described in "Stop Sending 'Dear Valued Client' Emails" by Bill Winterberg in his FP Pad blog. He suggests using a service like Constant Contact, which I use to send my newsletter, or mail merge, like the function available in Microsoft Outlook.
Allow plenty of time to get the hang of mail merge. It's complicated. At least, that's my experience.
And, be sure to test your mail merge on non-clients before your first email to clients.
I discovered some unexpected problems the first time I used Outlook's mail merge function. Luckily, I'd used my husband as my mail-merge guinea pig. So none of the prospective clients for my writing and editing business had to suffer through my mistakes.
_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2008 by Susan Weiner All rights reserved
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Susan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments and the mention in your blog. I agree, it's critical to send clients the appropriate communication that is personalized and directed towards their needs. Still, it's very easy (and tempting) to abuse the BCC field in a generic "Dear valued client" email message.
I recently read about PoliteMail (http://www.politemail.com), an Outlook add-on, that'll help you track whether folks open your mail-merged messages.
ReplyDelete