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It’s Only Common Sense: Stay in Touch Using News Flashes

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, and many of us are locked into our houses, it gets more challenging to stay in touch with customers. Meanwhile, PCB and PCBA companies and their support companies are being deemed as essential and remain open. The companies that make up the interconnect industry are needed now more than ever.

To drive this point home even further, on April 15, the Department of Defense (DoD) sent out a call for companies to build PCBs for ventilators for which there is an urgent need (for more information on this, email chrismitchell@ipc.org). So, yes, there is business out there.

Those of us in sales and marketing have to find ways to help companies get more business. If your company is going to remain open and conduct business as usual, then you have a responsibility to keep doing what you’re supposed to be doing. You must stay in touch with current customers as well as target potential customers and convince them to buy from our companies.

One of the best ways to do this remotely is to send out news flashes—not newsletters, but news flashes. These are brief, informational messages letting the customers know that you are still in business, accepting orders from current and new customers, and offering the same excellent products and services that you have in the past.

These news flashes should be concise, readable, and interesting. They should not be longer than one screen on most computers, tablets, and phones. Each one should contain a short, pertinent message, such as one key point about your company, a tip or a tool about your technology, a COVID-19 update from your company, and a call to action. It would be good to add a personal touch to the news flash, such as highlighting one of your associates or sharing an update on how your company is faring in these challenging times.

The important thing is to keep it going. The best way to do this is to plan ahead and figure out the content for each news flash. I recommend that you lay out five or six in advance, write a short outline for each, and have them prepared to send in advance. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes easier to do.

Please remember that the most important element of a successful email campaign is the subject line. The subject line is why people open an email in the first place. Make sure that your subject line is provocative and attractive enough to get people to open it. The subject line “News from ABC Circuits” is not going to cut it. Instead, the subject line has to call out to the potential reader to get them to open the email and then read its contents.

These emails should be sent to all of your customers—both past and present—including:

• Current customers
• Orphans (those you used to do business with)
• Familiar prospects
• Strangers (companies you don’t know but have heard about and are targeting)

And you should always be adding these to your email list:

• Potential accounts you find on LinkedIn
• Companies you meet through networking/trade shows
• Old trade show lists

The nice thing about these news flashes is that they keep you in touch with your entire network and let your customers and potential customers know you are open for business, especially while not being able to visit them. They represent a great way to “warm up” your cold calling as well. If you send a company a series of news flashes, they will know who you are when you call them. This makes cold calling a little less daunting.

The experts say that out of all of the available social media tools—from LinkedIn to Twitter and even Pinterest—newsletters are eight times more effective than any of the others at reaching your target audience. That’s an amazing fact, which makes a great case for using news flashes during these times when it is so difficult to communicate with your customers and potential customers.

Lastly, I strongly recommend that you use a service like Constant Contact or Mail Chimp to send out your news flashes. These services offer design templates, database management, and they alert the email spam police that you are not a spammer. Sending out mass emails on your own can lead to a lot of trouble, which is why you need to use one of these services.

And remember, once you start sending out these news flashes, keep at it. The more you send out, the more you will connect with people, and the more business you will get.

It’s only common sense.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.