Significant benefits await your practice if you use e-newsletters as part of your communication toolkit, says Linda Daley, owner of e-newsletter firm The Daley Progress in Dartmouth, N.S.

Daley is not talking about your old-fashioned newsletters. Today’s effective e-newsletters are loaded with fresh and unique content that is geared toward your target audience and tools that enable you to measure your results.

For financial advisors, Daley says, an important advantage of an e-newsletter is that it lets you contact your clients on a regular basis. “It’s a great way to meet new clients,” she says, “and increase your following.”

To help you build a successful e-newsletter, Daley offers the following suggestions:

> Choose compelling content
Appearances matter. First and foremost, Daley says, your newsletter should have a great picture of you. That is a way of making a personal connection with your clients and prospects.

Spice it up by including testimonials or case studies on how you handled a challenging situation for a client. Also, be sure to include links to your website or any content online that you might find interesting. You don’t need to be a great writer to put together a great newsletter, Daley says. It’s about presentation.

> Track your results
A well managed e-newsletter, Daley says, is much more than sending out a basic PDF file and hoping for the best. It will provide you with important data to help you refine your marketing strategy.

A good email service provider can help you gauge the effectiveness of your e-newsletter by providing such information as how many clients opened your newsletter and how many clicked on certain links.

> Follow up
Once you have had a chance to see which items and links were most popular, you can begin to understand which products or services your clients are looking for.

Daley suggests you do some “warm” calling to follow up on those findings.

> Offer valuable content
Your e-newsletter can succeed only if you offer value to readers, Daley says. If you have 10,000 subscribers but are not offering useful information, you won’t have them for long.

Timely and unique information shows your clients that you are a reliable source of advice. As a result, your e-newsletter can help you build credibility.