Deciding Which CPA Newsletter Service to Use

One of the ways that your accounting firm can keep in contact (and thus stay current in the minds of) clients is to release a regular newsletter. Many of these are done via email now, so they are unobtrusive and do not create more paper products for your clients to deal with. However, a newsletter takes time and specific skills that people in your accounting firm may not have. Using a newsletter service takes care of many of these issues. Once you decide to go that route, however, you still need to find the right newsletter service.

Contribution Policy

Are the newsletters produced by the service fairly generic? Would you be allowed to contribute? Chances are these newsletters go out to clients of several companies, so you likely want your content to speak to your specific audience. Still, it can be nice to have the option to contribute, especially if there have been tax accounting changes that have had major effects on your clients. The knowledge you have of how to handle these changes could be of value to other readers.

Copyediting Policy

A good newsletter should have decent spelling, grammar, and other qualities that a copy editor would check for. However, sometimes a company wants its writers to self-edit. That can lead to more errors as writers may not realize they've made an error—they're not bad writers; they simply have all the information in their heads and may inadvertently skip over an error by mistake. Be sure the newsletter service you use uses copy editors to catch errors before publication.

Specificity and Publishing Schedule

When creating a newsletter, you'll have to decide if the newsletter for only one or two types of companies, if it's meant to reach a broad audience, and how far in advance you want to write each email. Specificity can be good or bad depending on how narrow your client base is in terms of field. Publishing schedules can be an issue if they are very long or if the writing is done well in advance of publishing. If there is a change to a law or a sudden problem in the field, you want the newsletter to be able to address that in a timely manner.

These newsletters offer an easy way to stay in touch with clients. When you find one that addresses your clients' needs, give it a trial run. To learn more, contact local CPA email newsletter providers.