Drew Thelen, COO Takira.com, says his company’s monthly email newsletter has been partially responsible for landing three of Takira.com’s 20, six-figure, Internet marketing service accounts. Newsletters are sent to all agency partners, clients, investors and prospects who’ve opted-in to receive them. Each issue includes four sections:

1. A client case study
2. An educational article on how to apply direct marketing tactics and techniques to the Internet
3. A new product update on Takira.com’s services side
4. Company news

Readers see short summaries of each story and can click through to Takira.com’s Web site to read entire articles. Not surprisingly, creating the newsletter isn’t easy. Several Takira.com staffers contribute, and each issue takes about a week to pull together. But Thelen definitely feels the effort is worth it in terms of sales and client satisfaction.

Thelen’s advice for other Internet marketing vendors wishing to do company newsletters: “You’ve got to make sure the people signed up are the right people to be talking to; otherwise it’s a waste of time. Curb your self-promotional tendency to make sure the content is interesting from the point of view of the people receiving it. And, be consistent about staying behind your effort. You need to reach people 2, 3, 4 times to bring them from awareness to interest to action. Don’t expect your first email to have a big impact. Make sure you look at the long term.”