Even if you have a blog and solid social media presence (and especially if you don’t) allow us to build a case for investing in one of the best ways to connect with past, current and potential customers: the newsletter.

With a well-done newsletter, you can:

Stay in front of customers

Because you’re emailing your newsletter to customers, they are much more likely to see it and read it than if all your content is stored on a blog. It lands right in their in-box.

That’s why frequency and consistency is so important. Once you start a newsletter, make sure you are sending it regularly — either weekly, biweekly or monthly — on the same day each month. Also provide consistent features in each issue, so customers can easily find the content they want to check out first.

Build your email list

Because customers must sign up for your newsletter, you receive email addresses and other contact information you can use to support your sales and marketing efforts. Plus, these are already somewhat qualified leads because the person took the time to sign up.

Besides, think about it: While social media is important, those platforms aren’t guaranteed to be around — or a good way to engage with customers — forever, and capturing email addresses will be even more critical to marketing your products and services.

Become a thought leader

To retain customers and land new ones, you need to earn their trust. If a customer has no idea who you are, the only way to do that is by sharing valuable content that positions you as an authority in your industry.

Spend some time thinking about your target customers’ pain points and the type of questions you often hear from them. Then build you newsletter topics around those points and questions. As you provide solutions to their problems, you will consistently highlight the value you bring to the table, and over time, customers will learn to trust you and your products and services.

One thing to remember as you write your newsletter content is to be you. The goal with these frequent connections is to offer people a real taste of what it’s like to do business with your organization — not to put on airs.

Offer customers loyalty-building benefits

Newsletters offer the perfect platform to share advice, tips and information that your customers can actually use. Additionally, you can highlight promotional offers and sales, run contests and giveaways, and send customers reminders about events, past-due appointments and more. It’s the perfect format to show customers the perks of doing business with you.

Fortunately, customers tend to be a more accepting of ads in newsletters. They want the information, so you’re likely to see a lift in click through, response and conversion rates. Just make sure you are providing lots of value, and then offering them the opportunity to buy from you.

Repurpose archived, outdated content

If you already have a blog or other archived content, such as whitepapers or eBooks, you don’t need to start from scratch with your newsletter content. You can update archived content and use it in your newsletter, either as the content within the newsletter or as a premium you invite people to download.

Just think about all those pieces you invested time and money in that are just sitting unused. Spruce them up and gain more value from them.

Collect valuable customer feedback

Subscribers to your newsletter are a bit more invested in the content than those people who follow you on social media or visit your blog periodically. They cared enough to subscribe, so they are more likely to take polls and offer feedback on how to improve your content, products and more.

Newsletters don’t have to be all that complicated

Once you’ve established a process for developing fresh content, whether that is by doing it in-house or hiring a freelance copywriter, the actual process of putting a newsletter together can be super simple.

Services like MailChimp and Constant Contact offer a range of templates and user-friendly interfaces that enable you to create, transmit and track your newsletters, with pricing based on how many newsletters you need to transmit each month. Plus, MailChimp offers a free version and Constant Contact offers a free 60-day trial, so you can test the platforms before you commit. Or if you are wanting to go with a more custom route or printed version, many firms will both design and manage your newsletters for you.