The business newsletter
One email a month to every business you know, with things they can use. The delivery channel for everything else on this list.
A business newsletter is a short monthly email from the EDC or chamber to local businesses: grants and deadlines, workshops, new businesses and ribbon cuttings, and one practical tip. It is how owners hear about every other program between visits.
What is a business newsletter?
A short monthly email to local businesses: grants and deadlines, workshops, new businesses and ribbon cuttings, one practical tip, and what the EDC did for someone last month. Anna EDC pairs a monthly email of business tips with site visits and partnerships with the SBDC and Workforce Solutions, and reported a newsletter list of 2,159 subscribers that grows every month. Corinth EDC's BRE strategy starts with a stakeholder email list and a quarterly send.
This one is the connective tissue. The survey, the grants, the mixer, the training money: the newsletter is how owners hear about all of it between visits.
Why does it work?
- You stay in front of owners twelve times a year for the cost of an afternoon.
- Every other play on this list needs a way to be announced.
- Clicks tell you who is interested in what. Call those people.
How do you start a business newsletter?
- Build the list from visits, permits and the chamber roster, with permission.
- Use a fixed template with five blocks, so it never starts from a blank page.
- Send the same day each month.
- Watch who clicks on grants and training, and follow up by phone.
- Keep it about them. Their wins, their deadlines, their questions.
Texas examples
- Anna EDC: monthly business email, visits, and partner referrals (board coverage)
- Corinth EDC BRE Strategy (2023): stakeholder list and quarterly newsletter
What to watch out for
- If every issue is about the EDC, people stop opening it.
Steal ours: The BRE Brief is a newsletter built on the same four-block template every week. Subscribe and borrow the structure.
Questions directors ask
How often should an EDC send a business newsletter?
Monthly, on the same day each month. Anna EDC sends a monthly business email; Corinth EDC's strategy starts with a quarterly send.
Where does the mailing list come from?
Business visits, permit applications and the chamber roster, with permission each time.
What goes in each issue?
Five blocks: a deadline, an event, a new business, a tip, and one thing the EDC did for someone last month.