Can a newsletter boost sales? “Yes,” emphasizes Scott Woodside, president of Platinum Pens. He booked $2,500 in new orders the day after he sent out his first iMakeNews newsletter. “If you’re a sales-driven company and want to have a solid revenue base, you have to stay in touch with your customers,” he says. “iMakeNews lets me do that.”

Platinum is one of Japan’s leading manufacturers of writing instruments. In less than four years, Woodside has bootstrapped U.S. sales from zero to more than $1 million, and newsletters have been a big part of that. “We are the only pen company that talks directly with its customers, and were the first to sell direct on the Internet,” he notes.

Woodside had published a monthly electronic newsletter for two years. “It was complicated and time-consuming, and wasn’t very attractive,” he says. Still, he got responses, and added one or two subscribers every day.

He learned about iMakeNews from an email promotion, and took advantage of the company’s free 30-day trial. “It was exactly what I was looking for,” he says. “I designed a template and had my first newsletter out in two weeks. Now, I can do a newsletter in 30 minutes

“With iMakeNews I give 1,000 subscribers a newsletter on a regular schedule about a topic they’re interested in,” he says. “It’s an opt-in newsletter and the readers qualify themselves, so, I get a good response when I tell them about new products and sales.” And he gets more prospects. Woodside added 17 new subscribers on the day after he emailed his new newsletter. “I usually got one or two with the old newsletter,” he says.

“IMakeNews is worth every cent,” he says. “It makes Platinum Pen look as large as Mt. Blanc, Cross, Parker, or Waterman, and in this business, image is everything. I can trust iMakeNews to help me make a professional-looking product.”