I’ve heard many attorneys complain that they don’t have time to keep in regular touch with clients let alone those all-important referral sources and prospects. What they are overlooking is the easiest way to accomplish this: a monthly e-newsletter.

While it may not sound as sexy as social media, newsletters have been proven time and again to be highly effective for law firms. Plus, they are easy to create and extremely low cost to send — and they keep you front and center with your clients, prospects and referral sources every month.

Of course, you must offer valuable information for your newsletter to do you any good. Here are 10 tips for creating a newsletter your contacts will look forward to receiving every month:

1. Ask why. Before you begin an e-newsletter program, ask yourself why you want one. As I noted above, one of the main reasons law firms send out e-newsletters is that it’s an inexpensive and effective way to keep in touch with clients who may need you again or referrals sources who need reminding that you exist. The goals for your e-newsletter should align with your business goals.

2. Find your focus. Your e-newsletter should have a singular topic focus that reflects what you do.

3. Remember the 90/10 rule. Your e-newsletter content should be 90% educational and only 10% promotional.

4. Set expectations. In the subscribe box of your e-newsletter, offer a preview of what subscribers can expect in each issue in general terms.

5. Create compelling subject lines. Take extra time with your subject lines to make sure they really entice people to open your email.

6. Have one call-to-action. Choose one main thing you want your subscribers to do and make it simple for them to do it.

7. Feature a clean design and minimal copy. Readers can be overwhelmed by too much content. If you have a longer feature you want them to read, send them to your blog or website.

8. Include alt text for images. If your recipients don’t have images enabled on their email, your images will appear as question marks. Be sure that your images have alt text, which is the alternative text that appears when images are not loaded in an email.

9. Make it easy to unsubscribe. You want an engaged subscriber list, so don’t make it difficult for those who don’t want to hear from you to unsubscribe. This will also protect your e-newsletter from being marked as spam.

10. Keep testing. It takes a little time to determine what resonates with each audience, and the way you do this is to test. Try different subject lines or calls-to-action to see what works best for your firm.