In the past, we have sent out letters in April/May to our clients who will be turning 70 1/2 in that year. This letter was sent giving detailed explanation about distributing your RMD and the penalties you could face for not doing so.
My question is- since this year we were required to send out the RMD letter to all clients in distribution status(Jan 31), should we send another letter again to the first year customers?
Does anyone else send out letters like this? What are you planning to do for this year?

I would go ahead and send out the letters to all RMD impacted clients regardless of whether they had also received the other letter. This way you eliminate the possibility of missing someone who should receive the letter. I don't know what type of computer database software you may be using but many will sort for you to determine which customers should get the letters and do a mail merge procedure for you.

We keep up with our RMD clients and contact them/send reminder letters at various times during the year, usually closer to the end of the year. But, I am just trying to decide if it would be redundant or not to send out basically the same letter.

Are you not giving them an actual dollar figure for the distribution amount using the fair market value at year-end? If you aren't giving them the dollar figure, then it couldn't have changed so I would see no reason to send out another letter until your next scheduled reminder letter.

We incorporated the RMD amount into our annual statement for all customers 70 1/2 or older. For the first time customers, since the process can be confusing, we send an additional explanatory letter along with a brochure and form to request automatic distributions.

Thanks for the input!