The Newsletter Primer… By Sandy Penny – themuse@writingmuse.com – www.writingmuse.com When your company is thinking of publishing a newsletter, consider the following before you make an ongoing commitment of time and money. 1. Who is your audience - employees, customers, suppliers or all three? Targeting too broad a range of readers can trivialize the information. You may be better served by doing two or three smaller publications that speak directly to a better-defined audience. Why are you publishing a newsletter? What is your point-of-view – your underlying message to readers, your intent for regular communication? A newsletter should always reinforce your company mission. It can also build community, establish your company as the “expert” and educate readers about your products and services in ways that sales literature can’t. You can also share a calendar of events. 3. How will you deliver the newsletter, electronically, by mail or by hand? Do you have a large number of online readers, and will they actually read an electronic newsletter? It may seem easier and cheaper for you to publish electronically, but will it serve you best, and does it consider the needs of your readers? Although it may seem like the electronic age is already well under way, reading in front of a computer screen is not that popular. I recently had a client who thought they could save money by converting a printed newsletter to an electronic version. They had 5000 customers who had voluntarily signed up to receive the quarterly printed newsletter. I surveyed those 5000 subscribers for interest in having that newsletter replaced with an electronic version. This was a computer-savvy group of educators, and the information was directly targeted to them. I asked for email addresses telling them that delivery would soon become electronic, and only 50 of those 5000 subscribed to the electronic version. This left the company with a dilemma, continue spending the money to communicate in print with 5000 interested customers, try to generate more interest in an electronic version or discontinue the communication and lose the ongoing contact with a large number of interested consumers. I did a random sampling of those 5000 subscribers and asked why they had not subscribed to the email version even when they thought they would lose the information it provided. They indicated that their time at work on the computer was limited and that newsletters were read at home in the evenings and on weekends. It was convenient just to throw the printed copy in their briefcases when it arrived. It was not convenient to print out 15 pages of material from their computers, and
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so they opted out. The company decided to continue serving this segment of their market with a printed newsletter. Electronic newsletters should not just be electronic versions of printed newsletters. They should be specifically designed for the medium - shorter and more frequent. The information has to grab the reader instantly. The beauty of electronic communications is that you can provide up-to-the-minute breaking news about procedural, product or service changes or innovations. Typically, electronic newsletters are companioned with websites. Longer articles should be posted on your website and short teasers emailed with links to draw readers to your website. 4. Is your reason for doing a newsletter important enough to commit the time and money? After you determine what the publication will cost, you can decide if you really value the communication enough to make that resource commitment. Will you get a good return on your investment? It’s sometimes hard to track newsletter response, but sale reps will tell you they hear about newsletters from customers when they go on sales calls. When they introduce a subject, the customer may say, “Oh yes, I saw that article in your newsletter.” The ensuing conversation can lead to a sale. It’s a valuable sales tool when it is done well. 5. How will your company benefit from publishing a newsletter as opposed to another type of marketing material? A newsletter should not just promote your products or services. It should provide the reader with additional useful information around your product or services. For instance, an employee newsletter might explain how to sell a new product, or how to talk to clients about a new capability. For customers, a newsletter might provide interesting ways to use products or services that have not been covered in sales literature. Case histories and testimonials are beneficial. You can directly target a variety of customer segments with articles where sales literature may be more generic. For suppliers, you are the customer, and they are part of your team. They want to know how they can best serve you and work harmoniously with your systems.
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Can you honor your commitment to the newsletter? Can you publish on a regular schedule? When you decide the frequency of a newsletter, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually, that schedule should be met. It is frustrating to an audience to get a great newsletter, expect it on a certain schedule and have it disappear or be unreliable. A high-quality informational newsletter can be valuable to the readers. They will notice. It reflects poorly on your company if you don’t honor your newsletter commitments the same way you honor your product or service commitments. It may raise reliability issues about your products or services.
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Is your audience interested in receiving a newsletter from you? The best way to ensure reader interest is to survey the target audience for topics of interest - find a need and fill it. It can be mutually rewarding to serve an audience as you contribute to your company mission and your bottom line. You can create a community of employees, customers or suppliers, a sense of belonging. This promotes shared goals and a feeling of importance. You strengthen your team of employees, customers and suppliers if you enlist them in providing topics and information of interest to the target audience.
When writing a newsletter, information should be honest, straightforward and timely to be appreciated. You should speak plainly to the audience. Jargon and industry-speak should be kept to a minimum, and when used, should be defined in easy-to-understand language. In fact, that is one purpose a newsletter can serve – to explain and demystify jargon. What are your newsletter questions and challenges? Email them to themuse@writingmuse.com. All emails will receive a personal response. If you need help determining whether a newsletter will serve your company, call Sandy Penny at 713-864-4426 or email: themuse@writingmuse.com.