Editor's Top 10 Expert Rules for Starting a Newsletter
The early days of developing an organizational newsletter is typically a stressful and confusing time. Very little direction on how to develop and manage a newsletter, especially a print newsletter, is available online. I have been teaching print and digital newsletter creation for over 20 years now and I guarantee that the process is much simpler than you think. Let's start here by looking at the Top 10 Rules for Starting a Newsletter. Each of these Top 10 Rules are then discussed in greater detail in their own blog post. Read them in the order that you need them!
1. Know How Much You Can Spend
Copy Machines today
are very economical and the output is darn near professional. If your organization has a copy machine then
I would strongly suggest utilizing it.
You can probably figure out how much each copy of your newsletter will
cost you. Black & White will be
cheaper but color will look so much better and your readers will react more
positively towards a color edition than a B&W edition. If you check around you may find copy
services that will also print and fold the newsletter. One word of caution: always check the quality of the print rather
than the cost. A cheaper printing that
looks terrible and is unreadable is not cheaper, it is a waste of time and
materials.
2. Who is reading the newsletter?
Are you writing for a wide audience or subgroups within your
organization? Are you writing for
new/potential readers? Are you writing for a wide audience while including
subgroups and new readers? Knowing the
specific audiences will allow you to plan for content. The Grass is Greener where you water it. Example: The primary focus
of our parish newsletter is to reach out to our non-regular parishioners with
the intention of letting them know we haven’t forgotten them.
3. What is the publishing schedule?
Monthly, bi-monthly,
quarterly, or yearly? The number of
times you publish per year will determine the amount of material you need and
if you will have enough time to acquire/write materials between publications. The budget will also determine how many
publications per year will occur.
4. The mission statement determines the materials
Materials for you newsletter are typically seasonally
appropriate. Articles need to be planned
out to coincide with holidays like Christmas and Easter or need to announce special dates or activities. . Readership may decrease during summer months. The calendar plays a large
role in planning themes and materials for each edition. Some components of the newsletter will be the
same in every edition, for example every edition should include: a greetings letter from the
editor, minister, and/.or president/CEO; the publication
information and deadline dates; seasonally recurring updates such as the summer picnic or
the organizational Christmas party; and, recurring articles from feature
writers or commentators. Unless your
newsletter is intended to be polarizing and cause disparity of emotion, never
include materials that would be considered contentious without prior approval
of administration. They will be on the receiving
end of complaints so make sure they are aware of the potential drama.
5. Be Accommodating
People within your organization are busy. They will have deadlines and activities that
they will need to deal with and newsletter deadlines may be way down on
their “to do” list. Prepare and plan for
this eventuality. Even if your
publishing dates are the same year after year, there will always be people
asking for extensions. I have found that
having a deadline for submissions three weeks ahead of my publish date (for a quarterly
publishing schedule) and weekly email reminders of the submission dates will
bring in 80-90% of the necessary materials for publication. No matter what there will still be the same
people every edition that will be late or completely oblivious of their
obligations. Be kind and adaptable.
6. Ask and ye shall receive
It has been my experience that there are plenty of writers,
photographers, poets, mail sorters, and computer experts that would be glad to
lend a hand. They will never volunteer
unless they are asked to help. A blanket
announcement for help is always assumed to be “for someone else.” People want to be asked in person. Skip the email or the handwritten
letter. People are less likely to say no
when you are standing in front of them asking them for help. Many hands make light work.
7. Beware of text laden pages
No matter whether your newsletter is in color or B&W you will
need pictures, images, enhancements, and text boxes. Nothing will kill a newsletter faster than a
big case of boring. Text is the backbone
of the newsletter but pages of black text on white paper will cause readers to
skim or skip. Attention spans in the 21st
century are about 5-7 seconds (or less.) Adding
pictures or clip art to break up text will draw the readers eye through the
text as well as help tell the story.
Quotes from the article in text boxes will help readers decide if they
are interested in reading the article right then or save it for later. I’ve been told by many of my readers that
before they read a single word of my newsletters they skim every page and look
at the pictures. I suspect this practice
is simply to find pictures of themselves or their family members! (Note: Nothing will increase readership like a
parent/grandparent looking for their kids’ pictures.)
8. Connect readers to digital resources
Use URL’s, YouTube channels, and social media to increase
readership and further current readers participation with your newsletter. Articles should include links to further
reading or videos of events to reinforce what readers are reading. An article about the summer picnic is
interesting but can be much more “real” when combined with a link to the
organizations YouTube channel to see and hear the excitement of the parish
picnic first hand. A picture (or video)
is worth a thousand words! Linking an
exact copy of an article to an online digital copy enables readers to share the
article or pictures with family or friends that do not receive a print copy.
9. Be firm in your resolve.
Just like being adamant regarding the topics and subject nature
must be reinforced, so too must length of articles be stubbornly regulated. Space in a newsletter is at a premium and
with the addition of pictures, images, enhancements, and text boxes article
size must be strictly enforced. A good
policy to have in effect is that the editor of the newsletter has final say on
length and content of all submitted articles.
Not only will submissions be edited for grammar, spelling, and content,
but articles can (and will) be edited for length. As a rule of thumb I tell all would-be
writers that 500 words is the maximum length.
All writers will think that they have produced “best-seller” articles and that cutting
their prose is a travesty. Having a
policy about content and length will save you and your writers much grief. Also, writers that are unhappy are unlikely
to write again.
10 Showcase local
Organizational news should be given precedence
over national or non-organizational news.
The focus of relevant local news must be given primary real estate in the newsletter over
news that can be found on other resources. To put it bluntly, you are focusing on your
own business and not your neighbors. A
section of links to where outside topics can be found is one way to “show and
tell” but not elaborate. The mission statement should clearly define the topics and style of information offered in your newsletter. (For example: a church newsletter could focus on religious topics, member news, mission events, or editorial style articles explaining church doctrine or dogma, or a combination of all these.)
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