Tips For Writing Print Newsletters
Like almost everything else, the first step in writing a great newsletter is figuring out what your goal is, and who is in your intended audience.
Types of Print Newsletters
The first step in developing a newsletter is clearly defining its purpose.
- Do you want to create a newsletter to keep family and friends up to date on your family’s activities throughout the year?
- Do you have the idea of creating a newsletter to enhance a business you started, or are thinking of starting?
You can do quite handsomely with a newsletter that’s geared to your customers… but suppose you just have a small business that you run on ebay. How can a newsletter help you?
Putting a one-paged newsletter into any packages you mail out instantly sets you apart from your competitors. If it’s a newsletter geared toward your business and your customers, it will put you first in their minds the next time they think of buying something in your inventory.
These tips for writing print newsletters can easily put you head and shoulders above the competition in the minds of your customers, and in tough economic times, that’s the place you’ll want to be!
Writing an Effective Newsletter
When beginning your newsletter, first write down a few ideas for short articles.
- You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. Just something short and chatty for one piece.
- For another article, try something that will give your customers some information they may never have had before.
For example, if you sell homemade soap and other natural products, give your customers some insight into how your soap is created. You may do that in your sales ad or eBay ad, but go into detail in your newsletter. Take some pictures to illustrate what you do – even pictures of you making the soap!
Your customers have already purchased from you. You know they’re already interested in what you make. You’ll grab their attention with this kind of personal touch. Just make it chatty and gear the articles to the audience.
You might find that your best ideas for article content can come from the questions you have been asked by your customers. If one person wanted to know, the answer is probably interesting to many of your customers.
Content to Include in a Newsletter
Make sure you put your name, address, email address, and a phone number where customers can reach you. The more places you make as a contact point, the more contact – and the more sales! – you’ll get.
Also try some coupons. Free shipping or a percentage discount off the next order are always crowd pleasers.
This will also make it easy for you to track who is getting, and more importantly, who is READING your newsletter. You don’t want to think all your work on these tips for writing newsletters is in vain!
Color or Black and White
When it comes to printing your newsletter, color is always better, but especially in these days of cheap ink and cheap printers, you can create and design your newsletter, and print it right off your desktop printer. This is a cheap and easy way to give you and your business a major and colorful boost!
Layout and Design
You’re not writing the New York Times, so there’s no need to get into complicated and expensive programs. There are free layout programs you can find on the web. A little Googling will bring up dozens, many of which will be useable for your particular computer and operating system.
Clip art, if necessary, is also free and easily available. Again, just Google and you’ll find lots of nice looking graphics that can be used to fancy up your newsletter.
Now that you’ve taken all those pictures, it’s easy to use them to grab attention to your newsletter. Importing pictures can be done on any of these programs.
If you’re not a genius on design, don’t worry. Just find someone else’s newsletter, and copy the parts of the layout that you like. The simpler, the better, and in this case, imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery!
