Promoting Your Service Through News

Thursday 10th February 2005

What You Need To Know About Newsletters

BySharon Watson - Freelance Journalist /

Editor

Sharon Watson

• Journalist since 1983• Worked in UK and New Zealand• Working on local newspapers, trade union journals,

professional magazines, regional ITV news, online news and consumer magazines

• Former Texaco Industrial Journalist of the Year• Runner Up in UK Press Gazette Business Press Award• Numerous TUC Media Awards

What is a newsletter?

• Short• Contains news• Valuable• Targeted audience• Targeted content• Trustworthy• Personal

Types of newsletters

• Marketing

• Public Relations

• Internal Relations

• Commercial

There are four basic types

Marketing Newsletters

• Sell something

• Focus on actions

• Emphasise benefits

• Partisan point of view

Public Relations Newsletters

• Focus on attitudes

• Make readers receptive to marketing

• Help people know more and feel better about the organisation

• Foster interest in the subject

• Build respect

Internal Relations Newsletters

• E.g. for employees or members

• Give information about familiar people, places and ideas

• Honour outstanding performance, build morale and stimulate attention to quality

• Help shape organisational vision

• Establish direction

Newsletters for Profit

• Exist to make money

• Usually mailed

• Cost ££££s

• Quality

• Q. Why should anyone read your newsletter?

• A. You have a message you want them to hear.

• Q. How can you get that message across?

• A. Don’t put up barriers for the readers.

Readers like:• Interesting topics

• Short articles

• Attractive graphics

• Easy-to-skim designs

• Bulleted lists

• Clear organisation

• Calendars

• Offers and benefits

Readers don’t like:• Intimidating pages

• Disorganised information

• Long, continuing articles

• Irrelevant content

• Impersonal tone

• Chaotic page design

• Too many pages

Objectives in Newsletter Writing• Clarity – Misunderstandings anger people, cost money and endanger

credibility.

• Conciseness – Concise writing saves time, reading time, writing time and paper. It also enhances clarity so that the main points stand out rather than fade into a collage of details.

• Proper Image – People notice errors. They either smile and overlook them, or think the writer or organisation is careless. Poor writing not only affects your organisation’s image, but also personal image.

• Cost Efficiency – Effective writing results in saving money – on reading, writing and reproduction costs.

Budgets and End Products

• Print run

• Frequency

• Distribution

• Pagination

• Colours

• Paper

• Design

The budget determines…

Should you go for a magazine?

• Less newsy

• Longer to produce

• Relies on images

• More creative layout

• Longer articles

• Advertising

• More pages

Magazine characteristics

Consider changing your newsletter to a magazine if you have:

• Lots of material

• Access to good quality pages

• A good budget

• A need to establish a more authoritative ‘voice’ in your field

• Other news outlets

• Extra time to produce a bigger publication

Design, Layout and Production

The ‘look’

•Don’t reinvent the wheel

•Use colours or special paper to enhance your newsletter

Typefaces

• Type shouldn’t be noticed• Use standard typefaces like

Times, Courier and Helvetica • Italics can slow reading• For body text, use serif fonts such as Palatino, Times Roman and Garamond.

• Use bold letters for names and important points

• Non serif typefaces are good for headings (such as Arial)

Illustrations

• Use clip art

• Don’t overdo it

• Don’t put boxes round your illustrations

Photography

• When photographing people take control.

• Aargh! Handshakes!! Avoid clichés.

• Get a variety of poses.

Production• Appoint an editor

• Meet to discuss style, content, deadlines and costs

• Set clear goals

• Meet deadlines

Newsletter Language 1

Body Type

Byline

Caption

Clip Art

• Type used for text. It is generally 10-12 points in size

• The reporter's name, usually at the beginning of a story

• A line or block of type providing information about a photo. Used interchangeably with cutline

• Copyright-free images you can legally modify and print as often as you like

Newsletter Language 2

Copyright

Dummy

Font

Grid

• Legal protection for stories, photos or artwork to discourage unauthorised reproduction

• A small detailed diagram showing where all elements go. Also,

the process of drawing up a layout

• All the characters in one size and weight of a typeface

• The underlying structure of a page

Newsletter Language 3

Headline

Indent

Layout

Margins

• Large type running above or beside a story to summarise its content. Also called a head for short

• A part of a column set in a narrower width. Often the first line

of a paragraph is indented

• The placement of art and text on a page. To lay out a page is

to design it

• The space between elements on a page and the space

between the edge of the paper and the elements

Newsletter Language 4

Masthead

Points

Typeface

White Space

• The name of the newsletter as its displayed on page one. It generally extends across the top of the first page

• A standard unit in a measure of printing. There are 72 points in

one inch

• A family of fonts – for example the Arial family, which includes

Arial, Arial Narrow, Arial Bold, etc

• Areas of a page free of any type or artwork

Dummy Text 1

• The purpose of dummy text is to fill help lay out a page before you receive the actual copy.

• The standard dummy text is the Latin text Lorem Ipsum, and looks like this:

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."

Dummy Text 2

Dummy Text 3

• Used in printing since the 16th century• Comes comes from "de Finibus Bonorum et

Malorum" by Cicero, written in 45 BC. • Used because it looks like readable text (but

isn’t)• Normal distribution of letters, so it fills the

space• Makes readers focus on the typeface and

layout, not the content.

Desktop Publishing

• Can make the job easier or harder

• Don’t waste time with it if you aren’t competent

Printing

• Get several quotes

• The same goes for colours

• Ask to see samples of printed work

• Don’t print in full colour unless necessary

• Speak to your printer about reducing costs – it may be easier than you think

• Always keep your audience in mind.• Plan and influence.• Is your newsletter sustainable?• Build from the basics up.• Keep to your deadlines.• You are the captain.• Offer feature writers a byline and an author’s note.• Be concerned about how your newsletter reads before you worry about

how it looks.• If you are producing an email newsletter, ‘clean and simple’ spells

effective.• Good writing and good editing require direction and hard work.• Lead with strong items that have broad appeal.• Learn the distinction between simple information and a story.• Any successful newsletter depends on plentiful and reliable sources.• Always look for reader feedback.• The true test of performance is behaviour.