Creating Your OWN Newsletter - 10 Tips

Creating Your OWN Newsletter - 10 Tips

So now YOU are responsible for creating a newsletter. For own company or for the company you work for, it's all the same. Here are a few tips to help it run smoothly from the get-go. Start with these ten common sense rules and once you are established you can begin to tweak it a bit more with each issue.

1. Don't go CRAZY with fonts! You probably have hundreds, maybe thousands of fonts on your computer. Most people are only familiar with a few families, namely Times, Helvetica and Aerial. Use these for all body copy. Getting too creative will confuse and frustrate your readers. They want to read your material, not decipher it. For now, use only these three fonts. As you move forward you can begin using creative fonts sparingly headlines, special sections, etc.

2. Create your heading first - basically this is your newsletter logo used on the top of the front page. Once your heading is designed stay CONSISTENT with the design throughout the newsletter. Try to maintain the same color schemes, look and feel for sections, pages, etc.

3. Create sections for your newsletter and carry the size of the sections and the locations of the sections within your newsletter in each subsequent issue. Again, consistency is important for you and your readers. Readers like familiarity, and they will become familiar with sections they are interested in and where these sections are in your issues. YOU should like consistency because if you follow the rules of section space and location then your newsletter is easier to produce because it is a TEMPLATE. For each issue you simply remove the current information from each section and replace it with new information. If you follow this rule there is no need to redesign each and every issue from scratch, saving you quite a bit of time! Find a winning design and stick with it - why reinvent the wheel?

4. Be consistent not only with your newsletter design but with distribution timing. Decide in advance how often your newsletter will be issued and don't waver from your original decision unless absolutely necessary. Create a production schedule and follow it. How would you feel if your morning paper was suddenly switched to evening, or they decided on a whim to drop the Sunday paper and produce two issues on Saturday instead?

5. Balance, balance, balance. If you open a newsletter and the left side is heavy with copy and illustrations but the right has quite a bit of white space, it isn't balanced and the design becomes a distraction. Take a step back and look at it - are all sides balanced? If not, move things around until they are! And when you are moving things remember that people read left to right, top to bottom. You design should stay within this natural eye movement.

6. Use white space. White space is a GOOD thing! It helps separate sections, columns, images, paragraphs... don't try to force-fit information into your newsletter. If adding something you think is important means you need to drop the size of your text to ten points, just save the last article for the next issue.

7. Text within articles should be 11 to 12 point. You can use Helvetica or Aerial for bullet points and small paragraphs, Times for larger articles.

8. Proofread EVERYTHING. Then set it aside and proof it again. And when you are done, have someone else proofread it. There is nothing that will make your readers drop your newsletter into the garbage faster then typographical errors.

9. If you are mailing your newsletter in an outer envelope create a special envelope for the newsletter. You will put your heart and soul into this publication, you want your readers to know what's in the package.

10. Promote your newsletter. Send out a press release with a sample issue to all relevant publications and online sources.

9. If you are writing a consumer newsletter, write it as if you are communicating with a ninth grader. This is standard practice for consumer publications. If you are writing a business-to-business newsletter then you need not be concerned with this issue. Simply write your newsletter as if you are presenting it to a colleague.

And last, remember that even if you have the tools, you may not have the knowledge. If I gave you all the materials and the right tools to build a house, could you do it? If you get in a bind, call an expert or research your questions online. Arm yourself with the knowledge and learn as you go!

Neil Walsh

Daba Designs

P.O. Box 255

North Olmsted, Ohio 44070

Phone: (440)465-0744

Website: http://www.daba-designs.com

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