Newsletter question

McCracken

McCracken

Logan Can't See This
Joined
Jul 9, 2005
Location
With your mom at a nice seafood dinner
OK, so I may have signed myself up to write a monthly newsletter. Nothing major but I still want to do a good job. Back when I used to do it there was no Facebook or G+ or Ello or Instagram. People got most of their information from message boards or... you guessed it, newsletters. So my question is this, if someone was to hand you a newsletter what would keep you reading it? Now this one will be electronic so what would keep you from deleting it instantly? Pictures? A witty tale? Someone you know being in it?

Give me something to work with. Going without a newsletter is not an option so I need to make this fly. Even if it's more like a wounded duck. Any help is appreciated.
 
Tough, tough, tough. Don't know your topic or reason for doing it but in today's world you have to have a catchy headline and then pertinent content to keep them. Everybody is ADHD on the web and with all of the keyboard commandos, you have to be somewhat PC, which sucks... lol.. oh yeah, you need thick skin!
 
Lay it out to just keep scrolling down to read everything. I get one in email every month for a club, in PDF format, maybe 8-10 pages...and each page is 2 or 3 vertical columns...so you have to scroll up/down a couple of times on each page. Our church newsletter is as bad...mostly text boxes with a few sentences in each....it's formatted to print tabloid size (11x17 landscape, so not only do you have to scroll up and down, but left and right, too. PIA.
 
For a monthly newsletter, I'd keep it to about a page, unless you will be getting content from multiple sources. I came from a printing background and have now moved into web design and development because most people don't print stuff anymore. Blogs, Facebook groups and Twitter are the de facto standard when it comes to disseminating information on the fly to multiple people.

If it were me, I'd set up a Wordpress driven website (blog) and have each post available for download as a PDF file. This keeps your content fresher and the reader doesn't have to wait for a monthly compilation. You can also set up individual logins for additional contributors to give each their own "editorial" space.
 
McCracken said:
shit this is sad. 81 views and nothing more than this. the death of the newsletter has been a swift one :(
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It is a bit sad, because I come from a printing background. I used to be a Studio Manager at a design firm that printed you-name-it for the Big 3 Auto manufacturers (plus Hiram Walker - that was a fun brand to work with). I used to love watching the process of a concept in the Art Director's head flow through a design proof then get stripped up to a layout all the way to being churned out on the Heidelberg presses. On the smaller scale, it's hard to justify the cost of printing even a simple newsletter when the information can be disseminated quicker and cheaper on the web. People just don't take the time to read stuff like they used to. I get two magazine subscriptions delivered to my house each month and barely have time to do much past looking at the pictures. That would make perfect sense if they were Playboy and Penthouse, but these are truly informative magazines - Website Magazine and Family Handyman.

That being said, the only real advice I have for you is to design your framework and keep it consistent, while changing the theme to suit the season or the content. This makes each newsletter unique, but still distinguishable from every other piece of paper on your table. You want your reader to take one glance and know that this is YOUR newsletter, but that it's not LAST month's newsletter that's just still sitting on the table.

How well your newsletter does will have as much to do with your skills as a graphic artist as it will your knowledge of the subject matter. A well laid out turd of a story will be no more effective at holding your reader's interest than a Pulitzer prize winning story that is just text on a page.

I think of our church bulletin when I think of a newsletter. It used to be that we had a gate-fold 11x17 piece of paper that we ran every week. To cut costs, I helped design a layout that went to a single fold legal size. That cut our printing costs by almost 75% since we were buying such large colored paper and had to use a special setting on the copier which the copier place was charging us for 4 impressions per bulletin. The legal size paper cost us only 2 impressions and the paper was way cheaper (and had a better selection of colors and paper thicknesses). Our bulletin is now down to a letter size (8.5x11) and still has all the pertinent info and none of the old folks have complained a bit that they can't read it. Bear in mind, most people don't read much of the bulletin anyway.... but I digress.
 
ManglerYJ said:
I think of our church bulletin when I think of a newsletter. It used to be that we had a gate-fold 11x17 piece of paper that we ran every week. To cut costs, I helped design a layout that went to a single fold legal size. That cut our printing costs by almost 75% since we were buying such large colored paper and had to use a special setting on the copier which the copier place was charging us for 4 impressions per bulletin. The legal size paper cost us only 2 impressions and the paper was way cheaper (and had a better selection of colors and paper thicknesses). Our bulletin is now down to a letter size (8.5x11) and still has all the pertinent info and none of the old folks have complained a bit that they can't read it. Bear in mind, most people don't read much of the bulletin anyway.... but I digress.
Click to expand...

We just went to this at our church and I hate it. I enjoyed flipping through it while the weird choir director gave some 5 minute prayer about seasonal change. I'm all for the power of prayer but talking slow and waving your arms around is a bit much for me to take in. Give me the classics.

I finished my first draft last night. While it wasn't anything ground breaking I did punch in a few highlights with lots of links to click on. It'll take me a little time to find a rhythm but the first one is out the door. Thanks for your input.
 
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