A Newsletter Is Worth A Thousand Words – Part 1

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 by: Janice Byer, CCVA, MVA

There are many, many ways of marketing your business that
don’t have to cost an arm and a leg. They are all great ways of
ensuring that your contacts are aware of what you do and whom you can
help. One of the best forms of keeping your name in front of the eyes
of your clients, your associates, and others that may be in your target
market is a newsletter. It allows you to show them that you are more
than just someone who is looking for projects to work on. It shows that
you are also willing to pass on information that will help them run
their own businesses.

Think about how many newsletters you read each week or
month? For instance, the newsletter you are reading right now. Do you
enjoy getting and reading it? Do you find the articles and other
information helpful? Do you know who or what company produces it? Of
course you do :-)

Newsletter Formats:

Newsletters can be produced in several formats. For
businesses, the most economical and most readily acceptable formats are
plain text emails, HTML emails, HTML page on your website, PDF, and
print. Each format has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Format Pros Cons

Plain text email · Easy to format· Size remains
manageable and easy for readers to open· Costs only your time · Limited
to text only· Cannot include graphics or fancy formatting

HTML emails · Visually appealing· Costs only your time·
Allows for creativeness · Restricted in size as it takes a while to
load· Can only be fully viewed while reader is online· Some readers may
opt to receive only plain text emails so won’t see your creativeness

HTML webpage · Endless possibilities for design · Room
for lots of content & graphics· Can be as big as you like· Don’t
need to send as email attachment· Costs only your time · Takes time to
design· Reader has to be online to view

PDF · Endless possibilities for design· Room for lots of
content & graphics· Can be as big as you like· Can send only a text
email with a link to the page· Readers can save to their computer and
read or print at their leisure· Almost everyone has the free Adobe
Reader in order to view· Costs only your time · The larger the format,
the longer to produce· Need to have the full version of Adobe to
produce or a PDF printer driver

Print · Endless possibilities for design· Room for lots
of content & graphics· Can be as big as you like · Costly to print
and mail.

Deciding which format to produce your newsletter, and
the frequency which you publish it, may be a process of trial and
error. For instance our newsletter, Virtual TidBits
(www.docutype.net/news.htm), started as a monthly text only email. This
was done by formatting it in either Word or Notepad. The only essential
formatting that needs to be included in text emails is that it is kept
to 65 characters per line. This didn’t take very long to put together,
only about 2 hours a month.

For creative types, plain text just didn’t seem to be
appealing enough. So, we tried designing it in HTML. Well, they turned
out very visually appealing but seemed to take a long time to produce.
You see, we would design the newsletter in Word and then transfer it to
HTML using FrontPage, a longer process than we had hoped. It took about
4-5 hours to produce each month. Eventually, we changed our publishing
schedule to bi-monthly, which seemed to justify the time it took to
produce.

But, it still didn’t seem to be exactly what our readers
or we fully enjoyed reading. So we made yet another change. Our current
format for Virtual TidBits is PDF and feedback has shown that everyone
loves the new format and the freedom to add in as much as possible. It
does take quite a bit of time to produce but, when you enjoy being
creative, it doesn’t seem all that bad. We use MS Publisher to design
the newsletter and then convert that to PDF. If you have the full
version of Adobe, you can choose to distill it or print to file.
Distilling it leaves the hyperlinks in place while printing it to file
will require that you go into the newsletter in Adobe and re-insert the
hyperlinks.

If you do not have the full version of Adobe to
accomplish this, you can choose to use one of the many PDF printer
drivers that are on the market today. Some of those can be found at http://www.visagesoft.com/easypdf/, http://www.pdfzone.com/, & http://www.win2pdf.com
(I used this one before getting the full Adobe and was very happy with
the results). The only drawback of some of these printer drivers is
that some of them (if not all) do not allow for hyperlinks to be
active.

In Part 2 of our article on newsletters, we will look
at what to include as content, where to find the content, and how to
promote your newsletter. See you then.

About the Author

Janice Byer is the founder of Docu-Type Administrative & Web Design Services (http://www.docutype.net), a professional Virtual Assistance and Website Design company, specializing in helping small business owners get ahead. She is a certified Canadian Virtual Assistant and Master Virtual Assistant and winner of the Most Successful Start Up 2000 and Home Based Business of the Year 2000 Awards

jbyer@docutype.net

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