Marketing with Newsletters

Save time by creating newsletter issues based on tip sheets

Tip sheets are one of the least-expensive, most effective, marketing tools available to you. Tip sheets are easy to produce and make great web site registration incentives. (Click to learn more about tip sheets).

• Tip sheets are easy to produce because you only have to write a sentence or two about each tip.
• Once created, you can expand each tip sheet into a topic for one of your monthly newsletters.

Or, you can write a series of newsletters, devoting each issue to a single tip sheet topic. (This takes care of newsletter content for almost a year!)

Recycling is the key to efficient newsletter production. Read more The Content Tree in the special issue of Guerrilla Marketing & Design entitled The Quest for Content.

What to look for when proofreading your newsletter

Here's an easy way to avoid the most mistakes made while editing and producing your newsletters.

Religiously follow the advice in this issue of Guerrilla Marketing & Design, entitled Proofreading for Profits, and you'll never go wrong!

How newsletter design can improve your writing

One-Page Newsletters are, by definition, limited to two sides of a single sheet of paper, more. This makes them both quick and easy to prepare; quick and easy to read. Both editors and readers benefit from this conciseness.

One of the major One-Page Newsletter recommendations is to write each issue in your page layout program (instead of writing in a word processor, and importing the text in a page layout program).

Writing each issue in the page layout program provides continuous visual feedback on length. This forces you to write clearly and concisely. At a glance, you can see how much space you have left, or how much text you have to cut to make it all fit.

Many business owners comment that their writing has greatly improved since they began producing a monthly One-Page Newsletter.

Do you make any of these newsletter design mistakes?

As newsletter publishing becomes more and more competitive, it becomes increasingly important to make your newsletter as attractive and easy-to-read as possible.

Use my handy checklist, The 12 Biggest Newsletter Design Mistakes, to find out if the quality of your newsletter's design is up to the quality of its content.

Display your newsletter on your website

Here's an easy way to build your e-mail newsletters opt-in subscription list: use Macromedia FlashPaper to display the latest issue of your newsletter on your web site.

Visitors will be able to see, read, and print your  newsletter. This will prove the value of your newsletter to website visitors, greatly increasing your opt-in mailing list.

Click here to receive a copy of my Guerrilla Marketing & Design newsletter devoted to this technique, or you can see the technique displayed here.

What's Your Newsletter Marketing IQ?

Is your thinking about newsletter marketing up to date?

Are you taking advantage of the latest changes in newsletter marketing, or is your newsletter marketing program mired in increasing costs and a lack of time to do the job right?

• Are your newsletters too long or too short?
• Do they come out too often, or not often enough?
• How helpful and relevant is your content?

Visit my One-Page Newsletter web site, and take a simple quiz to find out how up to date your thinking is. You'll receive a detailed scorecard, plus a follow-up scorecard review.

Newsletter on Newsletters

The best way to keep up to date with the changing world of newsletter publishing is to subscribe to the Newsletter on Newsletters, the twice-a-month authority.

You'll learn what works, and what doesn't work, in terms of content, design, and promotion. You'll also be kept informed of upcoming industry events.

Visit www.newsletterbiz.com for subscription details,  several free special reports, and sample contents.

Recipes for newsletter design success

If you're new to newsletters and are looking for a portfolio of unusually strong newsletter design ideas, you'll appreciate Chuck Green's Design It Yourself Newsletters: A Step by Step Guide. (Rockport Press)

Design It Yourself Newsletters does more than inspire: Chuck provides recipies and suggestions for creating each of the 13 newsletter designs provided. These recipies include the tinest detail of typeface and type size choice decisions as well as color suggestions. Chucks designs go beyond the norm in terms of organization and simplicity--no clutter here!

Design it Yourself Newsletters teaches a lot about newsletters, and you'll learn a lot of strong design principles which will help you in all of your design projects.

If you want more, visit Chuck's web site, www.ideabook.com. Here, you'll find a warm and thoroughly professional designer's views and teachings on a wide range of design topics.