Get noticed! promote your business with a newsletter - includes related guide to creating a newsletter and an article on desktop publishing sources - tutorial

Home Office Computing, August, 1991 by Leslie Simons

My dentist sends them. My lawyer sends them. Even my dry cleaner sends them. If your mail is anything like mine, you know that practically everyone publishes a newsletter.

And it's no wonder. Dollar for dollar, newsletters are one of the most effective ways to reach your market. As publicity experts have pointed out for years, newsletters let you

* communicate frequently with a highly specific audience;

* establish yourself as an authority and market leader;

* enhance your business image and credibility;

* develop good product or service identification; and

* and offer potential buyers a personalized means of referral.

Of course, these experts are talking about good newsletters. Good newsletters are successful--if they get into the right hands and they get read. That's because they are well planned, well targeted, well written, and well designed..

STARTING A WINNING PUBLICATION

What does it take to desktop-publish your own newsletter?

Start by being a thorough researcher. Study your audience and observe the competition. Find out what it takes to catch your audience's attention and what it takes to be believable. Never fill newsletters with hardsell messages or propaganda; instead, offer useful, truthful, and accurate information. Tell readers what they'd like to know--not what you'd like them to believe. For example, a restaurant owner would not brag about the establishment's food in a newsletter; instead, the owner might offer recipes for favorite dishes.

Identify your publicity goals and develop a persuasive message. Know what kinds of service and information you can offer with the most authority. Know how much you can afford to spend, develop the most cost-effective publication for your message, and then send newsletters often enough to reach your intended audience. Plan on quarterly mailings, at minimum, to make sure at least one issue gets into each reader's hands.

Besides delivering useful content in your newsletter, your other key goal is to give it an attractive and appropriate format. Newsletters can range from one-page, black-and-white circulars to colorful mini newspapers complete with feature articles, short items, bits of humor, and important announcements.

THE RIGHT SOFTWARE FOR THE JOB

More and more high-quality page-layout programs are available for novice, intermediate, and advanced desktop publishers. Some people even use such full-featured word processors as WordPerfect, Word for Windows, and Ami Professional to create simple fliers and newsletters.

For this article, I've developed a sample newsletter--a four-page, two-color, self-mailing publication--using PageMaker 4.0 for the Macintosh (virtually identical to the Windows version for IBM compatibles). Your marketing needs may require a simpler two-page newsletter, or something much more elaborate. In any event, the sample introduces a model for planning and executing your own design, layout, and production. You can build a newsletter similar to my sample using any number of page-layout programs. (For more on suggested software, see "DTP Software Resources.")

While a certain amount of planning is important, remember that one critical element in successful page design is experimentation. Here's where software really shines compared with traditional manual methods. As you develop your newsletter, be curious and inventive. Many design adjustments can be made on the fly, particularly when you have an in-depth grasp of your software's strengths and limitations.

THE BASICS OF DESIGN

My newsletter is designed in a conservative, straightforward fashion, much like a newspaper. Headlines span multiple columns, and headline text is aligned flush left. Vertical and horizontal rules clearly demarcate each article's beginning and ending. A mix of small articles and large articles lends the newsletter more visual impact.

The primary advantage of a newspaper-style layout is its familiarity: Readers can navigate pages quickly and easily, absorbing information as they go.

Here's a quick recap of the approach I used to create the newsletter. Your newsletter will undoubtedly differ, but you can follow similar steps to lay out the publication.

Layout and type. First, establish a set of type and measurement specifications. Here's a checklist for preparing layout specifications.

1. Choose a measurement system. Layout programs generally offer several options, most commonly inches, millimeters, and picas and points. The standard units for measuring type in the United States are picas and points: 12 points to a pica, roughly 6 picas to an inch (0.99961 inch to be exact).

2. Select a show rulers option. Most layout programs let you display measurement rulers on your screen. Rulers will help you align page elements precisely.

3. Set standard paragraph specifications. For the sample publication, I set the first line indent to 11 points and used the same specification throughout.

4. Set standard type specifications. I chose 11-point Times Roman as the body-type size, with 12-point leading (space between the lines) for article text. In printing and publishing circles, this is called 11/12, or 11 on 12, type.