What Does A Newsletter Do For A Company?
Southern Fishing News has many years of print and digital publication design and production. The benefit of having your own dedicated newsletter is you control the content. No “filler” stories or photographs.
Remember, a newsletter can be targeted to multiple audiences.
Experience has taught what questions someone new to digital newsletters and publishing are most likely to ask. Here are the primary questions asked:
Q– Why would I want a newsletter?
A– A company newsletter is a valuable marketing tool and is very flexible in applications such as:
- Employee Relations. Applications include publications made strictly for employees to build morale, provide management and product information.
- Marketing. These publications are designed to promote the companies’ products and/or services to distributors and retailers for more brand/product awareness (share of mind).
- Public Relations. This version is produced for the general public to build brand loyalty and awareness. Content of this variation is to show new products, provide tips on using your products/services, mail from readers, photos from readers and an editorial article. A good example of this type of newsletter is the Slider Lures SliderLines shown on the left (page 2 not shown).
- Combination. A “combination” newsletter is designed to address all three audience types of newsletters (probably the best way to go) or just two of the audience types listed above.
This is a graphic of Slider Lures quarterly newsletter, “SliderLines”.
Q– Why not just use a brochure that is only designed once?
A– Brochures cam only contain so much information. And, a new design is required when new products/services are added. Traditional printing is expensive. A brochure only has one opportunity to “make the sale” or create interest. A newsletter keeps your brand in front of the audience repeatedly with varied content.
Q– Is a digital newsletter expensive?
A– There is a standard price for every newsletter. The actual amount is determined by the number of pages in the newsletter and the frequency of publishing the newsletter.
Q– How many times a year should I publish my newsletter?
A– Choices are monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly and annually. Monthly publishing might push you on gathering content for us to create a story from for each issue. Other than that and budget, monthly is fine. The same applies to bi-monthly except there is a little more time to gather content and photos. Quarterly seems to be the best publication frequency. A quarterly newsletter not only provides ample time to gather content but is not as likely to “burn out” the readers’ desire to read your digital newsletter. An annual publication schedule is not recommended. Once a year is just not often enough to accomplish your goals.
Q– How would I get our newsletter to the intended audience?
A– Here you also have options. First, you need a database to route delivery of your newsletter via email as an attachment. Distribution also works posting a copy of the newsletter on your server for download or a company that stores your publication and provides a link in the emails for download. Another means of delivery is to post your newsletter on your company website. The most expensive is to mail a CD containing your publication. I had one customer insert a newsletter CD in their product booklet and hand them out a tradeshows. One advantage of using your website and/or a CD is that you can provide PDFs of all of your publication’s issue to date. You may also combine distribution methods depending on the audience and the speed of delivery you want.
Q– Does a full color publication cost more than black and white?
A– Absolutely not. Using a digital newsletter gives you access to unlimited color choices including full color photos.
Q– Can I put a movie in my newsletter?
A.- Yes you can. Also an audio clip. The caveats to having a movie/video/audio file in your newsletter is that these additions makes the newsletter file much bigger. This kind of file would probably require you to upload the newsletter to a server so the publication could be downloaded or distribute from your website.
Well, that gives you many of the questions and answers. I’m sure you probably have one or more questions I have not addressed. For an answer to your questions on having a custom digital newsletter please drop me an email, [email protected].
One last thing, I provide the initial design and do the content layout for each issue.
Thanks for taking the time to read this article and considering having your own custom newsletter taking advantage of the vast amount of knowledge and experience offered by Southern Fishing News.
