14 Mar 2009
By Michael Green
Newsletters have become an increasingly popular way to
communicate and it isn't hard to see why.
Back in the days when printing was the only method of publishing
a newsletter, the rules were different.
The production costs (print & distribution) were high and this
excluded many people from producing their own newsletters.
But with the Internet and Email, the rules have completely
changed...
Nowadays newsletters are incredibly cheap to produce and
distribute over the Net. This fact has led to an explosion in
the number of titles. And whilst it's impossible to know
precisely, one recent credible estimate said that there are
between 3 and 400,000 newsletter titles published on the web
and via email each month!
OBSCURE INTEREST GROUPS NOW HAVE THEIR OWN NEWSLETTERS
The ultra low cost of producing a newsletter, combined with
the global nature of the Internet, has meant that any band
of people with an obscure minority interest can now viably
publish their own newsletter.
Hence most Internet newsletters have a distribution of less
than a thousand and many have memberships in the low
hundreds or less.
THOUSANDS OF NEW NEWSLETTER EDITORS
But the explosion in newsletter titles has led to a whole
band of first-time newsletter editors.
Many of them are home based. Nearly all of them
under-resourced for the writing task ahead.
So here's one useful tip that during my lengthy newsletter
editing career, I've used successfully many hundreds of times.
I call it:
"How To Write A Newsletter Without Doing ALL The Hard Work"
One of the greatest challenges for any newsletter editor is not
as the job title suggests 'editing', but finding or producing the
content.
Some people view newsletter editors in the same light as magazine
editors. Nice comparison shame it just isn't true!
You see a magazine editor probably has a sub-editor, a
photographer, a picture editor and a number of reporters or
feature writers. They probably still complain that they are badly
under-resourced. But they are not compared with you of course.
So you've got to learn a few shortcuts! Here's one to start with:
CONDUCT AN INTERVIEW AND TAPE IT.
Get hold of a key member of staff, head of the sailing club,
whoever is appropriate to your newsletter. Tell them that you
know that there's an audience out there who would just love to
hear about his/her views and that you're coming down to do an
interview (this can be done over the phone if need be).
Now set your Voice Recorder, Answering Machine or Dictaphone
running and ask the key questions you know your readership is
waiting to hear the answers to.
Remember to ask the open ended questions. Those are the ones
starting with; who, what, why, when, where and how.
Remember you want to keep the content as interesting as
possible. And there's nothing more interesting to the reader
than hearing about something that answers a problem that they
have. So keep the interview rich in problem solving and
benefits and you can't go far wrong.
When you've finished the interview off you go with say 20-30
minutes of recording and your job is simply to play it back
and write it out, editing as you go.
Good luck,
Michael Green
© How To Corporation. All rights reserved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The author Michael Green has developed a TOOLKIT called
"How To Write A Newsletter". It comes complete with
hundreds of Copyright Free Articles, DTP Templates a How To
Manual and lots more. A must for all Newsletter Editors!
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