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Definition: What's a client newsletter?

Book Review

Real-World Newsletters To Meet Your Unreal Demands
By Linda B. Jorgensen
EEI Press, Alexandria, VA, 1999
Paperback, 360 pages, $34.95
Reviewed by Dave Freedman

"Newsletter editing is hard work," says Linda Jorgensen on page 5 of her book, Real-World Newsletters. Newsletter articles must be useful, easy to read, detailed, accurate, and condensed into a tight space.

Newsletter editors, perhaps more than any other kind of editor, must build relationships with readers. It’s an informal medium, more anecdotal than most, and authors talk more conversationally to readers than in other media. The newsletter editor is an insider, a niche dweller, finely attuned to the informational needs of readers, and expected to respond to those needs with deeper analysis, insight and advice than in a more general, less timely publication.

This book is geared mainly to editors of company newsletters -- those which are distributed free to customers and clients. They’re also known as service newsletters, corporate newsletters, practice newsletters, client/customer newsletters, client advisories, market presence newsletters, B2B newsletters, and so on. Readers of these publications haven’t paid for a subscription, so they don’t have to read it in order to protect an investment. The only incentive to read it is to learn how to make more money and/or stay out of trouble.

It’s very easy these days to publish a decent-looking newsletter, thanks to sophisticated but cheap desktop publishing software. It’s not easy at all to hold readers’ attention and get them involved in the publication, much less pass it around to their colleagues or make photocopies of it and mail it to their customers, clients, constituents, staff, etc.

Newsletter editing is hard work. If it seems easy, you’re probably doing a crummy job.

Comprehensive
Jorgensen’s book is rock-bottom fundamental and comprehensive -- and somewhat verbose. She starts out with a flow chart that identifies 30 steps in the publishing process, from "develop story list and match topics with authors" to "delivery & distribution." The book contains 80 sidebars, some useful and stimulating, some useless. There are also lots of checklists, sample production schedules, forms, mini-glossaries, layout schemes, and color photos of actual newsletters (both printed and online), most of them useful. One of the early lists contains the duties that a newsletter editor may have to perform:

• Meet regularly with the publisher (who may be your supervisor)
• Get and line-edit or rewrite contributions from authors
• Solicit and develop articles from experts or professional writers
• Do original research and interviews
• Write filler, reviews, and articles on topics no one else will touch
• Ghost-write party-line columns and pieces by superiors
• Attend events and meetings to report on them and analyze trends
• Copy edit (check for grammar, style, factual, and formatting errors)
• Interact with an editorial board or peer reviewers
• Take photographs, suggest illustrations, and conceptualize images
• Work with a designer on the layout or do it all yourself
• Work with a desktop publisher or printer, or both
• Read related publications and stay current in your field
• Brainstorm ways to gain more readers and build their loyalty
• Create a forum for reader concerns
• Put the newsletter or a version of it online

I would add that you also need to devise a way to gauge the success of the publication in meeting its marketing objectives. After all, nobody goes to the expense of producing and distributing a newsletter unless they expect a return on that investment in terms of new clients or happier clients or more successful clients who can afford to buy more of your goods and services. It’s up to the editor to figure out how to track responses and inquiries from readers, and measure their effect on sales or earnings. (It’s also necessary, therefore, for the editor to clearly understand the marketing objectives.) This is an area that the author does not address.

Another useful list gives the "qualities" of a good newsletter article, using the acronym SHAPE:

• Significance (timely, timeless, rare, universal)
• Human interst (anecdotal, amusing, applicable, astonishing)
• Accuracy (details, quotes, definitions, statistics)
• Perspective (context, history, implications, consequences)
• Evaluation (insight, interpretation, demonstration, prediction)

I very much approve of her formula for newsletter content, although she’s quick to warn against adhering to it too strictly:

The author gives some excellent guidance on planning, researching, writing, editing, designing, and producing newsletters, beginning with one of the most important pieces of advice: "Make it clear [to the reader], even on a quick scanning, what the practical benefits of reading [your newsletter] are." Thanks to aforementioned desktop publishing capabilities, business people are flooded with newsletters. Why should anyone read yours? You must convey the benefits quickly and clearly, starting with the name of the publication and the tagline, blurbs or table of contents on the cover. Make it impossible for readers to misunderstand the newsletter’s purpose, benefits, and intended audience.

And please, don’t design the nameplate (a.k.a. banner) yourself. Hire a designer.

Unreal?
The reference to "unreal demands" in the book’s title is a bit of whining. Who doesn’t work with tight deadlines and awesome responsibilities? Newsletter editing is hard work, but it can also be incredibly satisfying. You exercise a lot of creativity and relate closely to your readers.

"A tacky newsletter can do more harm than good," Jorgensen warns. Accordingly, I’ll leave you with one more of the book’s useful checklists, this one titled "Keys to Producing a High-Quality Newsletter":

• Use a style manual
• Spell check every draft
• Proofread in layout and after copyfitting
• Check corrections after every round of revisions
• Double-check facts and numbers
• Follow a production schedule
• Take a reader survey
• Get a professional critique
• Cooperate with an editorial committee
• Subscribe to publications in your field
• Keep "evergreen" back-up articles on hand
• Work several issues ahead on the storylist

About the author
Linda B. Jorgensen is manager of EEI Press, publisher of Real World Newsletters and other books about writing and publishing. She is also editor of The Editorial Eye, a monthly subscription newsletter focusing on publications standards and practices. She was one of the associate editors who helped write the New York Public Library Writer’s Guide to Style and Usage (HarperCollins). Jorgensen also conducts workshops for newsletter editors. She earned a masters degree in English from the University of Wisconsin.

About the reviewer
Dave Freedman is a Chicago-based writer, editor, and newsletter developer. He has helped clients launch commercial and non-commercial newsletters, mainly in the legal and financial fields. (Dave's website: www.freedman-chicago.com)

DEFINITION: A client newsletter is one that you distribute free, primarily to clients, prospective clients, referral sources, and other stakeholders of your firm. Its objective is to be informative, to demonstrate your expertise, and to promote your services, rather than to earn a profit.