The Newsletter

One of the tools in the PR armoury – and one too often left in the file marked ‘afterthought’ - is the newsletter.

And whether you’re a voluntary body, sports club, school, SME or multinational, the thinking behind a newsletter is broadly the same.

Newsletters come in all shapes and sizes. Some are printed, some are emailed, and some are left hanging on websites to be downloaded. Incidentally, all research points towards the combination approach of print and electronic as being the most effective in terms of response.

But what they generally share – or should share – is that they are communicating with a known audience: the people who receive your newsletter should really have some prior knowledge or understanding of your organisation.

This, of course, opens the newsletter up from the traditional strictures of journalism and PR, where we are mainly dealing with general rather than specific audiences.

With a specific audience, you can assume some prior knowledge and use language designed for that audience and not for the masses.

This answers the ‘Who’ question in the Who-What-Where-When-Why test. This far from scientific check should be applied to all marketing – who are we talking to; what are we saying; where should we distribute it; how regularly should we do it; why spend here and not somewhere else. And you really need to find a good answer to all these points.

As a general rule, when we create newsletters for organisations we look for three cornerstones: a comment on the state of their industry, which positions the organisation as expert in their field; a case study on one of their clients, which shows our ability to deliver; and a story from inside the organisation, such as new appointments or a product or service we wish to promote.

This will help you plan your newsletter and develop other content around it.

Next time, I’ll give some specific advice on constructing a newsletter but, if you can’t wait a month, drop me a line at richard.slater@slaterpr.co.uk and we’ll try to help.