Newsletters are a passive communication tool

Think of your newsletter as your ambassador for your group when you can’t be there. A newsletter speaks in your absence, but it speaks to your audience, not with them. And if it isn’t read, it is mute.

In passive communication:

• Information is injected from one party to another; receiving party limited to the information presented to interpret meaning.
• Receiving party does not respond directly/interact with information source

In active communication:

• Interaction/Dialogue between parties (both parties give and receive information)
• Parties can react to each other and can adjust their communication/information

Remember, newsletters are a tool, not an end in themselves. They offer some advantages:

• Can be saved and referred to later
• Ambassador for your group when you aren’t there
• Information reaches many people quickly and at reasonable cost

Newsletters also have some disadvantages:

• No guarantee it will be read or information retained
• Hard to know what people are taking away from your newsletter

Newsletters can be an effective communication tool. But too often, folks rely exclusively on newsletters to deliver information. Many people expect others to read, be informed, and take action because of content buried in a newsletter. Putting information in a newsletter is only one method of communication. To get the results you are looking for, it’s often necessary to use several communication methods (conversation, letters, e-mails), multiple times, over time.

Don’t assume that you have covered an issue after running an article in one edition of your newsletter. There is a reason that companies like Coca-Cola and Ford have perpetual and long-running advertising campaigns. It takes a lot of time and effort before someone associates a product with a brand/company and then associates the action of buying that brand with an actual purpose.

People have relationships and do things for other people, not for paper. A newsletter is not a substitute for more active communication. People need to hear about the same themes/issues in different ways over time. Keep this in mind.

Newsletters are also not news. Many newsletters are published on a quarterly, semi-annual, or even annual basis. They are a good medium for discussing timely information (such as covering past events or upcoming events, seasonal issues etc.) however your current events coverage might span several months of action rather than the last week.

 

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What is your newsletter’s purpose?

You’re spending a lot of time and energy on your newsletter; make it work for you. If it’s not fulfilling a purpose that helps your group fulfill its mission, then why do it?

The purposes outlined here are broad, but give good general guidance. The content of your newsletter should fulfill at least one of these purposes. If you find yourself including articles/items to “fill space” rather than to “fulfill purpose” you may want to reconsider.

Newsletters can serve as an introduction to your organization. Who you are, what you do, how it is relevant to people’s lake experience. This doesn’t need to be explicitly said, it can conveyed in the overall look and content of your newsletter.

Newsletters can help establish your group's credibility with potential partners (County departments or boards, towns, other lake groups), the press, existing members of your lake group, non-members of your lake group, by helping them answer the following questions about your group for themselves:

• is this a group a resource, can they help us with lake issues?
• is this group a legitimate source for lake related stories
• Confirm that belonging to your group has value
• Plant the idea that joining your group is worthwhile

Additional purposes for having a newsletter could include building a sense of lake community, providing a resource for lake related topics/issues, and others.

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General advice & strategies for good content

• Audience: What is relevant and interesting to them?
• Tell a story while presenting information
• Have plentiful and reliable sources/contributors
• Sustainable:
• Be realistic about the amount of content you can consistently produce. Filling 4 pages is different than filling 12.
• Recognize that contributors may be more or less busy in certain seasons.
• Safety cushion: Life happens. Have stories in reserve for emergencies.

Strategies for good content

• Consistent features: Examples: president’s message, columns, lake group activities etc
• Themes: Cluster several articles related to the same larger topic/issue
• Serialized stories: Allows common thread between issues, and deeper topic coverage.
• Contributors:
  • Many voices builds credibility
  • Be an editor and selective writer rather than writing everything
• Images: Make sure any images you use serve to illustrate an idea or theme of the article it accompanies.

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Design strategies

The purpose of a newsletter is to convey information. There are no official newsletter design “rules”, but there are design conventions and strategies that will help you create a document that is easy for your audience to navigate and read.

Conventions are flexible in the same sense that the word “chair” can mean a barcolounger, folding lawn chair, or formal dining chair. While the look of all three of these chairs is dramatically different, the underlying function (“a piece of furniture consisting of a seat, legs, back, and often arms, designed to accommodate one person”) is the same.

So it is with design conventions. Using design conventions guides creativity and places it within user’s expectations.

Page to page Consistency

Using a grid to set up consistent page layouts throughout a document will help with continuity. It also helps speed production because the designer doesn't have to "start from scratch" laying out and designing each page of the publication. Some publications use mixed grids (one grid system on one page, another grid system on another page).

A grid is a series of guidelines that determine the margins of the piece, space between page elements (headlines, body text, photographs, etc.), and lets you know where to put things on the blank page.  Grids can set the widths of column texts, the uniformity of space around photographs, or the consistent placement of repeating elements from page to page in a magazine. The examples below show several different page layout options using a grid system.

Clutter

If you emphasize everything, you’ve emphasized nothing. There are many ways to draw a reader’s attention to text. Font choice, size, style (bold, underline, italic etc.), color, spacing between letters and lines all can focus reader’s attention on text. If overdone, it distracts readers. The sentence below uses multiple ways of drawing attention at the same time:

You can also draw readers attention to areas of your newsletter with use of color, lines, and other effects. Like text effects, the use of too many strategies at once creates clutter. The examples below use to much color, too many different fonts, and scattered images.

Boxes are a popular method to group, set apart, and emphasize information. Boxes do not need to have a frame/border (they can be created by using color or white spaces, see below), but using too many boxes on the same page will create clutter and undermine the purpose of using boxes (to group, set apart, and emphasize). The example on the left illustrates some of the many ways of creating boxes, and also the effect of too many boxes. The example on the right uses fewer boxes.

Fonts

Changes in font size and leading can provide design flexibility and contrast. Use a few fonts (three is a good general number) in preference to many. Be consistent; all Heading 1s should use the same font/size/spacing, all Heading 2 etc. The example to the right uses too many different fonts and methods of emphasizing fonts (underline, italic, bold etc).

White space

White space refers to any empty area (colored or white, opaque or transparent) that is not text. Good use of white space improves readability and adds contrast. You can create white space using:

Generous margins & gutters (inside margin) Ragged right alignment
• Leave space around graphics
• Increase space between paragraphs
• Increase space around headlines and headings
• Increase the leading of body text
• Increase space between columns

The example on the left is cramped, hard to read, and it is difficult to tell if there is any idea being emphasized. The example on the right is the same text with more white space.

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Producing your newsletter

Having an editor to coordinate gathering newsletter articles, work with contributing writers to make sure ideas are clear, edit articles for length and grammatical accuracy, and layout the newsletter is important to producing a consistent and timely newsletter. Sometimes newsletter editing and newsletter layout may be done by the same person, or layout work can be done separately.

There are a variety of software programs that can handle newsletter layout work. Consider what program(s) you have access to and the computer skills of your current and future newsletter editors. Newsletters can be laid out in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Publisher, Adobe PageMaker (no longer made), Adobe InDesign, and Quark (Quark and InDesign are used by professional graphic designers). There may be additional programs available.

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Cost of production factors

The cost of producing a newsletter can influence design decisions.

Color or black and white

Printing a newsletter in full color is almost always more expensive than printing in black and white. Color usually requires a heavier grade of paper (so colors don't bleed through). Reproducing photographs in black and white can be more difficult.

Type of printing

Consider whether your newsletter will be printed by a professional printer (using an offset press) or if a copy machine will be used. Printers can often offer advice on color and treatment of photos to maximize the quality of your newsletter's reproduction. Copy machines (especially if your newsletter is black and white) are accessible and may be cost effective.

Newsletter format

The size of paper you use can sometimes influence cost. Standard sizes (8 1/2" x 11", 8 1/2" x 14" legal size; 11" x17" tabloid size) will generally be in stock. Also consider if you want the newsletter to be folded or stapled.

Type of paper

Paper quality is an important consideration. In general, heavier grades of paper, glossy paper, and colored paper may add cost to production. Printers and copy shops can give you price comparisons between different papers.

Number of pages

More pages may increase printing costs, and will increase the weight of your newsletter (which will increase postage). Consider your budget for distributing your newsletter.

The number of newsletters produced

Many lake groups with smaller memberships do not need to produce many copies of their newsletter. Others may need to produce a large quantity. The price per unit (per newsletter) decreases as more copies are printed. The number of newsletters you need may influence your choices on the above factors.

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