From big business newsletter publishing to smaller nonprofit newsletters, Publishing Xpress gives you the ability to publish and print your own newsletter online. Produce a high-quality piece that’s both professional and affordable by using a company with great newsletter publishing services. (Did you know we offer a 10% discount on our already low prices to nonprofit organizations?)
Glossy newsletters. Multi-page newsletters. Full-color newsletters. With Publishing Xpress, you can choose from an array of custom printing options. Our online newsletter publishing services include several different binding options, as well as a wide range of paper sizes and paper stock options. In addition, we offer minimal order quantities (only 25) and fast turnaround.
Looking for a newsletter publishing specialist? You’ve come to the right place. We offer personal and friendly online newsletter publishing service—plus a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Be sure to request a free sample of our printing services. In the free packet, we will include a plastic coil bound book that contains samples of all of our paper stocks, so you can decide which would work best with your newsletter project.
Need some inspiration for your next newsletter publishing project? Check out some of our client Spotlights that show the printing specifications for client printing projects as well as feedback from the client about printing with Publishing Xpress. Two spotlights that included newsletter publishing projects were for a family newsletter and for an animal shelter.
How about some tips for your next newsletter? Check out this article on 6 essential tips for writing the perfect newsletter.
Or check out our article titled Printing Unique Newsletters Your Readers Will Demand.
Think you can get by with an email newsletter? Depending on your industry, as many as 99.5% of your customers will never even open your email, let alone read it or click on your link(s). Even if your business is one of the few that seems to do fairly “well” with digital marketing, at best, just 24% of your customers will click on your email.
Of these, only a small fraction (approximately 3%) will follow up with a click or call. The rest will either forget it or delete it.
Call newsletters old fashioned if you want, but the numbers speak for themselves: the majority of people enjoy receiving physical mail and an even higher percentage are reading the printed newsletters they receive. In fact, according to a recent survey, 83% of people reported preferring print because “I can keep it for future reference.”
Because of their direct delivery, tangible appeal, and unique ability to bring personal value, printed newsletters are unquestionably the most ideal approach to keeping in touch with current clients and reaching out to potential clients in a distinctive way that immediately tunes them into your business.
With newsletters publishing, you:
Newsletter publishing is a huge task. When you write books, you may only publish one or may two in your lifetime. But when you decide to publish a newsletter, you often print it on an ongoing schedule — maybe monthly, quarterly, or annually. And those deadlines come up faster than you can imagine.
When talking about deadlines, our company’s president tells the story of how she started our business as a newsletter printing company for the financial services industry, offering several monthly newsletter. One night, she had a dream (nightmare?) that the newsletters were weekly and she was three weeks behind!
Here are 15 tips for writing effective newsletters for your newsletter publishing ventures:
If there’s only one piece of advice you follow as you write your newsletter content, make it this: write one, maybe two articles at most, directly related to your business. Otherwise, you’re essentially sending a monthly marketing sales letter or brochure and defeating the purpose of your newsletter: to reach out to current and potential clients in a friendly, nonpushy format that gives them something valuable to look forward to and share with their friends.
With that being said, it’s perfectly okay — and highly recommended —to lead with your business feature(s). However, keep in mind as you write them that your readers will quickly grow bored if all you have to say is how great your business is. So rather than telling them, show them. Include Q & As, before and afters, or case studies with clients who’ve recently shopped with you or used your services to illustrate exactly how your business is beneficial. Remember that when it comes to your business, readers want proof — not fluff.
Don’t forget to include other topics of interest as well. In fact, at least two-thirds of your newsletter articles should focus on topics other than your specific business. Otherwise, it’s not really a newsletter but a two- to four-page press release — and that’s just boring for your newsletter publishing venture.
You’ll probably enjoy writing the features related to your own business the most, since it’s your main passion. As you conceptualize ideas for your business articles, focus on content strategies that will establish goodwill and rapport with your readers to generate more business.
Strongly consider employee spotlights that allow your current and potential clients to learn more about the people they’ll work with when they decide to do business with you again. These don’t have to be overly personal — just a friendly get to know so-and-so type of article.
Other types of business features you can and should write include:
Take the time to consider exactly who will be reading your newsletter. If you’re middle-aged but happen to run a business that predominately attracts Millennials, you want to keep their particular age group and interests in mind as you formulate topics.
For example, should you decide to include an article on retirement (an excellent choice, as research shows that saving is a top priority for this generation), avoid sharing tips on how to stretch your retirement dollars. Instead, focus on long-term retirement savings.
If your business is like most businesses and caters to a broad range of ages and interests, it’s especially important to make sure your newsletter publishing topics indulge everyone. Choose subject matter that anyone can enjoy; and if you happen to write on a topic that’s more age-specific — such as a promising healing trend for arthritis — be sure to balance the rest of your newsletter with topics that don’t target a specific age demographic.
Topics for Newsletter Publishing That Interest Readers the Most:
Most folks just don’t enjoy writing and that’s because they think they have to get fancy with word choice and semantics. As a result, they spend more time agonizing over the perfect words or sentence structure than paying attention to their message and voice.
A good rule of thumb when it comes to composing your articles (especially the first draft) is to write how you would speak. This will help the words pour onto your screen or paper much more quickly. You can always go back and tweak them — and you should!
While subtlety is a huge part of your newsletter’s charm, don’t shy away when it comes to inciting a call to action (CTA), particularly in the business feature portion of your newsletter. Approximately 70% of small businesses don’t use distinctive CTAs on their websites, which means you’ve got to take extra precautions to include strong CTAs in your newsletter. This alone can increase your leads by several times over.
While you certainly don’t want to bombard your current or potential customers with daily or even weekly newsletters, it’s strongly recommended that you send your newsletter once per month. Considering that your newsletter publication has the same value as a magazine, it should be sent with the same frequency as a magazine subscription. Once per month is the ideal rhythm.
Send your newsletter publishing too often and you’ll overwhelm or even irritate your recipients. Send them quarterly and you risk losing that smooth, consistent tempo of contact that’s so important to maintain. A monthly newsletter gives your readers enough time to read and absorb your content at their own leisure without accumulating a stockpile of what they may begin to view as junk mail. By the same token, just around the time they have already read and perhaps started to forget your newsletter, they receive fresh new content from you.
You probably don’t need to see a study to know how visually driven human beings really are. Still, it’s important to note that digital content accompanied by a relevant image gets 94% more views, so imagine the impact of including visuals in your printed newsletters!12
For this very reason, it’s imperative to include images to pair with the majority, if not all, of your articles. While they don’t all have to be the same size or shape, these photos not only break up your articles and give people something to look at, but they give your newsletter a professional polish that feels more like a magazine, which is exactly the goal.
In addition to great reading content, people generally adore brain teasers such as puzzles, jokes, and even contemplative quotes. Seemingly trivial games like Candy Crush and Pokémon Go didn’t spread like wildfire overnight only because of solid marketing — they offer an escape from everyday cares and concerns.
You can take the same idea and apply it to your newsletters by including crossword puzzles, word searches, jokes, fun images, or anything that redirects people’s minds away from work and worry.
Strategy is good and understanding your customer base and targeted demographics is vital to your growth. But sometimes, businesses can overstrategize to their own detriment, and your newsletter mailing list is one of these times.
Keep your mailing list open to everyone: old clients, fairly new clients, and prospects. After all, when you consider the alternatives and their lackluster results, newsletters are one of the most cost-effective ways to maintain contact — is it worth saving the stamp and missing a current, past, or prospective client who might have otherwise called you had they seen your newsletter(s)?
Therefore, avoid the temptation to narrow your list to your best clients or even your new clients just to save a few dollars. You want your content to reach every possible client, especially since you have no way of knowing who the 4% of people ready to do business with you will be. By the way, your newsletters are a great way to reconnect with customers you haven’t heard from in a while who may simply need a friendly reminder that you’re still there when they need your products or services.
Just as you want to send your newsletter publishing to everyone on your current list, it’s important to expand your reach to as many of your clients as you possibly can. Create an obvious place for them to sign up for your newsletter on your main webpage and present other opportunities as they peruse your site, such as pop-up offers or reminders during their appointment-making process.
Likewise, keep a sign-up form in your reception area and make sure you display copies of your newsletters with other reading material, so they can check out prior issues as they wait for an appointment. If you send emails, include a newsletter sign-up link in your email signature.
You aren’t limited to advertising your newsletter within your own office; there are numerous places throughout your community where potential clients are only too happy to pick up your newsletter:
In the lobby or waiting room of a referral source.
If you have a business that you refer your clients to (or vice versa) for other services or products, take advantage of this symbiotic relationship by displaying your newsletters in their office or store, where you’re likely to attract clients who will naturally be interested in your business.
Your local library, bookstores, and coffee shops
These places will not only be happy to display your newsletters, but their frequenters most likely LOVE to read, so your newsletters are practically guaranteed to capture interest and impress.
Community centers
Take your newsletters to the central gathering places within the neighborhoods you tend to do business with, such as community centers, senior centers, the YMCA, or your local VFW hall. Your readers are likely to be folks with a strong sense of community pride who are searching for helpful information, a few chuckles, and, above all, a sense of connection. They will be all too impressed upon seeing your newsletter.
Neighborhood businesses
While you certainly don’t want to ask them to advertise within your newsletter, check with nearby businesses to see if they’re interested in adding additional reading material to their collection. Once they see that the content is mostly magazine-style articles, they’ll probably be willing to display your valuable (and free) content.
You most likely have other channels where you can showcase your content — especially your business features — so it gets seen by even more people. Since many people encounter your business for the first time via your website, it’s imperative to keep your web pages inviting with fresh content that’s consistently updated.
With so little time available, this can be a hard proposition for the majority of small business owners — especially now that you’re adding newsletter content to your plate. The good news is some of the content from your newsletters can easily double as website content. Just because you’re sending your articles initially in print format certainly doesn’t mean they have to be limited to your newsletter.
In fact, you should strongly consider uploading some of your articles to your blog or social media sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. You don’t even have to share the whole article(s). Instead, you can decide on a certain snippet or two and keep the rest exclusively for your printed newsletter. The goal here is to bring attention to your expertise and value in as many formats as possible.
For numerous reasons, printed newsletters are extremely powerful marketing tools. But like all worthwhile efforts, they can take time to produce the results you’re looking for. It may take several months to really start seeing feedback in the form of appointments, increased revenue, and referrals.
One of the many reasons newsletters are so effective is the ongoing delivery. This means that in the beginning stages, your recipients need time to process the concept that your newsletter isn’t just a one-time or short-term marketing ploy, but rather a worthwhile publication you’re dedicated to sending them on a consistent basis. Don’t forget too that only a small percentage of your readers are ready to work with you at any given time.
While you may have to wait several months to begin seeing measurable results, in the meantime, you’re taking the single most important action possible: regularly reaching out in a valuable way that certainly isn’t going to drive away your clients, like emails, texts, or direct advertising of similar frequency might do. Commit to sending your newsletters for at least six months, if not a full year. If you commit to sending monthly newsletters that follow all of our included tips, your efforts will be rewarded in the long run.
It’s incredibly tempting to allow other businesses to advertise in your newsletter in an effort to reduce the newsletter publishing and/or mailing costs. After all, if these businesses aren’t in direct competition with you, what harm could it do? Well, for starters, you’re transitioning your newsletter away from an enjoyable publication with meaningful content to a direct mailer that will feel more or less like a flyer plugging local businesses.
Remember that people are bombarded with thousands of ads on a daily basis. Your newsletter should provide a welcome reprieve and stick solely to worthwhile articles and images. Otherwise, it won’t have the effect it’s designed to have: establish credibility, earn trust, and capture reader interest.
Since your number-one goal is to bridge a connection with your readers so they get in immediate contact when they’re ready to do business with you, it’s important to include all forms of contact in multiple places in your newsletter publishing. You never want your readers to have to hunt for your phone number or website.
Be sure to include your phone number, email address, and website in either a call to action, sidebar, or along the top or bottom of your newsletter, so when readers decide to get in touch with you, they can do so quickly and easily without having to take additional steps that could lead to distraction or delay. If you have specific business hours, be sure to include them on your newsletter as well.
We hope these tips help you make your newsletter more effective!
Ready to publish your own newsletter online? Contact us today! Or check out our newsletter printing calculator to get a quote for publishing your newsletter.
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