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Promotional
newsletters
Would you want to be stuck in a dentist's waiting
room with
your company's newsletter?
Too many promotional newsletters are not newsletters
at all - they are just 'ME ME ME' publications, full of
'stories' which set out simply to tell the reader how
wonderful the company and its products or services
are. Very few people are going to read this kind
of material.
To make a newsletter work, you need to include
information which is of real interest and use to the
reader - so it doesn't go straight in the bin.
Topical industry information, warnings on new
legislation or reference material about events are good
examples. An element of light entertainment (a
cartoon, a quiz or a story about the finance director's
pet crocodile) also helps, to encourage them to read it
in the first place.
If your newsletter comes across as dull and self-centred,
the reader will imagine you and your colleagues are dull
and self-centred as well. If it's readable, entertaining, interesting
and informative, on the other hand, it will win you
friends.
Chris Newton Communications works with specialist
newsletter designers to produce publications which are:
- Designed to look and work like
real news publications.
- Sharply written, with punchy
headlines, subheads, pull quotes and banner copy.
- Lively and entertaining.
- Cost-effective.
- A credit to your company.
Staff newsletters
- how they should work
Is yours just an unnecessary overhead?
If your staff newsletter is simply a management
propaganda vehicle, the staff won't read it. If
it's just a ragbag of staff news and gossip, the company
will gain little from it. A good newsletter should
have these aims:
- To encourage staff to think and
work together.
- To communicate information from
management and between departments about plans, policies and how the
business is doing.
- To build pride and morale by
recognising and celebrating achievements, both
personal and corporate.
- To make employees and departments
more aware of each other's roles and needs.
- To provide a forum for debate.
The staff magazine of
Gloucestershire Royal NHS Trust
Design by Bob Milsom
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For
an in-house publication do its job:
- Staff at all levels should perceive
the magazine as 'theirs', not just management propaganda.
This means they should have input into the magazine and a
voice in its design and content, while senior management
retain control.
- The design and editorial style should
match the size and character of the organisation.
- A wide range of material should
be included from around the organisation.
- The publication should be seen as
reactive and responsive to its readers.
- To be seen as authoritative, it
must act as a genuine source of company news, both
good and not-so-good. It should also appear regularly
and reasonably often.
The newsletter
of the Friends of Bristol Eye Hospital
Design by Bob Milsom Associates
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