There's no doubt that an informative company newsletter is one of the best ways a printer can help market their services. If you're thinking about utilizing a print newsletter to market your company, here are some things to consider.

1. Print or email? My advice is to utilize both. Cross media. But if you just use one, consider the fact that even the best designed email newsletters fall prey to spam filters. On the other hand, if you have limited financial resources, an email newsletter is much less costly to produce and distribute.

2. 80/20 rule. Your content should be 80% educational and 20% promotional. If your content is relevant to the services you offer, then it's promotional without being promotional.

3. It's about them, not you. Your content should be more focused on providing your audience with useful information and less about the goings-on at your company. However, some company news can be beneficial to your marketing effort. Community service, milestones, new services launches, etc. are great for engagement and branding. Just try to strike the proper balance.

4. How relevant is your content? Don't waste your time and money sending out jokes, recipes, and generic content that has no direct relevance to the services your company provides. You just make it easier for your brand to blend in and become part of the noise. People will tune you out. The key is to stand out from your competition by promoting thought leadership, competency and trust. Your content needs to be better than your competitors.

5. Frequency. How often can you realistically get a newsletter out the door? If it's only email, it should be monthly. No less than bi-monthly. However, if you opt for print only or print and email, then consider if you can produce a print piece quarterly, bi-monthly, or monthly. Be realistic. At a minimum, you need to touch your audience every 90 days. Strong marketers tighten that to every 30 days.

6. Word counts. The trend is towards shorter content. Newsletter articles should be under 500 words (maximum, shoot for 400). Email under 375.

7. Page counts. The newsletters themselves can be single article (2 page) or multiple articles (8 pages). That's something to consider when you determine your frequency. If you are only engaging your audience 4 times a year, consider a multiple article format with a magazine look and feel so that it sticks around longer. If it were bi-monthly or monthly, a two page format might be more realistic.

8. Beware of the committee approach. As a print marketer once said, ”the act of trying to create the perfect piece often ends up being the reason for doing nothing.”

I've been supplying printers and mailers with customizable, area exclusive newsletter solutions for 20 years. I'm happy to discuss your challenges, review your materials, and offer any advice.