1.       DATABASE.  Make sure you have your database ready. It is important to consider who you want to receive the newsletter.

2.       TARGET AUDIENCE.  Analyse your target audience.  Are they likely to open an email or would they prefer a printed version?

3.       CONTENT.  There is the temptation to take the content of your website and paste it onto a newsletter... WRONG! You can obviously refer to your website but you need to remember that you are writing to your existing and potential clients telling them what's new, what's good and what's on offer.

4.       PLANNING.  Having a plan helps you when preparing a regular newsletter.  You can organise your newsletter to go out every 4 to 6 weeks, and you should plan to start writing the next issue two weeks before the deadline.

5.       STRUCTURE & LAYOUT.  It is fundamental that when taking the big step of sending your newsletter you consider the structure and layout. Think of your audience and what they would like to read first and make it easy for them to find their way around.  In this newsletter we have a table of contents at the beginning and readers can click on different sections depending on their particular area of interest.

6.       DESIGN.  We so often see good, well written newsletters with a hideous design.  To avoid this we strongly recommend that unless you are a designer you leave it to the professionals.  People unfortunately will "judge a book by its cover". 

7.       PRINT.  If you decide to go for a printed newsletter please, please, please do not use an old printer you have sitting at home,  Either have the template printed by a professional and then print it if you have a good printer in the office.  Better still, get a professional printer to print it for you.

8.       TIPS.  It is always more interesting to read a newsletter that has a few tips.  One of our contacts sent us a newsletter a few years ago and to this day we still find it useful. Thank you Annette!

9.      OFFERS.  You should use your newsletter to inform your audience of any special offers.  Everybody likes discounts and if you have a good product and service together with a strong special offer people will be motivated to take advantage of this.

10.   RESULTS.  It's very important to monitor the success of your newsletter.  Record if people are responding to your offers and use software to track whether your newsletter is being read.  If you are not getting the results you want, you may need to make some changes.