Focus on Content
To stand out and be worth the recipient’s time, a good newsletter must surface meaningful content in a concise fashion. The era of 20-page newsletters died in the 1990s. Today, content that informs, educates, and entertains outperforms content that reads like meeting minutes. Some best-practice tips:
Give the reader something they couldn’t otherwise get from alternative sources — special interviews, meaningful insider tips, etc.Most people aren’t interested in content that includes meeting minutes, vacation reports, or other stuff that’s of historical interest only.Keep it short and simple. No need to write a dozen paragraphs when just three or four will suffice.Use photos and illustrations, but avoid off-topic stock photos or clipart.
Be Consistent
Newsletters aren’t primarily consumed on paper anymore — emailed newsletters prove much more common — but what you create still ought to be printable, which means you’ll need to conform to common print standards. In particular:
Use grids for page-to-page consistency. Good alignment is important for a professional-looking newsletter.Use templates and style guides for consistent formatting. Whether you use someone else’s template or develop your own, stay with it.Use repeating elements such as footers, headers, and department heads.Use the same few fonts throughout the newsletter. Use color to attract the eye to important information, but don’t overdo it.
Avoid Clutter
More isn’t always better. If your newsletter is chock full of fonts, colors, photos, and graphics, the reader may be put off. Keep it clean and approachable.
Use three or fewer typefaces. Use frames and boxes sparingly. Use no more than one or two pieces of clip art, photos or graphics accents per page.
Use Contrast
Although a too-busy newsletter is off-putting, a newsletter design without contrast—a giant wall of text—tends to be boring. Ways to include contrast in your newsletter include:
Use high-contrast typefaces such as a bold sans serif type for headlines and a serif font for body text.Make it big, really big. Use an exaggerated drop cap or enlarge a media attachment to make a statement.Use white space in the form of extra-wide gutters or margins to counteract dense text. White space adds visual breathing room for the eye.Add pull quotes to break up a long article and tantalize the reader. Keep them short and interesting.
Electronic Newsletters
If you transmit your newsletters by email, you’re required by U.S. law to comply with the terms of the CAN-SPAM Act. At a high level, you must include (usually in the footer) the name and mailing address of the publisher as well as an easy-to-find link to unsubscribe from the mailing list.
