Morgan:Newsletters - How Can We Help You?

> There are two types of newsletters and magazines: sponsored and subscriber-based. A sponsored publication is published by an organization and distributed to its customers or clients as a marketing channel. A subscriber-based publication is published by a firm and sent to its subscribers, who pay for it. Each has its own specific dynamics and requirements.

We can help with either type, and have been doing so for years with a wide range of clients. In both types, we usually take on the role of managing editor when producing publications for our clients, but that entirely depends on the work you ’d like us to do. Of course, you’re always the editor-in-chief. For samples of our work, click here.

> We provide publishing advice on publications produced by companies, governments, non-profits and unions. We also consult with newsletter and magazine publishers about their planned or existing publications.

We don’t require minimums, maximums or contracts. You can start, stop or modify a project at any time. (For more about us, click here.)

> A newsletter or magazine, when published by any organization for its customers or clients, is a marketing channel.

When such a publication is done right, it is the only type of direct marketing that the people who receive it actually want to read. It can be a powerful sales tool — warming up cold-calling for your sales staff, keeping your name in front of customers or clients, increasing their psychological links to your business. Newsletters quickly become your organization ’s voice; an authority in the industry for your customers, and for those who are thinking about being your customers. Like all marketing, it should return more resources to you through business it generates than its expense.

Done right, a newsletter doesn’t cost; it pays.

> What about internal or employee newsletters? Do they have a marketing purpose—and should they? Yes, they do, and yes, they should. They ‘sell’ the organization’s point of view to its employees. This can be quite important for customer-service because the internal newsletter can communicate in many different ways, and often, how you want them to work. You can easily and comfortably talk about the importance of good customer service and the kinds of things other employees are doing to support that service. It ’s also great for morale.

They can also be of tremendous use in co-ordinating corporate operations or marketing campaigns, and distributing useful administrative information, such as labour-relations tools. But they, too, must be carefully focused and planned in order to be useful.

> Using our marketing expertise throughout, we are able to write, design, edit, proofread, create, layout and design your newsletter or magazine (you can do parts of that in-house, if you have people with the skills and they can spare the time from what they normally do).

We also provide supervisory services for a suitable printer and mailing house, and we ’ll provide the printer with the required electronic files, in the way it wants them, to ensure your newsletter gets printed, folded and mailed to your customers or clients in the most cost-efficient manner possible.

These subcontractors can be your choice, or we can provide them as part of our service through an Request for Quotes process, and we can provide supervision of them when they ’re aboard. We can also help you acquire mailing lists, but usually an organization has their own. If there is an in-house list available, we can work with those who maintain it to extract the necessary information in the way a mailing house wants to see it.

> Most organizations can benefit from the type of marketing that newsletters provide, but not all. Newsletters are not hard-sell marketing; they are soft-sell —but they can carry hard-sell marketing, such as ads, response cards and inserts. And, as you likely know already, soft-sell has an important place in long-term marketing.

> Typical cost for a printed business-to-business newsletter when we do it: Assume four pages, two ink colours, 8.5 x 11 ”, 5,000 copies printed and mailed: about C$1.20 to C$1.30 per unit per issue. That includes fees, printing, postage (about a third of the cost), mail preparation and taxes. That means you could be in regular contact with your clients and customers, in a way they look forward to receiving, four times a year for about C$4.40 to C$5.20 per customer. E-mail newsletters are even less expensive. Customers certainly don ’t have to buy much before your newsletter marketing costs are recovered.

> We are marketers first, and we know that every organization is unique, with specific audiences and markets. Though we specialize in creating successful newsletters (or corporate publications such as magazines), we ’ll let you know upfront whether a newsletter is a good idea for your organization, or for your customer or client base. If it isn ’t, we’ll tell you so. You can stop there and move on, or we can provide you with advice on any type of mass-marketing situation that we think will work better for you, or that interests you, and we can do it by phone, e-mail or in person (Greater Vancouver only).

> With all of our services, you remain fully in charge of the entire process. You can start, stop or modify the project whenever you wish. Nothing is published or distributed without your approval. We fully customize the work we do for you to make it as easy and flexible as possible for you and the level of your involvement.

> We also conduct communication audits, particularly those that involve newsletters or corporate magazines. If you ’ve tried a newsletter in the past, for instance, and it didn’t work, or you’ve got one going now but it’s not working well, we’ll let you know why, and what you can do about it.