Newsletter Date
Volume 1, Issue
N EWSLETTER
1
T ITLE
Company Name, Street Address, City, ST ZIP Code
Web site address E-mail address Phone number
Getting Started Inside This Issue
By Author Name Getting Started 1
Writing Great Newsletter Articles 1
The purpose of a newsletter is to provide Inserting Your Own Art 2
specialized information to a targeted audience. Drawing Readers to Other Articles 2
An Article for Everyone 3
To help you achieve this goal, this template
Fitting an Article into a Tight Space 3
offers suggestions that you can also find in the The Elements of a Newsletter 5
article in the Task Pane titled “Creating a
Newsletter.” You may also be interested in
reading “Printing a Newsletter,” which describes
different printing options, such as using large When you create a newsletter, first determine the
paper to print your newsletter as a folded audience. This could be anyone who might
booklet. In addition to these template Help benefit from it, such as those interested in a
articles, the Task Pane contains links to Help product.
topics related to the Microsoft Word features
used in this template, such as text boxes. As an You can compile a mailing list from business reply
added help, before you begin replacing this cards, customer information sheets, business
content with your own, you may want to print cards collected at trade shows, or membership
this template to have the benefit of its lists. You might consider purchasing a mailing list
instructions. Inside This Issue lists articles from a company that serves your target
designed to help you write an effective customer.
newsletter.
Next, establish how much time and money you
can spend on your newsletter. These factors help
Writing Great Newsletter Articles
By Author Name
“You can transform your life and business in just Along with the hook, the article needs a headline
seven minutes a day.” If that statement makes that is brief, active, and clear in its purpose.
you want to read on, consider yourself hooked. Beyond these essential characteristics, a
headline attracts attention if it is highly relevant,
A newsletter is competing against a lot of inspires curiosity, or has some other irresistible
distractions for the reader’s attention, so it’s quality.
important that the first one or two sentences of
an article hook the reader. And since that hook Newsletters are short on space and their readers
creates an expectation, the article needs to are short on time, so the articles must be well
justify the use of the hook, or the reader will feel focused, aiming to make one major point. The
manipulated. making of this point can be achieved through two
Please see Great Articles on page 4
Page 2 Newsletter Title
Inserting Your Own Art
By Author Name
You can replace the pictures in this template
with your company’s art. To do so, click where A caption is a sentence describing
you want to insert the picture. On the Insert a picture or graphic.
menu, point to Picture, and then click From
File. Locate the picture you want to insert, and
then click it. Next, click the arrow to the right of how large the picture is. In contrast, Link to
the Insert button, and then click either Insert File does not increase the size, and if you
to place a copy of the picture into the make changes to the original picture, they
newsletter, Link to File to display the picture automatically show up in the newsletter. But
without actually inserting a copy, or Insert and the picture won’t be displayed if viewed from
Link. Since Insert embeds a copy, the picture is a computer that can’t link to the original.
always visible, but it may greatly increase the Insert and Link inserts a copy so that the
size (in bytes) of your newsletter depending on image is always available, and also
automatically updates changes to the original.
Drawing Readers to Other Articles
By Author Name
If you take the time to create a newsletter, you You can also draw readers into your
certainly want your readers to read as much of it newsletter by placing an interesting article
as possible. You can help achieve this by drawing with broad appeal on the front page, and then
readers to other articles. continuing that story on another page, where
yet another article awaits the reader once he
One way to do this is with the table of contents. or she finishes. This can also be an effective
A table of contents that has descriptive and way to lead the reader to a sales pitch or an
enticing headlines will go a long way toward order form.
getting the reader beyond the articles on the
front page. You can have an article go from one page to
another by using linked text boxes.
Please see Drawing Readers on page 5
“To catch the reader’s
attention, place an
interesting sentence or
quote from the story here.”
A caption describes the picture or
graphic.
Newsletter Title Page 3
An Article for Everyone
By Author Name
Who reads your newsletters, and what are their
responsibilities? What segments of your industry
are they concerned about? And do you have
evidence to back up your assumptions? Being able
A caption is a sentence
to answer these questions is critical, because only describing a picture or graphic.
then will you be able to provide the kind of content
that readers will be drawn to.
Not everyone within a business or industry is parents and how they can introduce technology at
concerned with the same issues. By understanding home, and to the students themselves and how
readers and their concerns, you can ensure that they can use technology to aid their learning.
every issue of your newsletter has something to
interest as many types of people as possible. A The danger, of course, is that if you try to appeal
newsletter about technology in education may to every type of audience you may make the focus
have articles relevant to administrators and what of your newsletter too broad. In our example, we
they need to know logistically to get technology would not want the newsletter to include articles
into their schools, to teachers and how they can about how to develop software for the education
integrate technology into their classrooms, to market. When you write articles for an audience
Please see Everyone on page 4
Fitting an Article into a Tight Space
By Author Name
So you have space for one more article in your average fit into a column inch in your newsletter,
newsletter and one of your experts out in the and then by measuring how many column inches
field is writing the article. How can you are available for the article, you can tell the writer
determine how long the article should be? how many words an article can have. Let’s take
this scenario one step at a time.
As in newspapers, the length of a newsletter
article can be thought of in terms of how many 1. Fill up at least 10 inches of column with actual
“column inches” are available for the article. A article text, then print out the page and use a
column inch is a measure of space, namely an ruler to measure how many inches of column
area on a page one column wide and one inch your text takes up.
deep, used to measure the amount of type that
2. Count the number of words in the text.
would fill that space. This will vary from
newsletter to newsletter depending on the font 3. Divide the number of words in the article by
you are using, its size, the column width and the the number of inches the text takes up. For
amount of space between lines and between example, let’s say you have 456 words in 12
paragraphs. By knowing how many words on inches of column: 456 ÷ 12 = 38. That’s your
Please see Tight Space on page 4
Page 4 Newsletter Title
Great Articles from page 1
to five (or so) sub-points. These points must your products or services provide the solutions they
have as their primary aim the benefit of the need.
reader, who should be able to point out this
benefit. It can be new knowledge or insight, an To sum it up, grab the reader’s attention through an
idea about how to improve business, or better, effective headline and hook, and then reward the
how your business can improve the reader The reader for following through by giving them
article should clarify, inspire, encourage, something they didn’t have before. In addition, keep
enthuse, provoke thought, satisfy—it should the article brief and well focused, and if appropriate,
elicit a positive response. And the best response demonstrate how your products and services address
of all, of course, is that the reader decides that the issues raised in the article. By doing so, you
Tight Space from page 3
magic number for how many words fit in an This is the maximum length that the article can
inch of column in your newsletter. But be.
you’re not finished yet.
6. To give yourself some room to fudge, tell the
4. Measure how many column inches you have writer to write an article between 250 and 260
available for the article. For example, we’ll words. Once you get the article back and edit it,
say it’s 7 inches. you can add or remove words here and there to
get the article to the right length.
5. Multiply your magic number by the number
of column inches available for the article,
Over time, you will get used to this approach, and it
which in this case would be: 38 x 7 = 266.
won’t be long before you become a pro at writing
Everyone from page 3
that is too far afield of the newsletter’s core
purpose or that are too broad in their intent,
readers are not able to quickly determine whether
the newsletter is of use to them, and they lose
“To catch the reader’s
interest.
attention, place an
interesting sentence or So the issue is of balance: Within the scope of your
quote from the story here.” business and industry, you want to provide
something in each newsletter that will be of
interest to all the major players in your audience.
By doing so, you will ensure that all your readers
will continue to return to your newsletter, edition
after edition, to find that relevant article that they
know is waiting for them.
Newsletter Title Page 5
Drawing Readers from page 2
Everything in this newsletter template is You can also draw readers into reading other
contained in a series of text boxes. These words articles by using what’s called a pull quote. A pull
are contained in a text box, as is the graphic on quote is a phrase or sentence taken from the
this page, with its caption in yet another. A text article that appears in large letters on the page,
box offers a flexible way of displaying text and often within a box to set it apart from the article.
graphics; it’s basically a container. You can move One appears on this page and begins with the text,
a text box around, positioning it just where you “To catch the reader’s attention….” The text of a
want it; you can resize it into a tall narrow column pull quote comes from the article and should be
or into a short wide column, or even rotate it so engaging and irresistible. When a reader flips
that the text reads sideways. By linking a text through your newsletter looking for an excuse to
box on one page with a text box on another, your read an article, a pull quote can provide that
article automatically flows from one page to excuse.
another. For information on how to link text
boxes, click Continue a story elsewhere with
linked text boxes in the Task Pane.
A caption is a sentence describing
a picture or graphic.
The Elements of a Newsletter
By Author Name
In the course of adapting this what’s happening without being
template to suit your needs, you insultingly obvious. It should also
will see a number of different add to the reader’s understanding “To catch the
newsletter elements. The following of the photo by, for example, reader’s
is a list of many of the elements, explaining prominent or unusual attention, place
accompanied by a brief definition. objects.
an interesting
Body text. The text of your “Continued from” line. A line of sentence or
articles. text indicating the page an article is quote from the
continuing from. story here.”
Byline. A line of text listing the
name of the author of the article. “Continued on” line. A line of
text indicating the page on which
Caption text. Text that describes an article will be continued.
a graphic. A caption should be a
short but descriptive full sentence.
For photos, it ought to explain
Please see Elements on page 6
Elements from page 5
Company Name
Street Address
City, ST ZIP Code
Phone:
Phone number
Fax:
Fax number
E-Mail:
E-mail address
Motto
Date. Either the date of publication or the date
We’re on the Web! you expect the newsletter to be at the height of its
Visit us at: circulation.
Web site address
Graphic. A photograph, piece of art, chart,
diagram, or other visual element.
Header. Text at the top of each page indicating
the name of the newsletter and the page number.
Security Office Info here Headline. The title of an article. A headline needs
to be clear in its purpose, brief, and active, and
should attract attention by being relevant,
inspiring curiosity, or having some other
irresistible quality.
Newsletter title. The title of the newsletter.
Pull quote. A phrase or sentence taken from an
article that appears in large letters on the page,
often within a box to set it apart from the article.
Volume and issue. Volume refers to the number
