How do you write a newsletter?
There is no one-size-fits-all guide for writing a newsletter. As with all documents written, one needs to adapt a newsletter to make it appealing to the reader: and there are so many different readers… This is a brief description of the most important things to bear in mind.
Firstly: content. You always ask yourself what the reader will be interested in, and gather the relevant content.
Secondly: style of presentation. This includes the language used and the graphic layout.
Language: For younger people such as sportspeople, the language needs to be casual, and use the kinds of phrases that are used by them. For academic professionals, a more formal style is more appropriate.
Graphic layout includes the font, the decorative elements such as pictures, and the style of headings. Serious topics such as legal news call for a “look” that conveys formality: newsletters for an arty community should convey a more creative and inventive atmosphere. You can use all sorts of interesting fonts to liven up a newsletter for younger, and creative readers. But you need to stick with fonts similar to Arial or Times New Roman for those looking for technical and academic information.
Headings for articles to be read by the fun-loving crowd can be teasing to attract the attention of people who are turned off by boring formality: such headings would not work for the readers of serious content – they see such styles as frivolous, and want formal ones.
Thirdly: layout: the newsletter layout needs to be designed to be user-friendly. Don’t crowd too much information together. Leave spaces between sections and between articles. Make the headings of each article stand out clearly so that the reader immediately identifies each, and can choose which to read first. A crowded, overfull page that is difficult to navigate turns readers off: it is far too much work to try and navigate through it.
Final editing: we all make mistakes in writing the first draft of anything – we are only human! It is a good idea to get somebody else to look at your newsletter to help you see and correct your errors, or to improve on it in other ways. At least leave it overnight and examine it again the next day. Ask yourself whether you would be interested in reading it, based on the general “look and feel”. Does it appear, when you first glance at it, to be interesting and easy to read?
Good luck with your newsletter writing!