Half of my e-mail Inbox is filled with newsletters. I have no idea where some of them came from. Do you want to enter the fray – and if so, how do you stand out?
Imagine getting one announcement about a Toastmasters member joining your home club, then another message about another member receiving an educational, then two in a row, reminding you about an Open House and about the club celebration. Now image getting one newsletter, containing all that information in one place. Yes, newsletters are an ideal way to consolidate information.
They are also a lot of work.
The biggest debate regarding PR that rages in most clubs is whether to start a newsletter. And immediately on the heels of a “yes” comes another decision:
How long and how often?
The more pages in a newsletter, the longer it takes to put together. Meaning that you need to collect more articles and other tidbits, find more photos, lay everything out, edit it, run your edits by the authors, all of which takes time. And may result in something that is so long that it takes too much time for members to read.
Here are two extreme examples:
- One club targeted 12 pages for its newsletter, with the ultimate goal of having it printed professionally. The initiative actually stalled before the first issue was ever published, due to re-editing and re-fine-tuning.
- Another club sends out a weekly newsletter, which documents the members who took on roles in the prior week’s meeting, and the topic of each speech, similar to meeting minutes.
The answer lies somewhere in between.
Ask yourself first: what is the purpose of the newsletter? If a part of your mission is to provide regular updates and a calendar, you will need to publish more often. If it is a recap of events, it is not as critical to have the newsletter come out often with up-to-the-minute information, and can take a little longer to publish.
The rule of thumb is to publish short newsletters, often.
For my home club, we publish a 2-page newsletter once a month. It’s long enough to advertise club events, such as joint meetings with other clubs, and short enough to be read. It adds a nice touch to guest packets. And since it is published the first week of each month, the “February” issue will look current for the entire month! Unlike a newsletter that is published the last week of the month – it immediately seems out-dated!
All that work can be worth it. One of the best compliments that I received after publishing a club newsletter was from someone out on maternity leave: even though she was not able to attend club meetings at the moment, the newsletter made her feel connected to the current happenings. Mission accomplished!
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