How to start and manage a newsletter that influences the way readers think or act. A Manager's Guide to Newsletters: Communicating for Results is the first book about newsletters to focus on the managerial issues: planning, administration, and evaluation. He does an excellent job of emphasizing the fundamentals that even some veteran marketers might overlook. -- Newsletter Strategy Session, February 2001 This is the first book, as far as I know, to look at newsletters from a managerial, rather than an editorial or design perspective. Where other books might sum up objectives for a newsletter in a page or two, this book dedicates seven chapters to newsletter strategy and tactics, all focused on helping organizations and readers achieve their objectives. The managerial perspective focuses on two critical issues: why you want to publish a newsletter, and why your target audience would read it. Strategically, if you want to influence the thoughts or actions of your target audience (usually why we publish newsletters), then articulate your objectives as reader responses to your messages. Tactically, decisions about the subjects you choose, how often you publish, and the number of words or pages should all reflect the reader responses you want. You'll see lots of advice about writing and designing for newsletters, but the success of your newsletter depends more on the strategy and tactics -- the WHY questions -- than on your words or visuals. You'll find a path through those why questions in A Manager's Guide to Newsletters. Influence readers to improve results... Influence readers to get results such as: * Bigger or more frequent purchases by customers * Making your employees more productive or loyal * Convincing your members to participate or renew A Manager's Guides Guide to Newsletters: Communicating for Results shows you how to logically and methodically manage your newsletter -- for results like these. It walks you through each planning step, helping you make the critical decisions. You'll also learn how to manage important publishing processes and to systematically evaluate your progress. Discover a unique, new approach designed to improve your results. For whom? If you're a manager, publisher, or editor responsible for a newsletter serving employees, customers, members, or other important stakeholders, you'll find this book invaluable. Organizational benefits: * Strategic and effective use of your newsletter * Efficient publishing operations * Greater contributions to organizational goals * Integration with the other media * Better allocation of communication resources Personal benefits: * Increase your knowledge of communication principles and processes * Be a more effective and efficient communicator * Less frustration and more satisfaction with your newsletter * Make a greater contribution in volunteer and charity work Robert F. Abbott, M.B.A., founded and manages The Newsletter Company, which has served a select group of clients since 1991. Based just outside Calgary, Canada, he writes and publishes custom newsletters that focus on meeting objectives. Mr. Abbott also publishes a newsletter of his own about the strategic use of communication -- Abbott's Communication Letter is a free, online newsletter that is distributed by email once a week. He is also working on a new model for client newsletters, one based on the use of electronic files and email, with limited distribution of printed copies. Mr. Abbott also brings wide-ranging work and managerial experience, including 10 years as a radio news writer and announcer, to his book, A Manager's Guide to Newsletters: Communicating for Results. Preface The objective of this book is to help you manage a newsletter. Anyone can produce a newsletter, but an effective newsletter, one that serves your needs and those of the people with whom you communicate, takes more than a set of writing and designing skills. It takes knowledge of management; more specifically, the art and science of newsletter management. It's art because it taps your creativity to develop effective strategies and tactics. Yes, we normally associate creativity with the writing and designing of newsletters, but a creative mind is equally important in managing for maximized value, particularly when developing strategy and tactics. It's science in the sense that we want to publish effective newsletters based on a body of methodically arranged knowledge, not guesswork. When I began working on this book, the state of newsletter science was more or less summed up in the phrase "Write for your readers." Good advice, but far too vague when you sit down to work on a newsletter. A Manager's Guide to Newsletters: Communicating for Results gives you this knowledge, along with the tools and instruction you need to plan and publish without guessing what it means to "Write for your readers." It deals with the practical issues involved in publishing a newsletter that serves y