Newsletter Mistakes

Mistakes made by newsletter editors

The common mistake of newsletter publishing:

By Thomson Chemmanoor

The secret to the successful publishing of a newsletter lies in creating a newsletter with as little or no mistakes in it. There are many common mistakes that newsletter editors make; so make a move to avoid these mistakes!

Always see to it that your newsletter is published as regularly as you promised your readers. If you had promised a monthly newsletter, see to it that you send them a new newsletter every month; else your company loses its credibility. The main reason for this to happen is that editors of a company are given this responsibility just because they are good writers, and not good editors! These non-professional editors take a longer time to edit a newsletter than a professional editor would take.

So if the company underestimates the time taken to produce the newsletter, the publication suffers. So a solution to this is that the company should make sure that it’s editor has enough time and expertise to produce a quality newsletter on time.

Another usual mistakes are non-descriptive and non-catchy headlines of the newsletter. The headline determines if the newsletter and its articles will be read. Even if you have an interesting article, if the headline is not catchy, no one will read the article! When writing a headline, it is important that you put the most interesting part of the story in the headline. Sometimes, you could use an incomplete sentence as a title for an article. In the process of writing a headline for your newsletter, vary the size of the headlines in the newsletter. Generate more interest to the more-important stories by using larger headlines for them, and then reducing the size of the headlines according to the importance of the headlines!

After the headline, the next most-important part of the article is the lead sentence. If it is boring, the readers may not read any further. So remember to write the information that is most important in the lead sentence of the article. Avoid using too many type styles and font in your newsletter as this makes your newsletter look inconsistent. Consistency is a means of establishing an identity of your newsletter in the minds of the readers! Make an interesting layout for your newsletter by making sure that they are not all one-column wide. Design the articles with variety in mind using multi-width layouts, as they are more interesting than articles with the same width.

Some people don’t use photos in the newsletter thinking that they take too much space and effort in the newsletter. However, a photo is the best way to draw-in readers and to make your newsletter look interesting as when a person looks at a page, the first thing that attracts them is the photo! Always plan ahead on the layout of the newsletter when using a photo in the article to make the best use of the newsletter space. Avoid using too much color, clutter and graphics in the newsletter as they only reduce the person’s interest in reading the newsletter! So just avoid these mistakes, and go on to produce an interesting newsletter for everyone to enjoy!