Your company’s newsletter or other publication can be a useful tool for raising your company’s profile and stimulating sales. A well-produced house publication is as an effective advertisement as there is. There are three key steps in the development of your house mailing program:
Clearly define your publication’s marketing goal.
Make sure you assign creative responsibility to the right staff (or vendor).
Establish a comprehensive budget for the program, including concept, production and postage. Other notes:
Cost — Because there is so much flexibility in developing a house publication, the cost of creating and producing a regular newsletter can be more reasonable than you might expect. If you are looking to reduce costs, consider a bi-monthly or quarterly mailing schedule.
Content — Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your content must be limited to a given number of topics. Interesting industry news, client features and community-service material is all grist for the mill.
Keep mailing — Whatever you ultimately decide for the budget, design and content of your newsletter, sending it out consistently over time is essential. The best responses will come after a year of regular mailing.
—George Griffin “Newsletters: A Printer's Secret Weapon,” I&SCP