Producing Newsletters for Businesses Is Profitable for Both Writer and Client

Producing newsletters for business clients is one of the more pleasurable projects that I have done. Business owners love to have a professional looking format to get their message out to prospects plus they enjoy being able to educate their customers about their products or services. It doesn't matter if they're in a professional field, or they're in real estate, landscaping, wedding planning, decorating homes, selling floorcoverings, or a myriad of other businesses, a newsletter can both advertise to and educate their customers and prospects. Plus, the public doesn't mind receiving this kind of promotional material, unlike most junk mail that merely seeks to sell something.

As a freelance writer, this is something that can be profitable in any community. Even if yours is a rural community, if there are organic farmers or craftspeople seeking to sell at farmers' markets, a handout that advertises their products while offering nutritional information, recipes, or crafty ideas will garner more loyal customers. Think creatively about who in your neighborhood might profit from a newsletter produced by you.

First of all, write up a newsletter sample to use to approach your prospects. It can be about almost anything. Anyone can learn to use software to layout a newsletter, including embedding photos. If you haven't tried a desktop publishing program before, there's no better time than now. I'm sure you will enjoy this creative, professional format for your writing endeavors. Many of the programs cost very little - you don't need expensive software to create an attractive newsletter. In fact, even with Microsoft Word, you can produce a very professional looking newsletter.

I would advise checking out a book on newsletter production from your library. If the local one doesn't have this type of book, ask if they can do an intercity or statewide library search for you. This is exactly how I learned what professional-looking newsletters should look like. You can also go to local businesses and ask if they already send a newsletter to their prospects and request to be put on their mailing list, or ask for a copy. Collect enough, and you'll have an overview of both the good, bad and ugly in newsletters, and can decide how you want yours to look.

Your goal isn't to copy someone else's newsletter. Study enough of them, and you'll soon see how you can get creative without copying. Most newsletters have much in common, such as two- or three-column format with a large title on the top of the first page. You can also study the fonts used in articles to find the one that is the easiest to read, then use that same font for your own. Most newsletters are written in New Roman Times font, or possibly Helvetica or Arial. Experiment with font sizes until you find the size that is most comfortable to read. For instance, New Roman Times appears smaller than others in the same size, so a 12 point font is often much more readable, while a 10-point of 11-point Arial will usually suffice. Your font size may also depend on how many words you want to include in your articles and how much blank space you have to fill.

All articles in the same newsletter should use the same font and point size, while headlines will be larger. The largest font will be used for your Newsletter title, and can be either a decorative font or a plain one on a block of gray background, or on plain background.

Experiment on your computer until you have a design you like, then print up a dummy newsletter to approach prospective clients. If you don't have a computer, or you don't plan to use desktop publishing software, you can type of a simple, one column newsletter with the headlines in bold type and the rest in plain. Or you can hand-create a masthead (title page) with ink and hand lettering, or lettering created on either your typewriter or computer. If you hand draw a Title page, you can make copies and use the copies to type up the front page of each newsletter. The remaining pages, if any, don't need the title on them.

The very first newsletters I produced were for a church and a volunteer organization, and they were done on a typewriter with a hand drawn title page. But most businesses use computers and they expect any writer and newsletter publisher that they hire to be computer saavy enough to produce their newsletter on a computer. Some businesses will even allow you to use a company computer to produce a newsletter for them. In this case, quote a price that is a little lower than what you could expect for producing it on your own equipment.

I once knew a young woman hired to go into an office once a month to produce a newsletter for a salesperson, and was paid an hourly fee of about $15.00. As a writer and newsletter producer on my own, I would have charged about $250 for the project if the sales person was having it printed, plus printing costs if I had it printed for him. Since I had experience, I would have, of course, been able to produce it much quicker than this young woman. It took her 10-15 hours to do the same thing on the company computer, but the results were slower and not as professional as they could have been had she been working alone without the distractions of a busy workplace.

I would encourage any freelance writer to seek out clients for newsletters. Businesses love them, their customers love them, and you'll enjoy doing this type of work, especially once you've gotten some experience under your belt.