Electronic Newsletters - Part I: Laying the Groundwork
Produced by: Red Rock Partners. All Rights Reserved. Copyright ©2000.

Does your Club send out monthly newsletters? Are you involved in creating a newsletter, or in writing articles for a newsletter? If so, you have probably wondered if there is a way to harness today's technology in order to facilitate the process of creating and delivering your Club's newsletter. The answer to that question is a resounding "Yes"! Read on to find out how to lay the groundwork for converting from a hard-copy newsletter to a multimedia publication.

Step One: Survey your readers. E-mail or web-based newsletters will not appeal to all of your readers. Some will want to continue reading a traditional newsletter. Some will not have a computer or Internet access. Others will not know how to set up and read e-mail. The most efficient way to determine the viability of an electronic newsletter is to do a simple survey of your readers. Ask them:

1. do you have a computer?
2. do you have Internet access?
3. do you have an e-mail account?
4. would you be interested in switching from a traditional newsletter to an electronic newsletter (web-based, e-mail, or a combination of the two)?

Step Two: Calculate Potential Savings. The costs of publishing a traditional newsletter are not insignificant. Assume a club with a typical membership of 360 persons, all of whom receive a newsletter. The traditional newsletter will cost between $2 and $5 dollars per copy to layout, print, and deliver. Using a cost of $3 per newsletter, the cost of production and delivery is $1060 per month! With the results of the survey, you will find that approximately 1/3 of your membership will be willing to switch to an electronic newsletter. Your monthly savings is $360.

Step Three: Calculate the Costs of an Electronic Newsletter. The cost of producing and delivering an electronic newsletter is based on who is putting it together. Your web site designer should be able to give you a feel for how much it would cost to maintain a web-based newsletter. This person would also be a good resource for getting a price on creating a monthly e-mail based newsletter. Once you have a firm price on the on-going monthly costs of your electronic newsletter, compare that price to the savings from Step Two. Your costs should be the same, or less, for producing and delivering the electronic newsletter to your willing readership. By the way, there will be set-up costs involved in starting an electronic newsletter. These costs will be recouped, over a number of months, from the savings of converting to an electronic newsletter.

There are numerous benefits outside of the monthly savings that should convince you to begin moving from a traditional hardcopy newsletter to an electronic newsletter. 

One of the biggest benefits is in presentation. The cost of a full-color, multi-page hardcopy newsletter is going to be prohibitive for most clubs. When providing an electronic newsletter, there is no difference between black-and-white, two-color, or full color. Your newsletter is only limited by your imagination.

Flexibility is another tremendous benefit. Consider your annual Club gala. Pictures, tournament results, and articles usually have to wait until the next issue of your hardcopy newsletter comes out. With an electronic newsletter, the information can go live as soon as it is typed into an e-mail or a web page. Information can be provided as quickly as management and membership desire.

As with any business decision, moving to an electronic newsletter (e-mail based, web-based, or a combination of the two) deserves a lot of consideration. There are internal business processes that may need to be reworked, along with some technical issues that will have to be resolved. The costs of this "back office" work should not be too dramatic, and the benefits you reap will generally make up for it in a short period of time.

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