Well, I actually did it.

I lived up to my promise last month to launch a print newsletter for Triangle Business Leaders, the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill/Cary Chapter of the Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle. The January edition is four pages packed with marketing and business building advice, and it contains important information about our new location. Take THAT Tracy Needham … us “web guys” really can put out print newsletters.

This was my main approach to getting the newsletter written and out the door.

1. I started with a newsletter template from Jim Palmer of No Hassle Newsletters. This provided the main structure for the newsletter layout along with some of the graphics, quotes and other content to get the mental gears in motion. I found that it helps if you’re not staring at a blank page when you start.
2. I blocked off a few hours on a Saturday morning so that I could write my main “front page” message and one article. I also wanted to highlight some of the local members our local Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill/Cary marketing and business-building group Triangle Business Leaders (which is a local Chapter of the Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle), so I wrote my “Zig/Zag” column featuring some of the members of our group who choose to “Zig” when the rest of the world “Zags”.
3. After writing the articles and pasting them into the newsletter template I passed them around to this month’s editors (my wife and mother-in-law) and didn’t look at them for a day. That way when I went back for final edits I would have a set of fresh eyes.
4. On Monday, I made some final edits and printed my master copies so I could head over to the local office supply store and make 300 copies on 11×17 paper (to make a nice four-page 8.5×11 newsletter when folded). I did something new this time that I hadn’t tried before … I wanted to have more of a “printed mail merge” where the addresses appeared directly on the newsletter, rather than applied via a mailing label. Also, I wanted to customize part of the page that was in the format “{first name}, you’ll want to be there.” To accomplish this feat we printed 270 copies of page 4 (the last page). At the office supply store, we made all the copies of the inside of the newsletter first, and then when printing the outside of the newsletter we kept page 1 (cover) the same and switched out page 4 for each copy, giving them a personalized touch! We had two copy machines going, so it didn’t take that much longer
5. We brought the printed newsletters home and then folded them (twice), put stamps on them, added an insert with the 2009 meeting calendar and a guest pass (until my toner ran out and decided “good” was good enough) and finished it off with a tab (which actually wasn’t sticky enough … I need to try some new tabs next month). After the fact, I learned that the office supply store would do all the folding for $.07 per newsletter, so I think we may try that next month to cut down on the manual labor. I’d also like to find a cost-effective way to upload the files and get those printed and mailed directly without me having to touch them. Similar to what they do at fastpostcards.net. I haven’t done enough research to know what the sweet spot is for getting newsletters printed and sent out automatically. Any ideas on what service(s) I should try out?

The subject matter for the newsletter was pretty easy to figure out this time because we had some big news that I wanted to communicate … that our monthly meeting is moving to a new location, the Holiday Inn near RDU Airport. So that took up a good portion of the newsletter. Plus, I had started a newsletter swipe file and had an article in there that I wanted to write about (the “Don’t Punt” article on this blog).

Let me know if you have any questions about the process I used to create the newsletter or if you have any suggestions.

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