High
Frequency Marketing
PR & Media Relations in Spanish - Website positioning
START YOUR OWN NEWSLETTER PUBLISHING BUSINESS
According to Howard Penn Hudson, publisher of The Newsletter of
Newsletters, "there are at least 100,000 professional and amateur
newsletters in the United States--some estimate as many as
500,000--and they are read by millions of people."
WHAT A NEWSLETTER REALLY IS
There is some confusion about what a newsletter is as evidenced
by many pieces of material that carry the name, but lack the
proper characteristics. A newsletter is NOT a magazine; it is NOT
a newspaper; it is NOT an ad sheet. It is none of these, yet it
often encompass a few characteristics of each. A newsletter is,
by simple definition, a LETTER containing NEWS about a specific
field,business, profession, industry, hobby or activity.
HOW TO FIND YOUR PLACE IN THE NEWSLETTER FIELD
You don't have to be an accomplished writer to publish a
newsletter, but you will need three basic elements:
1. A subject that is not being covered by other newsletters, or
is not being covered thoroughly enough.
2. A specific market for your subject material. unlike a magazine
or newspaper which may require a circulation of 10,000 to over a
million readers to achieve success, a newsletter can produce a
nice profit with as few as 500 subscribers.
3. A continuing supply of material that you can draw from to
provide readers with news, facts & feature articles, ideas,
supply sources and other bits of information to round out each
issue.
These are the basics. Naturally, you should be an AUTHORITY on
the subject on which you intend to report through your
newsletter. You can draw from your knowledge and experience, of
course, but in addition to this you should be a member of
associations, clubs organizations in your field, subscribe to
several magazines, newspapers (possibly other newsletters) and
other material, all of which will help to provide you with an
on-going stream of information for your own newsletter.
Your function (other than publisher) will primarily be that as
EDITOR OF THE MATERIAL you gather, refining it to useful worthy
of printing in your newsletter.
HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU PUBLISH?
Some newsletters are published monthly; a few are issued on a
weekly basis. But until you work out the "bugs" and get yourself
established in your particular field, it is advisable that you
plan a QUARTERLY newsletter, publishing every 3 months. Thus,
your newsletter will carry issue dates such as Jan-April-July &
Oct. This will give you nearly three months between issues to
gather material, write and layout the next issue. It is about
three months because you'll have to allow at least two weeks
(maybe longer) at the printer. Once you get a few issues under
your belt, you might be able to work out a tight schedule with
your printer in which you can furnish newsletter copy on Monday
and have the printed issues delivered to you on Friday. Until
then, you will be at their mercy, and that means it might take
two weeks to a month turn around time.
WHAT'S A GOOD NEWSLETTER WORTH?
When we talk about worth, we're referring to the value to a
subscriber. It might surprise you to learn that some subscribers
pay $300 to $400 a year to get their hot little hands on vital
information that keeps them abreast of current trends and shifts
in their respective fields. There are the heavy hitters; the
major league newsletters that are few and far between, and need
not concern us for this report. On the other end of the economic
scale, many beginning newsletter publishers go too low in pricing
their publication. Some are priced as little as $12 to $15 a
year. It is extremely unlikely that these publishers will ever
get out of the red and will soon be forced to increase their
subscription rates or ultimately cease publication.
Right from the start you'll have to set $24 a year as your bare
minimum price. As time goes on, you might try $36--$48 or even
$64 a year - but don't go to the higher extremes until you can
establish some kind of projections on the next year's edition.
WHAT ABOUT SIZE?
Some newsletters run 8-12-16-24 pages, and virtually all of them
are printed in the convenient 8 1/2 x11 size. Naturally, the
larger sizes are usually those commanding the higher subscription
rates. You'll probably want to begin with the standard 8-page
format. This can either be 4 single sheets printed both sides, or
two 11x17 sheets printed two sides, folded to 8 1/2 x 11. If you
go for the 8-page format at $24 a year, published quarterly, this
gives you a price of $6 per issue. This might seem a bit steep
for just 8 sheets of paper, but here's what you must keep in
mind...and stress in your advertising and promotion: You are NOT
selling and subscribers are not buying the paper; they are buying
the INFORMATION you are providing, information that might easily
cost them $100 more each issue if subscribers had to search, weed
out, edit, evaluate and condense the same information you are
giving them.
A newsletter's true value (although style, format and printing
quality are all important) is in the information content each
issue offers its readers. This is what you have to sell.
Everything else is packaging.
WHAT SHOULD YOUR NEWSLETTER CONTAIN?
It's your publication, so you can include anything that is moral,
legal, ethical and useful to readers, just so it pertains to the
subject and market for which it is intended.
Here are a few examples----
* EDITOR'S PAGE Here's the place for your own opinions,
viewpoints, editorial comments about your subject or field. Say
what you like or dislike about what's going on, what changes
should be made, what the competition is doing, what happened at a
seminar your recently attended. Also, ask readers for their
opinions about what you are providing in your newsletter; what
would they like to see covered?; tell who's doing what. This is
YOUR page to blow your stack or toot your own horn. Make the best
of it.
* LETTERS FROM READERS Eventually you'll be getting letters from
subscribers, some congratulating you on your progress, others
complaining about you or somebody else in the field. A few might
ask questions or be looking for additional help and information
that you haven't yet provided in your newsletter. These can be
printed as-is (with the subscriber's permission) or edited to fit
your space. They also give you needed input for additional
features in future issues.
* BOOK REVIEWS--NEW PRODUCTS Aside from your newsletters, there
are probably many other publications out there offering
information in your specific field: new books, magazines,
newspapers, directories, courses, audio/visual tapes and, yes,
maybe other newsletters. Buy some. Subscribe, read, evaluate,
digest and report on them in this spot. Include a special
invitation to solicit additional publications to be featured in
future issues. Is there a new machine on the market? A new gadget
or product that might help readers? Here's the place to tell
them. All publishers, manufactures and distributors want and need
publicity for their wares, and this gives them a good outlet.
* WHAT'S NEW--WHAT'S HAPPENING This is where you report on the
NEWS that makes your newsletter what it is. Include the latest
innovations, changes in the law, new companies in the field, new
ideas, new people, or anything that will help readers accomplish
more in their field of interest.
* GUEST WRITERS If you see articles or columns in other
publications by prominent people in the field, you can write to
them and ask if you may reprint a particular article in your
newsletters, naturally giving the author full attribution for
their work. Some may grant permission if you allow them a plug
for a book or service they provide.
* USE YOUR IMAGINATION Use your initiative to include whatever
you think readers want to know. Be concise, keeping all
information brief and to the point as you make every issue
informative, interesting, helpful and valuable so subscribers
will want to file all issues for future reference, and renew
their subscription year after year.
BUILDING A SUBSCRIPTION LIST
This is what will make you a millionaire or break you as a
newsletter publisher. It has been reported that many newsletter
publishers must spend up to 75 cents on promoting their
newsletter for every dollar they take in. Others say that at
least 50% of their subscription revenue must be used for
advertising and promotion. This means you can expect to spend
$500 in advertising for every $1,000 in subscriptions you
receive. If that seems discouraging, don't let it. You can still
make big money in this field, but that's why the high
subscription price was stressed earlier in this report. You need
the additional dollars to work with.
As with promoting any product, you will advertise your newsletter
in publications that are read by your target market. Also, if
your market is somewhat limited, not the mass audience, you can
solicit subscriptions by renting names of likely prospects. There
is some disagreement on this, but most authorities tend to favor
NOT offering a free sample issue or even a sample issue at the
regular price. The reason given is that best results are usually
obtained by building interest and anticipation in the
advertising, but not satisfying the resulting curiosity until you
get the subscription order. Once a prospect sees a sample issue,
it seems, they have satisfied their curiosity about it and
procrastinate about subscribing, usually not sending in their
order at all, however sincere their intentions might have been.
You might want to test both methods and continue with the one
that brings best results for you.
A HYPOTHETICAL PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGN
Let's say your newsletter will sell for $24 a year. You spend
$5,000 in advertising and receive $7,500 inquiries. You answer
these inquiries with a good salesletter and descriptive circular
explaining all the benefits of subscribing. You convert 10% of
these inquiries to subscribers. This gives you 750 subscribers @
$24 each for a total gross of $18,000. Subtract your original
$5,000 advertising cost leaving you $13,000. Now subtract the
mailing cost to publish and mail your newsletter to subscribers 4
times a year, and this gives you a total cost of about $1,050,
depending on whether you mail First Class or use bulk mailing
permit, which is a considerable saving. In round numbers it
leaves a net profit of about $10,000.
Of course, the next logical step is to increase the advertising
to three or four times the original amount, hopefully to produce
an equally proportionate number of subscribers or a net of
$40,000.
Although blatant hard core advertising should NOT be included
within the pages of the newsletter itself, you can generate
additional revenue by including subtle offers of books, reports
or a service that you can provide to readers. If presented in a
dignified manner that is perceived as being helpful, not as cold
advertising, this can provide many extra orders from subscribers
throughout the year. Before subscription end, send renewal notice
to keep the subscriber on your list. Everyone won't renew, of
course, but you should be able to keep about 40 to 50% each
year...and there will not carry the high promotional cost. That's
where the real money will start coming. That's when you'll be
well on your way to your $75,000 a year...or even more.
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