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Almost as important as names in your newsletter are pictures. The readers will generally accept a newsletter faster if publisher's picture is presented or included as a part of newsletter. Whether you use pictures of people, events, locations or products you write about is a policy decision; but use of pictures will set your publication apart from others and give it an individual image, which is precisely what you want.
The decision as to whether to carry paid advertising, and if so, how much, is another policy decision that should be made while your newsletter is still in planning stages. Some purists feel that advertising corrupts image of newsletter and may influence editorial policy. Most people accept advertising as a part of everyday life, and don't care one way or other.
Many newsletter publishers, faced with rising production costs and viewing advertising as a means of offsetting those costs, welcome paid advertising. Generally advertisers see newsletter as a vehicle to a captive audience, and well worth cost.
The only problem with accepting advertising in your newsletter would appear to be that as your circulation grows, so will your number of advertisers, until you'll have to increase size of your newsletter to accommodate advertisers. At this point, basic premise or philosophy of newsletter often changes from news and practical information to one of an advertiser's showcase.
Promoting your newsletter, finding prospective buyers and converting these prospects into loyal subscribers, will be most difficult task of your entire undertaking. It takes detailed planning, persistence and patience.
You'll need a sales letter. Check sales letter you receive in mail; analyze how these are written and pattern yours along same lines. You'll find all of them - all those worthy of being called sales letters - following same formula: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action on part of reader - AIDA.
Jump right in at beginning and tell reader how he's going to benefit from your newsletter, and then keep emphasizing right on through your "PS", many and different benefits he'll gain from subscribing to your newsletter. Elaborate on your listing of benefits with examples of what you have, or you intend to include, in your newsletter.
Follow these examples with endorsements or testimonials from reviewers and satisfied subscribers. Make recipient of your sales letter feel that you're offering him answer to all his problems on subject of your newsletter.
You have to make your prospect feel that "this is insider's secret" to success he wants. Present it to him as his own personal key to success, and then tell him how far behind his contemporaries he is going to be if he doesn't act upon your offer immediately.
Always include a "PS" in your sales letter. This should quickly restate to reader that he can start enjoying benefits of your newsletter by acting immediately, and very subtly suggesting that he may not get another chance to get kind of "success help" you're offering him with this sales letter.
Don't worry about length of your sales letter - most are four pages or more; however, it must flow logically and smoothly. Use short sentences, short paragraphs, indented paragraphs, and lost of sub-heads for people who will be "scanning through" your sales letter.
In addition to sales letter, your promotion package should include a return reply order card or coupon. This can be either a self-addressed business reply post card, or a separate coupon, in which case you'll have to include a self-addressed return reply envelope. In every mailing piece you send out, always include one or other: either a self-addressed business reply postcard or a self-addressed return reply envelope for recipient to use to send your order form and his remittance back to you.
Your best response will come from a business reply postcard on which you allow your prospect to charge subscription to his credit card, request that you bill him, or send his payment with subscription start order.
For make up of this subscription order card or coupon, simply start saving all order cards and coupons you receive during next month or so. Choose one you like best, modify according to your needs, and have it typeset, pasted up and border fit.Then, there are several major catalog sales companies that sell subscriptions to school libraries, government agencies and large corporations. These people usually buy through these catalog sales companies rather than direct from publisher. The publisher makes about 10% on each subscription sold for him by one of these agencies.
The best way of learning about and keeping up with this field of endeavor is by buying and reading books by people who have succeeded in making money via mails; by subscribing to several of better periodic journals and aids to people in mail order, and by joining some of mail order trade associations for a free exchange of ideas, advice and help.
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