Newsletter Software

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

The 12 Most Common Newsletter Design Mistakes


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The 12 Most Common Newsletter Design Mistakes

 by: Roger C. Parker

Your newsletter s success depends on its design. An attractive, easy to read newsletter encourages readers to pay attention to your message. However, cluttered, hard to read newsletters discourage readership no matter how good the ideas contained inside.

Before they begin to read your newsletter, your clients and prospects will be judging the value of your ideas by your newsletter s design. Effective design pre-sells your competence and makes it easy for readers to understand your message. Design also helps set your newsletters apart from the competition.

Here are five of the 12 most common newsletter design mistakes that are made.

1.) Nameplate clutter: Design begins with the nameplate, or newsletter title set in type at the top of the front page. Nameplate problems often include:

  • Unnecessary words. Words like the and newsletter are rarely needed. Readers will unconsciously supply a the in front of a title, if desired. It should be obvious from the design and content of your publication that it is a newsletter and not a business card or advertisement.

  • Logos and association seals. Your newsletter s title should not compete with other graphic images, such as your firm s logo and the logos of trade or membership associations. These can be placed elsewhere on the page, allowing the nameplate to emerge with clarity and impact.

  • Graphic accents, like decorative borders and shaded backgrounds, often make the titles harder to read instead of easier to read.

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2.) Lack of white space. White space the absence of text or graphics represents one of the least expensive ways you can add visual impact to your newsletters, separating them from the competition and making them easier to read. Here are some of the areas where white space should appear:

  • Margins. White space along the top, bottom, and sides of each page help frame your words and provides a resting spot for your reader s eyes. Text set too close to page borders creates visually boring gray pages.

  • Headlines. Headlines gain impact when surrounded by white space. Headline readability suffers when crowded by adjacent text and graphics, like photographs.

  • Subheads. White space above subheads makes them easier to read and clearly indicates the conclusion of one topic and the introduction of a new topic.

  • Columns. White space above and below columns frames the text and isolates it from borders and headers and footers text like page numbers and issue dates repeated at the top and bottom of each page.

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A deep left-hand indent adds visual interest to each page and provides space for graphic elements like photographs and illustrations, or short text elements, like captions, quotes or contact information.

3.) Unnecessary graphic accents. Graphic accents, such as borders, shaded backgrounds and rules the design term used for horizontal or vertical lines often clutter, rather than enhance, newsletters. Examples of clutter include:

  • Borders. Pages bordered with lines of equal thickness are often added out of habit, rather than a deliberate attempt to create a classic or serious image. Page elements, like a newsletter s table of contents or sidebars mini-articles treating a point raised in an adjacent article are likewise often boxed out of habit rather than purpose.

  • Reverses. Reversed text occurs when white type is placed against a black background. Reverses often make it hard for readers to pay attention to adjacent text.

  • Shaded backgrounds. Black type placed against a light gray background, or light gray text against a dark gray background, is often used to emphasize important text elements. Unfortunately, the lack of foreground/background accent often makes this text harder to read instead of easier to read.

Graphic accents should be used only when necessary to provide a barrier between adjacent elements such as the end of one article and the beginning of the next rather than decoratively or out of habit.

Downrules, or vertical lines between columns, for example, are only necessary if the gap between columns is so narrow that readers might inadvertently read from column to column, across the gap.

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4.) Underlining. Headlines, subheads and important ideas are often underlined for emphasis. Unfortunately, underlining makes words harder to read, reducing their impact!

Underlining makes it harder to read by interfering with the descenders of letters like g, y and p. This makes it harder for readers to recognize word shapes.

Not only does underlining project an immediately obvious amateur image, it confuses meaning because today s readers associate underlined words with hyperlinks.

5.) Excessive color. Color succeeds best when it is used with restraint. When overused, color interferes with readability, weakens messages, and fails to project a strong image.

Headlines, subheads and body copy set in color or against a colored background are often harder to read than the same words set in black against a white background. Be especially careful using light colored text. Restrict colored text to nameplates or large, bold sans serif headlines and subheads.

A single signature color, concentrated in a single large element and consistently employed like in your nameplate can brighten your newsletter and set it apart from the competition. The same color, used in smaller amounts, scattered throughout your newsletter, fails to differentiate your newsletter or project a desired image.

Consistently using black, plus a second highlight color, creates a quiet background against which an occasional color photograph or graphic can emerge with far greater impact.

The architect Mis van der Rohe once commented, God is in the details. Newsletter success, too, lies in the details. Your readers are always in a hurry. The smallest detail can sabotage their interest in your newsletter, interrupting the reader until later.

And as we all know, later usually means never!

About The Author

Roger C. Parker is the $32 million dollar author with over 1.6 million copies in print. Download the rest of the 12 Most Common Newsletter Design Mistakes here www.onepagenewsletters.com

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What is RSS - For Marketers


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Copyright 2005 Rok Hrastnik

RSS is a technology that has the potential of overcoming many of the internet marketing challenges we are facing today and becoming a preferred tool to get 100% of your content delivered to your subscribers, as well as a tool to help you achieve top position search engine rankings.

The simple RSS explanation from the marketing point of view is that RSS is a simple to use publishing tool for marketers and publisher. It allows you to get your content delivered to end-users, without the fear of spam filters stoping your messages, and to other content consumers (other websites, search engines and so on).

RSS gets your content delivered, period. And it helps you increase your search engine rankings and drives new traffic to your sites.

But some marketers are still afraid that not enough internet users are using RSS feeds. Think again

While achieving not more than marginal penetration, its usage is growing with astounding speed.

Actually, according to a report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 5% (6 million) Americans online consume news and information through RSS aggregators. So the market is already out there!

>> BUT WHAT ARE RSS FEEDS?

RSS content is delivered through RSS feeds --- simple files structured in a specific way.

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These files include some basic information about the RSS feed (such as RSS feed title, logo, description, URL etc.) and the actual content you want to deliver to your readers.

These content items are individual stories or articles (usually just descriptions of articles actually published on the internet publisher s web site), presented in a linear list.

But RSS is not only about text. You can easily use it to deliver audio content, video content and even PowerPoint presentations and PDF files.

>> WHAT DO YOU NEED TO SUBSCRIBE TO RSS FEEDS?

The point of RSS feeds is to get people to subscribe to them, so that they can constantly receive fresh information from you.

It s just like subscribing to e-mail newsletters, only that there s no e-mail involved and consequently no spam or spam filters.

But to subscribe to your RSS feeds, your visitors need a special tool, called an RSS aggregator.

RSS aggregators are special tools that can take an RSS feed and display it to the end-user. They come in many different forms and flavors, but the most popular are desktop applications and web readers.

In the case of desktop RSS aggregators (example: http://www.awasu.com), end-users need to download them to their computers and install them there. Web-based RSS aggregators (example: http://www.bloglines.com) on the other hand are websites where users can create their own accounts and then use those websites to view RSS content directly from their Web browsers.

After installing an RSS aggregator or registering at a web-based RSS aggregator web service, the user needs to proactively add the link to your RSS feed in to the aggregator to view your content.

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Every time you update your RSS feed by adding new content items to the RSS file, the user is notified of that through his RSS aggregator, making the content immediately available to him, without it having to face any SPAM filters and other barricades on the way.

And, for the best part, most RSS aggregators are free to use, so there s really no excuse to not get started today. And by the way so are quite a few RSS publishing solutions!

All right. Stop being whippersnapper, comprehend it diligently to get model material which could augment your intellectual capabilities. If you go on reading further, we promise that your inquisitiveness in this would be reinforced.

Yes, RSS is the free way of getting your content delivered every time.

About the Author

Rok Hrastnik is the author of Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS , acclaimed as the best and most comprehensive guide to RSS for marketers by leading RSS experts. Discover the true marketing power of RSS: http://rss.marketingstudies.net/index.html?src=sa5

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