Many marketing experts say that it costs six to seven times as much to sell a new customer as it does to resell an existing customer. That's why sending newsletters to your customers makes so much sense. If you keep in regular touch with them, your customers will think of your business first when it's time to make another purchase or when a friend asks for a recommendation.

To succeed, newsletters must offer valuable information, and they should be short and to the point. In general, short, frequent newsletters containing timely information are preferable to longer infrequent newsletters, according to Roger C. Parker, Contributing Editor to the Newsletter on Newsletters. Newsletters should provide just enough information to encourage your customers to contact you or visit your place of business to learn more.

Try to provide something for everyone in your newsletters. Including a variety of short articles in each issue increases the chances that at least one article will be of great interest to your audience.

Choose topics to include in your newsletter

Write from your customer's point of view. Newsletter success comes not from writing about what you want to tell, but what your customers want to know. When planning each issue of your newsletter, think in terms of categories. Make a list of the types of information your customer base would find most useful. Then try to include an article from each category in each issue. For example, your list might include:

• Editorial about a topic of recent interest
• Tips or how-to articles on getting more out of your products or services
• Reviews of new products or announcements of new services
• Special promotions
• Customer news or success stories
• Employee profile or interview with an expert

Once you've developed your content, it's time to produce your newsletter.

Create your newsletter

Microsoft Publisher makes it easy to design and produce an attractive newsletter. While you can create newsletters (or any other publication) from scratch in Publisher, this article focuses on creating a newsletter using one of Publisher's Newsletter Wizards.

 Tip    If you later plan to use Publisher to automatically convert your newsletter into a Web site, you must initially create your newsletter using one of Publisher's Newsletter Wizards.

To create a newsletter

1. Start Publisher. In the New Publication task pane, under New from a design, click Publications for Print, and then click Newsletters. Scroll through the list of newsletter designs and click the design you want.

    Note   If you are using Publisher 2002, click Newsletters in the New Publication task pane.

2. In the Newsletter Options task pane:
   • Under One- or two-sided printing, click 1 or 2 depending on how your newsletter will be printed.
   • Under Customer address, click None if you are going to mail your newsletter in an envelope. Click Include if your newsletter is going to be a self-mailer.
   • Click Page Content to choose the number of columns and the types of information you want on each page. On inside pages, the Select a page to modify box appears. Select Left inside page or Right inside page, and then, for each page, choose one of the following formats: 3 stories, Calendar, Order form, Response form, or Sign-up form.
   • Click Publication Designs if you want to choose a different design.
   • Click Color Schemes to choose the color scheme you want.
   • Click Font Schemes to choose the typeface designs you want.
     
3. Replace placeholder text with your own text:
   • Click the placeholder text, and then type your own text.
   • To insert text from another file, right-click to select the placeholder text, point to Change Text, click Text File, choose your file, and then click OK.
     

    Note    In most cases, such as article headlines, the text resizes automatically to fit within the text block. If you have already created a personal information set, your business contact information and logo will automatically replace some of the placeholder text.

4. Replace placeholder pictures with your own pictures:
   • Right-click the placeholder picture, and then click Change Picture. (If you don't see Change Picture when you right-click, click the placeholder picture once until you see the white circles surrounding the picture's frame. Click the picture again until you see gray circles with x's in them surrounding the picture itself, and then right-click the picture.)
   • Choose the source of the new picture, choose the file, and then click Insert.
     
5. When your newsletter looks the way you want, on the File menu, click Save.

Newsletters can be printed on your desktop printer, or taken to a commercial printer for larger quantities.

To print a newsletter on your desktop printer

1. In Publisher, open the newsletter publication that you want to print.
2. On the File menu, click Print Preview to review your work, and then click Close.
3. On the File menu, click Print, and then choose the printer that you want your newsletter to print to.
4. Under Copies, select the number of copies you want to print.
5. Under Print range, click All, and then click OK.

Create your own newsletter template

After you have completed your first newsletter, you may want to save it as a template that you can use over and over again. Creating a template speeds up the creation of future issues of your newsletter, and helps you maintain a consistent format from issue to issue.

A template maintains consistency in your newsletter by remembering all of your previous formatting decisions. The template file can be opened and edited, but the new publication must be saved under a different file name to avoid inadvertently changing your original newsletter template.

To create a newsletter template from an existing publication

1. In Publisher, open the newsletter publication you want to use as the basis for a template.
2. On the File menu, click Save As.
3. In the Save As dialog box, from the Save as type list, select Publisher Template (*.pub).
4. In the File name box, enter a recognizable file name (such as 4-page Newsletter Template), and then click OK.

 Note   By default, both Publisher 2002 and Publisher 2003 save template files to the folder (C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates). In Publisher 2003, the Templates option appears in the New Publication task pane only if you have already saved publications as template files to this folder. If you save templates somewhere other than the default templates folder, they will not appear under the Templates option in the New Publication task pane. If you have not saved any templates to the default templates folder, the Templates option will not appear in the New Publication task pane.

To create the next issue of your newsletter from your template

In Publisher 2003, the Templates option appears in the New Publication task pane under New from a design after the first time you save a publication as a template in the default templates folder. After you save your first template, you will need to close and reopen Publisher in order to make the Templates option appear. In Publisher 2003, you can also create categories for your templates to organize them in the task pane.

1. On the File menu, click New. In the New Publication task pane, do one of the following:
   • If you are using Publisher 2003, under New from a design, click Templates, and then select the template that you want to use.
   • If you are using Publisher 2002, under New, click From template, select the template that you want to use, and then click Create New.
2. Incorporate new content, as in step 3 of the procedure To create a newsletter earlier in this article.