Here’s a simple method for webmasters to update their customers through e-Newsletters on a regular basis as a means to keeping your audience informed about the latest industry news or promotions you’re running by using a simple word document.
Setting up an e-newsletter in Microsoft Word allows you to combine your website marketing opportunities and company details for exposure saving you money by using email technology.
Here are some details to consider for your e-newsletter preparation:
Frequency
Arrange for your newsletters to be published on a regular basis, usually on a monthly basis, it’s important your newsletters are perceived as a useful resource and not spam so keep distribution to a limited basis.
Content
Always be mindful of keeping the content focused on the audience and not as a sales pitch otherwise your newsletter will get deleted or marked as spam and doomed for the junk folder.
Bandwidth
Refrain from filling the newsletter with too many graphics. Try to remember that some of your users may have low speed connections hence impacting on downloading graphics. As a rule, keep your newsletter below 60kb.
The contents of this article will demonstrate how to create newsletters using tables in Microsoft Word so you can easily import them into your existing email program for regular distribution to your customers.
1/ Open a word document that is blank then insert a table using 6 rows and 3 columns. I generally merge the top 3 cells into the header and the 3 bottom cells into the footer as a way to insert the logo design of your website within the header row, with your contact details listed in the footer row.
2/ Combine/merge the remaining rows on the left hand side into 1 column.
3/ Insert the website logo image and the name of your company into the header area, then add the address and contact details to the footer, make sure you include your website links too.
4. Create an introduction message to greet your users or some form of welcome message.
5/ The contents of the newsletter should be informative yet brief and to the point. If you plan on adding further resources within the newsletter always link out to your website rather than adding additional clutter to the newsletter. Use bullet points to highlight snippets of information using links within the left side of the column.
After creating the above 5 steps, you should have produced a HTML newsletter resembling a website page. You can add your company colors and branding graphics as you see fit, and you now have a fully editable word document ready for distribution to your audience via email.
Ensure you save the document for future use and editing, then select the whole table, copy/paste it into an open blank email.
Before you send the email out for distribution, send it to a few friends first so you can judge the look of the finished product.
In the event that you do not find any formatting issues with your test emails, you’re all set to send out your Microsoft Word newsletter to your list of contacts.
About the author: Matt Fuller is a website designer for website design Australia and Website Hotline. Matt has been involved in website design for the past 5 years.
