Create a Newsletter Using Publisher
Does your business have a consistent way to follow-up with customers? If not, consider printing and mailing a promotional newsletter. Fill it with relevant news and tips and interesting information about your business and you'll have a great tool to help establish and improve your customer relationships. Microsoft Publisher can help you with the design and layout of the newsletter and also has the tools to help mail it to your customers.
1. Plan it
To ensure your publication will be cost effective and have as much impact as possible, begin by determining the primary purpose of your newsletter. You might choose to focus on updates such as information on new products and latest offers. Alternatively, you may want to build familiarity with your company, with articles featuring employees and your internal processes.
Another effective strategy is to provide "value-added" information that relates to your business, such as technical advice, tips on industry trends and information regarding legal regulations.
Once you've determined your purpose, consider some regular features. They will give your newsletter a consistent look and let readers know what to expect.
2. Choose your layout and design
Good design helps you get your message across. If you don't have the time, desire or skills to create your own design, then it is worthwhile choosing from one of Publisher's many pre-formatted designs.If you choose one of Publisher's designs, then use the same one again and again to ensure all of your material has the same look and feel. This will give you a coordinated company image.
To use Publisher's layout and designs to start your newsletter:
- Open Publisher and choose New from the File menu.
- Click on Publications for Print.
- Choose Newsletters.
- Scroll through the choices and select a design.
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You can now use the Newsletter Options panel at the left hand side of the screen to set other options such as number of columns, the color scheme and font scheme use.
To make it easy to mail your newsletter when you're ready, choose the option to include the customer address. This means the newsletter can be dropped straight into a window envelope without the need for additional address labels.
3. Add text and pictures to your newsletter
Having chosen the design, colors and layout for your newsletter, you now need to input the text and pictures you want to include.Generally speaking, you cannot start typing unless you are clicked in a text box. These text boxes will already be present if Publisher created the layout for you, but you can also add your own text boxes if you want to.
- To create a text box, click on the Text Box button and then click and drag to draw the text box. When the text box has white handles around it (this means it is selected), you can type your text in it.
- Format your text by clicking and dragging over it, and choosing the appropriate option from the Formatting Toolbar.
- Click and drag to resize or move the text box.
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Publisher will have inserted some sample pictures into your newsletter. To change these, first select the picture (this might take two separate mouse clicks), and then right click on it. From the menu which appears, choose Change Picture.
4. Work with multiple pages
You may not realize when you begin how much space your text and pictures will take. It may be that you need to increase the number of pages. Remember, if you go beyond a single sheet you need to increase it by even numbers and think about whether you're going to staple it or print it on oversized paper and fold it.Display your newsletter on the screen and go to the Tools menu. Choose Mail and Catalog Merge and then Mail and Catalog Merge Wizard. The five-step Mail and Catalog Merge Wizard starts in the task pane at the side of your screen.
- Ensure the Mail Merge option is selected and move on to the next step.
- Choose your data source — this is where your customer names and addresses are stored. Move on to the next step.
- Now click in your publication in the text box where you want the customer name and address to appear. Click the Address block option to insert the name and address. (To be sure that Publisher has picked up the names and addresses correctly, click the Match Fields button to match up the headings from your data source.)
- Move through your data using the buttons in the task pane to preview your publication and move on to the final step.
- You can use the Print option in the task pane to print out a copy of your publication for each customer.
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Reprinted with permission by Microsoft Corp and the Microsoft Small Business Center. All rights reserved.
