Design 101: Newsletter Planning

By Daniel Will-Harris

I'm not sure why, but when people sit down at a computer to put together a newsletter they often seem to lose all their common sense. Just as you wouldn't build a house without a set of plans, you shouldn't build a newsletter, without one. And yet, too many newsletters end up looking like a house built by committee – in other words, a mess. Things tacked on here, or there. In every color of the rainbow (in no particular order).

There's a simple solution to the problem: planning. While today's technology does allow you to instantly sit down at the computer and start working, just because the technological portion of your newsletter looks professional doesn't mean the content and design will.

Let's walk through the process, step-by-step. Notice that you don't start thinking about what your newsletter will look like until you've first done a lot of foundation-level planning.

Step 1:  State your purpose.
Step 2:  Figure out what you need.
Step 3:  Figure out who does what.
Step 4:  Figure out when everything is due.
Step 5:  Visualize.
Step 6:  Produce.