As stated in an earlier post, right now I am doing a lot of research on article writing and newsletters. I think this may be the way to go for me. Anyway, I found this article on creating newsletter content. Enjoy.

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Kellie Stotsky
The Essential Virtual Assistant
www.theessentialva.com

This is great Kellie. Thanks! Coming up with blog ideas is hard enough but newsletter stuff has been keeping me from starting one. This will help!

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Shari Sultana
Online Business Manager (marketing for retail ecommerce)

Thank you so much for posting this!

Yvone

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Yvone M. Kon
M.Y. Marketing & Design
Your Virtual Marketing Assistant - At Your Service!
www.mymarketingdesign.com

Thanks for this! I'm going to look into it ASAP!

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Janice Correa-Elite Business Services
"My Business is Your Business!"
www.elitebusinessonline.com

Thanks Kellie, this comes at a great time as I'm working with a client who is totally befuddled by the whole newsletter authoring process but insists on trying to work up the content herself (fair enough! but I sent this along as a helpful bit of advice and she loved it! )

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Do you tend to draft newsletters in advance [more than a few days] then publish on a specific day or do you work on them throughout a set period of time?

I would like to begin sending a one page 'newsletter' but often find that I'm stretched a little too far at times. It would be better to get one out consistently every quarter than hit and miss more often. But I could, in theory, write up a couple during slow periods and have them on hand for later.

How many topics do you tend to cover in one issue? I would think one primary item and two, maybe three, short things.

Just kind of "thinking out loud" here. Comments are welcome.

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Robin A. Holstein
Robin's Desktop Virtual Administrative Services
My Blog

The problem with writing them too much ahead is that current events can often influence your content and that unfortunately changes things you have previously written. You could write up individual articles to include in a newsletter and piece them together with new info closer to the date of distribution.

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Cheryl Richey
Carte Blanche Assistance, LLC
Virtual Assistance...Creating Time for You!

Even though it's an older article, it's still timely!

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N Kelly

Thank you Kellie! It is so amazing how threads come up exactly when they are needed. Take care

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Rikki Green
www.timeforlifeconcepts.com

It's always good to have drafts of articles, etc. that you can use as long as they remain timely.

I'd encourage you to send out a newsletter monthly instead of quarterly. If people don't hear from you more regularly, they tend to forget about you. Then when they do get the quarterly newsletter, they aren't interested anymore.

Keep it short and simple. A newsletter doesn't have to be lengthy or have more than one article. Something on a more regular basis is more important than lots of information quarterly.

At least that's been my experience. I put out my newsletter monthly, my husband does a short, weekly one, and most of my clients publish monthly.

Originally Posted by Robin_Holstein

Do you tend to draft newsletters in advance [more than a few days] then publish on a specific day or do you work on them throughout a set period of time? I would like to begin sending a one page 'newsletter' but often find that I'm stretched a little too far at times. It would be better to get one out consistently every quarter than hit and miss more often. But I could, in theory, write up a couple during slow periods and have them on hand for later. How many topics do you tend to cover in one issue? I would think one primary item and two, maybe three, short things. Just kind of "thinking out loud" here. Comments are welcome.

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Sue L Canfield
AwesomeAssistant.info
My Blog