So You've Designed a Marketing Newsletter.
Now What?

You’ve done it! You've created a salesman, a hard working marketing newsletter. And that's what is, an undercover salesman. It's entertaining, informative, relevant to your customer and visually appealing.

Great! Now you just have to get it from your computer screen to the hands of your customers. Your ultimate goal is to have your marketing newsletter professionally produced and distributed to your mailing list. Don’t have one yet? Click here and learn how to develop a mailing list.

Having the pros produce your newsletters will yield a superior product. The most professional look will be a single 17 by 11 inch sheet of paper, folded in half. That way, your marketing newsletter will ultimately be a standard 8 ½ by 11 inch size, but it will open like a booklet and be self-bound.

Need to Start Slow?
Then Print Them Yourself!

Commercial printing is preferable but expensive and for some, it’s cost prohibitive, especially in the beginning. If you don’t have a huge mailing list or are developing one for the first time, you can start by printing your marketing newsletter yourself. If you’re on a very tight budget, in the beginning it may be necessary for you to skip the mailing list altogether and just have your newsletters available on your counter for pickup. (It’s postage free marketing!) Or you can prioritize your mailing list and only send them to active customers.

When the funds start rolling in (and they will if you take advantage of the direct marketing tips found on this site), expand the scope of your marketing newsletter. In the mean time, these can be printed off any standard ink jet printer. Unless yours can automatically print on the back side of pages, you’ll need to print each page one at a time and feed them back into the printer to get the other side. Reload the page face up and right side up so it will come out correctly on the other side. And be sure to use a relatively thick paper - not standard copy paper. This will prevent color showing through to the other side.

Because you can’t print one large (17” X 11”) sheet to fold in half, you’ll have to staple your two sheets together. If you like producing your own product, you can upgrade your equipment for superior in-house production. Inkjet printers are available for around $300 and up that can handle the 17” X 11” specialty paper that you’ll be using for a professional quality result. And if you don’t mind paying more, you can get color laser printers for outstanding color quality, clarity and sharpness. Your marketing newsletter will be indistinguishable from one produced by a major printing house. Another advantage to laser printers is speed, which is a major consideration if you’re thinking of producing your marketing newsletter for the long haul.

Ready for the Big Time?
You Need the Printing Pros!

There’s only so far an inkjet printer will take you. Unless you invest in some serious equipment, you’ll need the help of some serious professionals. There is a wealth of options offered by most printers. We’ll keep it pretty basic: First there’s digital printing, which is a lot like color copying but on a bigger scale. Then there’s offset printing. This is the more traditional use of a printing press.

Digital printing will most likely be your best bet if you’re placing a small to medium sized order because there’s no initial setup fee. It typically costs a flat rate per piece with quantity discounts. The price is usually not different for two colors or for full color photographs.

Offset printing is a whole other animal. This involves transferring your image to plates arranged on a press. The cost is calculated much differently than with digital printing. Setup is fairly complicated and time intensive, so a significant portion of your total cost is incurred just to prepare their equipment to print your document. After that, each piece is generally much less expensive to produce than with digital printing. So it’s usually a better fit for large projects. Significant discounts are available here if you use only two colors, rather than full color photos. Your marketing newsletter can look slick and professional either way. Be sure to shop around and request proofs (samples) before you commit, as prices and quality vary widely between printers. And ask plenty of questions. Different printers handle their price structure for colors differently.