My mother publishes books about Brighton, and her company is a non-profit organisation which she trades from her home. As a self-taught publisher, she relies on her many years of art and design techniques, and yet with her advancing years she produces excellent books as well as managing her own website and blog.

One thing she has to be aware of is the current economic situation. In the past she could price her books according to its content, and there were no restrictions in size, length or capacity. Nowadays she has had to plan her books from the finished product, that is, work backwards so that she starts with the end in mind, making sure there are the correct number of pages, photographs, chapters, etc on the correct size of page to fit in with the printer’s requirements, who are also cutting back on costs to achieve the desired result. People won’t spend abundantly any more, so a fixed retail price of under £10 is set, and the contents, paper quality, presentation and final finish have to be budgeted accordingly to fit.

As a result my poor mother was greeted with a last minute request from her printers to reduce the sizes of her pages so that they would fit ’six up’, a term which means how he lays out the pages within his large pieces of paper to reduce costs. Now my mother, being self-taught on QuarkXPress only a couple of years ago, didn’t relish a massive change to her book layout in less than 24 hours, so had to call on technical support to help her sort out this problem. She did it with five minutes to spare – goodness knows what her blood pressure was like!

Do you work with the end in mind? It is certainly I will have to do when I restart my business in the autumn. Previously I have been winging it, and it has certainly contributed to my increased stress levels resulting in my Bell’s Palsy. Now I will concentrate on one project at a time, planning it to the enth degree, totally completing every stage and transferring it to full automation on the net. That is a sure-fire way to cope with any project to make it both successful and profitable.

I really don’t mind giving my opinion on website design. And it’s always so nice to comment on a really good one for a change.

A photographer friend of mine asked for my reaction to his new website design while it was being renovated. My first reaction was very positive, with its clean, clear, crisp lines providing a very professional layout. It was the grey words and logo on the white background that did it for me – how nice to see an uncluttered presentation with plenty of white space and light!

But I felt compelled to provide some comments to increase his website efficiency:

The index page should work to the three second rule. Three seconds to make up their minds that this is the right website and what they should then do. Getting the visitors to do something is paramount; they should be encouraged to go further into the site to learn more, or sign up to something with a suitable incentive (this is to gather their details for future communications). The last thing you want is for them to leave!

Also, don’t overload other pages with detailed content. My friend’s grey text may have looked elegant and contributed to the spatial atmosphere that was so pleasing, but it did make it very difficult to read in large quantities. Websites are not like books. People don’t find it easy to sit down and read through webpages with a cup of tea. Also if they are surfing they usually do not have the time to plough through densely packed paragraphs.

Your accompanying webpages should act like little landing pages for specific subjects. This means they should contain the same structure and marketing elements as the index page, because spiders direct surfers to the most relevant page to their search, and this may not be the index page of the website. Allow for drop-in visitors for that particular subject, and adapt the page for the three second rule too.

Design your webpages with the initial concept of getting your customers to make contact. Once you’ve got them across your threshold then you can give them all the necessary detail to seal your capture. Your content should be delivered quickly and concisely with poignant and relevant information. Separate each benefit with bullet points or paragraphs. This allows the eye to rapidly choose what it wants to read and then enables the reader to digest and take action.

Quick reference:
How to get your leaflets to start working for you
How to get your successful leaflets to look good

It’s not what you say, but how you say it, that contributes towards a successful campaign. Be aware that your customers come first; after all, your business would not exist without them, so therefore they need to be the main focus for your campaign. This means you need to turn your mindset around to accommodate the fact that your business comes way down the pecking order of importance.

Each element of your message needs to be carefully planned, placed and executed. The first thing at the top should not be your logo and company name. Even though most leaflets and adverts blare theirs out from this position, this only works for worldwide recognised businesses; otherwise the reader’s reaction is ‘who?’ or ‘so what?’.

The main key element is the headline, which should be designed to attract attention. Begin your campaign with a statement or question that stimulates a positive response to your customers’ pain or problem. You should have done adequate market research to find this out, so position yourself inside your customers’ head and start to think like them. Work with something that will result in the reader saying ‘yes’.

The subhead should provide the resolve or solution to the headline, and there you can subtly drop in the name of your company.  I mean subtly, as the solution should always come first. The result should be to increase the readers’ empathy towards what you are offering.

Next highlight your benefits in bullet points. Here most businesses happily list their features, but remember since you are focusing on your customers, turn these features around to their point of view, so that they become customer benefits. Take out all the ‘we’ and ‘our’ and substitute them with ‘you’ and ‘yours’ to achieve this.

Why use bullet points? Readers find it easier to scan or quick read through a list than to trawl through a dense paragraph. In this fast moving 21st century, bombarded with stimuli from every direction, people don’t have the time or inclination to read everything. A list containing concise, focused and relevant points is more likely to be absorbed.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get. How many campaigns forget to include a call to action? The remainder of your leaflet could contain all the right ingredients, but if you don’t ask your readers to do something, even to tell them to call you for more information, then what is the point? And by making this time-dependent you are more likely to stimulate a response, otherwise, even if they have the best intentions towards your campaign, there is no stimulus to demand a quick reaction and your leaflet could get forgotten.

And last but not least, make sure your contact details are large, clear and easily accessible. If your telephone number doesn’t jump out to hit them between the eyes, your landing page web-address is not clearly visible, or your email is hidden amongst other text, you will not encourage your customers to make contact. And no customer contact means no sales.

The misfortune of the single leaflet (or postcard) campaign is that there is limited space for what you have to say. By choosing only one shot at your potential customer market, you will have to cram in a lot of information into a relatively small space to get the full message across.

The initial reaction, after scanning the grey mass in front of them, is that readers will look for a way out: get rid. Even if all the marketing criteria are met: headline, sub-headline, bullet points, call to action, special offer, contact details, the fact that they are virtually sitting on top of each other defeats their objective.

When laying out your leaflet, the first thing to consider is your margins; wide borders navigate the eye towards a focal point: the message inside. Adequate white space provides sufficient elbow room to allow the leaflet to breathe, so each marketing element has a chance to succeed.

Next, consider which kind of picture you are going to have. Background images can backfire: one particular advert had a relevant picture behind all its text, but it was so complex you couldn’t make out what it was trying to say. Presented by itself it would have been easier to understand its message, therefore providing a more effective contribution.

Another problem with a complex background is that it detracts from the words in front of it. Messages are not easily understood if they have to compete with their surroundings. Clean, clear backgrounds, preferably white or pale in colour, combined with a darker colour for the words, will have far more impact for quick recognition and readability than the reverse.

Pictures should be relevant, and not just a smiling tele-operator who looks good. It’s easy to get a picture off the net that will do, but then it may be so popular that everybody uses it, thus reducing your impact. A good quality, well produced photograph is vital, with excellent focus and presentation within its own frame; a home produced job with camera shake or low resolution taken from a mobile phone will not cut to the chase.

And finally how the leaflet is prepared for the printer will make or break a good campaign. Customers respond to quality, and an obvious product of the office ink-jet will certainly not provide the impression you are looking for. Neither will a leaflet whose pictures are not converted to the printers’ resolution, as failure to do so will result in flat, 2D, uninteresting images that also suggest low quality.

Also the kind of paper or card used will make a difference: good quality with a clean finish will easily sway the customer to read, absorb, understand and therefore take action – ultimately resulting in a sale.

Recently I was asked this question: “I need to know what is the success criteria of a newsletter, how could we know it will be appreciated or not?”

Success of a newsletter will be measured by the response you get from your readership, how many more subscriptions you get from word of mouth or referrals, recommendations from people viewing past issues, people contacting you to ask to submit articles or to advertise, and general feedback from the readership.

Don’t forget that the initial point of getting feedback is to ask for it. Set up competitions or other interactive activities that demand a response to gauge your popularity or whether your content is right. If you are sending out your electronic newsletter from an autoresponder, then your click rate should indicate how many are reading and reacting to your newsletter. Don’t just sit on your laurels and wonder if anybody is reading your stuff, set something up so you can measure a response. Good headlines leading onto apt, up-to-the-minute or relevant stories and content are key to encouraging a good click rate or passing interest.

Success depends on whether your newsletter is readable, easy to understand, has consistent areas or departments your readership can relate to, for example the news section or letters page, is well designed with appropriate columns and relevant pictures, headlines that grab the attention of the skimmer reader, uncluttered design for instant readability, noticeable banners for fast recognition, full use of effective colour if your budget affords it, or plenty of ‘white space’ if only in black and white.

Oh, yes, and great content!

Any other questions, please feel free to go ask Alice!

Which elements should you be aware of when producing a magazine? First is the layout and presentation that enables readability, second is its content and reputation for good value, and third is its readership and distribution.

Believe it or not, a magazine certainly benefits from being properly designed. Some are churned out by amateurs using a desktop publishing package downloaded from the internet, producing a collection of pages stapled together with pictures, page numbers and the odd headline.

Avoid cramming your pages up to the hilt with content with no regard for margins or columns. The result is a lack of space so the newsletter layout is unable to breathe, and provides an overall sense of clutter, impacting on the readability factor and easy access to the information required.

Magazines can easily be very busy publications, full of colour and conflicting designs, bombarding the poor reader so they are confused and overwhelmed. The smaller sized publications, such as the A5 versions, are not a very big space to work with, especially if you are including advertising, and particularly if you are typesetting for a customer who wants absolutely everything squeezed into a quarter page.

One thing that always makes me sigh is terrible front covers, especially those community magazines that have a sponsor or major advertiser on the front. As it’s the first thing a reader sees (generally), so wouldn’t a better designed version do more justice, not only to the advertiser, but also the magazine as well? Don’t stick with just the banner containing the magazine’s title (plus issue date and the name of the organisation) emblazoned across the top. Remember consistency creates professionalism. And the same goes for the back too – after all, what people see on the outside will also reflect what’s in the inside.

Images are important to maintain interest and emphasise a point, but use these with care. Don’t straddle pictures over columns to create unsightly word wrapping and without ample surrounding space. Get your photos suitably processed (such as correct sizing, converting to CMYK for printing, adapting to the correct dpi [dots per inch], lightening and fading facilities and colour conversions) to maintain quality. Avoid clipart like the plague as it only cheapens your publication, but finding a tasteful cartoonist is a bonus.

Getting a professional to design your magazine may be expensive initially, but the design factors will become costworthy in drawing in advertisers and increasing readership. And once the first issue has been completed, it’s generally easier to produce the next, therefore reducing the costs involved. Quality of print is also vital: don’t spoil your publication with smudges and misalignments – this doesn’t look good to the reader, and is not appreciated by the advertisers. Inexpensive flimsy paper (and also gloss finishes) can look cheap and nasty, and poor quality of colour, artwork and images result in the same reaction. Maintain your professional reputation by providing good quality from the beginning.

My friend told me that she recently had an email from one of her newsletter recipients saying that she hadn’t heard from her lately and she thought she had stopped trading.

This was very worrying for my friend. How many other people hadn’t got their newsletters each month? OK, she wasn’t using an autoresponder, which would have made her life a bit more laborious, but the problem was that she was unaware that the emails hadn’t reached their destination.

One suggestion I gave her was to occasionally alternate with a paper newsletter, or even a newsletter postcard as explained in my previous post. It would help to maintain the interest from her subscribers, guarantee getting read and provide another focal point to her communications.

This leads to the question: can you rely on the internet for your communication? Especially nowadays with over-full in-boxes stuffed to the gills with spam and other missives. How do you know your e-newsletters are getting read and not swamped, forgotten or deleted? Sure, you may be able to track that they’ve been opened if you use an autoresponder, but that doesn’t mean they’ve even been scanned for interesting content yet alone properly scrutinised.

What used to happen back in the dark ages before email? Paper newsletters were used to impart news, tell stories and crow about your company. They were a media for advertising and articles. The news was both past, present and future. They were read without eye-strain. OK, you did rely on the Post Office and it cost to send them, but they were more likely to be read at the recipient’s leisure, more than once and passed around our friends and contacts. They were not as frequent, so were looked forward to the next issue. They were not deemed ‘a pain’ when they plopped onto our doormats.

The most important elements of a newsletter are: relevance, of interest to the reader, well designed for readability, legible, captivating and newsworthy, excellent copy, good spelling and grammar, striking pictures, grabbing headlines, and being well read. Can e-newsletters lay claim to all these qualities?

Here’s a concept that is big in the US. Think of a small, bijous, concise form of communication that is quirky, eye-catching, yet still packed full of information. Of course the Americans have a larger version of the postcard, something resembling an A5 so there is more space for the designer to play with, but I still think it could work with our British sizes if you’re clever.

How can you fit a newsletter onto a postcard? This all depends on an efficient use of layout. You don’t have to make your font extra small so the reader needs to get out a magnifying glass to read it, it’s all to do with columns, succinct copywriting, choice subject matter, prioritisation and, of course, a brilliant use of headlines. You could say it is an exercise in combining the verbal with the visual into another form of communication. And don’t forget to wrap it up with excellent imagery that describes, reinforces or compliments the content, with a fully incentive-biased call to action together with your clearly presented contact details.

Why do a postcard newsletter? Well, in this age of emails and e-newsletters, why not grab your readers’ attention with something different. Postcards are simple, easy and cheap to post; don’t require an envelope; fun, different and visually compelling; are always open and therefore immediately readable; not time-consuming; and are a medium for quick messages and prompt news items. Their brightly coloured visual impact will not get swamped, deleted or forgotten.  They can be read there and then or later with a cup of coffee, and can be passed around for others to read or stuck onto a noticeboard.  It’s their individuality that makes them stand out above the crowd and get noticed.

Use a postcard newsletter to advertise your news in bite-sized chunks and tantalising snippets of information.  You can post up the remainder of the story on either your blog or website by including the link at the end.  I know it won’t be interactive, so make sure your link isn’t complicated or over-long, or provide clearly placed links from your homepage to the remainder of the content, a double whammy as the reader will then get a chance to view the rest of your website later.

Then there’s the added bonus that they are relatively inexpensive to produce, even if you get them professionally printed.  And that’s probably a good idea, as digital printers can mailmerge the names and addresses onto each card (as well as other variable information), topped off with your personal franking mark and, of course, your corporate identity and colour scheme. If you prefer to use stamps, then send them to a distributing house for economic facilitation, especially if you want to stick a sample onto them or whatever else your marketing team comes up with.