Newsletters and Newspapers: Paper or digital?

So the question I am often asked goes something like this…

“I am involved with an organization (business, governmental or nonprofit) and we have been publishing a printed newsletter for many years. But now because of ….and we want to save money….How do we go about publishing this on-line and saving money…?”

I’ve been down this road numerous times with different organizations. Each time the reasons for the conversion are different but usually, somewhere in the discussion, there comes the part about saving money.

After a number of these conversations, I’ve ended up with this thinking: If you are going to jettison the “paper” newsletter, you need to ask yourself several important questions, look at the various options available to you, and do the math.

Question 1: What is the best way to get your news content into the hands of your constituents in a way that will increase the likelihood that they will read it?

You have two major publication choices to consider: print/paper and digital/on-line.

On the paper side, you can stay with the current format or modify the current format to accomplish your goal. If cost is an issue, you can reduce your volume or the size or frequency of the issues. You could experiment with different paper/media and perhaps go from color to monochrome. All of this saves some money, but you will likely find some costs cannot be avoided.

In considering these two major options, you need to have a clear understanding about your readership. Personally – and I suspect that you will find this surprising – I have found that many people (especially people in my part of the world: Maine) are still “paper trained” and like to get local and special news in paper form. While many large urban newspapers around the country are going bankrupt, there seems to be no shortage of small local newspapers and free publications that are sent by mail or are available in various locations. And judging by the girth of some of these publications, I suspect that finding advertisers has not been that big an issue.

In my work I have generally advised clients to stay with the paper-printed news if they can afford it. By using the suggestions stated above (reducing size, volume or quality of paper, etc.) organizations may be able reduce costs sufficiently to keep their newsletters going, but results will vary. Organizations may also want to consider a relationship with the local newspaper (or one of these free newspaper vendors) to see if they can get their content out to the public free.

If you and your organization decide to go digital, expect that there will not be the incredible savings you anticipate. The printing and mailing cost may actually turn out be the least expensive part of the operation. As always, do the math.

Question 2: If we choose to go digital, how is this best accomplished?

Once again, you have several options: simple e-mail; e-mail with an attachment; and, web posting. There are other options, but for this article we’ll stick to these choices.

Simple e-mail is the process of sending out news content and topical information (in plain text or stylized Rich Text Format – RTF or HyperText Markup Language – HTML format) within the body of an e-mail sent to your constituents. These mailings may be simple plain text or also include images and styling (if using RTF or HTML).

E-mail with attachment involves putting the content into a separate formatted document (usually an Adobe Acrobat-PDF file), attaching it to an e-mail and sending it out to your constituents.

Web-posting involves actually publishing the content to a web page (usually using a form of HTML) and/or posting a link to a formatted  document (again usually a PDF) that is stored on a web server. In the linked form, the reader will have to download the formatted file from the web server. Often, web-posted news is associated with an e-mail alert (or through other means like Twitter) which “announces” the news and “drives” people to go and look/download.

E-mail solutions

Using any of the e-mail-based solutions assumes you have e-mail addresses for all of your constituents. In my experience, this is usually not the case. You will usually end up with the considerable task of getting the e-mail addresses and more importantly, maintaining them. If your newsletter goes to everyone within one organization (e.g. a company newsletter) and all of the domain names are the same, this might be an easy problem. But if your news is going to a diverse population, you will soon discover this is a monumental task because peoples’ e-mail addresses change very frequently.

Sending out large volumes of e-mail also requires special software and provisions to avoid spam blockers and filters so that your mail reaches your readership. In addition, unless you have your own mail server, you may discover that your ISP limits the amount of e-mails it will let you send in any one day (this is to try to prevent and discourage SPAM). There are server-based applications that you can use to work around this, and for an additional cost, you can hire a mailing service that will manage and maintain your list as well as send out the content. These companies are often paid by how much mail is delivered and have all kinds of clever ways of working around SPAM blockers and filters. All it takes is money…but wait a minute, wasn’t this something you were trying to save?

Web-posted solutions

For web-posted solutions you can either use a print-formatted document (e.g., Word file or PDF) posting on the web server or create an HTML-formatted version of the content. The amount of time to do either is about the same, so it may come down to the resources, skills and training of the people who you have on staff to create the newsletter. My experience has been that most staff talented enough to do layout and design in print form,  often have the expertise to do webpage design.

Portable Document Format – PDF

Adobe Acrobat PDF can be a great solution if you want your newsletter to look just like it did before and if you want to be able to print it out. This assumes that the original newsletter was formatted to fit on conventional size pieces of paper. If the newsletter was printed on larger paper, your constituents will still be able to view the content on their computer screen but will likely not be able to print it out in a way that will make it easy to read.

It needs to be noted that historically PDF files have caused many problems for people with disabilities. In the early evolution of Acrobat, PDF files were simply “images” of the printed version and if you relied on an assistive technology device called a screen reader (a device that translates text into speech), you simply could not access the content of the file. Modern PDF files can certainly be made accessible, but frequently problems are encountered when the content is formatted into columns and spread across multiple pages. Knowing how to correctly “tag” PDF file content to make it accessible requires some additional skills and training. The evidence shows that many PDF documents that are distributed around the web are not correctly formatted and remain inaccessible to people with disabilities. Read about how to make Accessible PDFs and other documents on the Maine CITE website.

HyperText Markup Language – HTML

For the same amount of time and effort (and often a lot less), a trained staff person can usually put your newsletter content into HTML and publish it on a web server. With advancements in web design and software, much of the complex design elements have been eliminated making the job of posting content on the web easier and more efficient.

There are many advantages in using HTML to publish news content. If you use a content management system (CMS), the news content can be scripted to allow for comments, creating opportunities for dialog with readers (either through a simple comments section or via a blogging or wiki protocols). HTML content also allows for the use of linkage or “feed” services and “sharing” applications and protocols which promote and encourage readers to share the content with a wider audience through various social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Once your content is in correctly coded HTML format (see Accessible Web Design resources on Maine CITE), it is usually accessible by all devices including assistive technology devices and handheld devices such as PDAs and “smart” cell phones. Furthermore, you can embed links, objects and rich media into your content making it more dynamic.

Final Things to Consider

Audience: When considering the move from paper to digital newsletters, it is most important to know you audience. Plan ahead, do your research, find out what your constituents would prefer. You may even want to take a poll to determine preferences.

You will need to know if your readers have access to the internet and will they be able to access the content as an attachment? If you choose to use an attachment to an e-mail, do your constituents have sufficient throughput and capacity to handle large attached files. Knowing something about the preferences and experience of your readership is crucial.

Lastly, you should consider if your audience will want to, and know how to, interact with the content and share it? Within certain segments, social networking still involves chit-chat at the church social and not via the internet. But you might be surprised if you ask your readers about this.

Staff: You also have to consider whether your staff have the resources and skills to converted content into accessible digital formats. If traditionally you have been preparing your content in a simply word processor and sending it off to the printer for design and layout, you may need to hire someone else (or provide additional staff training) to be able to do this kind of work.

Lastly, if considering an e-mail solution, you need to determine if your organization has the resources to create and maintain an up-to-date e-mail database, as well as the bandwidth and resources needed to send the digital content?

Summary

In summary, there is no easy or simple answer to the question posted at the beginning of this article. Thoughtful consideration and planning is needed in determining the path you take. As noted earlier, the conversion from paper to digital newsletters may not produce the savings you initially imagined.

Related posts:

1. Digital Magazines