Member and organisational newsletters
A chapter, an association or a patient organisation that produces a recurring publication for its own members settles what it is for and what it can spend, sets its schedule and its delivery form against what can be delivered, assembles the volunteers and the tasks they share, and finds subjects and shapes pages for a health readership.
Purpose and budget
Budget and purpose are the two most important elements of a chapter newsletter, whether it is started from scratch or taken over, and the primary purpose, together with the budget available to serve it, drives every other decision.
A chapter newsletter's purpose can be to disseminate announcements to members, to provide educational or informational articles, to highlight members' accomplishments or career tracks, to inform readers about chapter and national membership benefits, or to market the chapter and encourage membership. The main purpose, once chosen, guides the type of content and helps set the production and publishing schedule, so a newsletter that announces events has to reach its recipients in advance of those events.
Publishing schedule
The choice between a monthly, a quarterly and perhaps a twice-yearly newsletter follows from the timing requirements of the primary purpose and from the resources available: whether a trained staff of volunteers has time to meet publishing deadlines, what the budget is, and what the delivery method will be. Where the budget allows professional printing and a mailing to members, the schedule has to allow time for the printer to produce the newsletter and for mail delivery. The cost of paper is a further budget consideration for a printed newsletter, and it turns on how much content and how many pages the purpose requires.
In September 2018 EMWA's updated instructions to NewsBlast contributors asked for contributions to be sent to one address by the twenty-second of each month so that they could be published in the following month, and asked for concise updates of 150 to 200 words, which could be included on one of the association's web pages. The full archive of NewsBlasts is kept on the association's website.
Delivery form
Budget and purpose also guide the choice between an electronic and a printed newsletter. Where there is money for professional printing, the questions are what services the printer is to provide and whether a volunteer can design the newsletter and supply a press-ready PDF. Where a volunteer has the skills and the software but there is no budget for professional printing or mailing, the newsletter can be photocopied and mailed, posted as a PDF on the chapter's website, or emailed to members as a PDF. Whichever route is taken, the purpose bears on the schedule and on when members receive the newsletter, and the editor needs to stay mindful of it.
In the words of the editorial director of a custom publisher of consumer health care marketing materials, people have become cyberchondriacs: in a December 2008 talk she said that two thirds of an estimated 160 million web users research health topics, and that using an online search engine to obtain health care information is second only to seeking advice from a family physician. The consequence, as she put it, cuts both ways: patients are more empowered with health care information than ever, and they are swamped with information that is inaccurate and sometimes frightening. A report of her talk concluded that health care professionals must gear their printed information for an internet-oriented audience.
To cover the whole audience, she recommended providing a newsletter in a mix of three media, print, internet and email, because print is the best way to draw an audience to the internet-based newsletter, and email captures an audience that the print and internet newsletters miss.
Volunteer staff
An editorial and production staff can be assembled by announcing volunteer opportunities at chapter meetings or through email broadcasts to the membership. Working on a chapter newsletter gives members experience in writing and editorial tasks, and a published article showcases a member's writing ability and becomes a marketing tool for them. Member involvement also ensures that the newsletter's purpose meets the needs of its membership.
Production tasks
Creating a newsletter and keeping up with its production schedule takes the same tasks whether one person does them all or a group of volunteers divides them:
- Schedule and supervise the development and production tasks.
- Develop content — decide who generates the article ideas and who writes the articles.
- Edit the content.
- Design the layout.
- Create the newsletter in desktop publishing software.
- Proofread the final layout.
- Produce the final product and deliver it.
Subjects and page formats for a health readership
The same editorial director recommended starting content from a search of Google or Nielsen online for common health care topics, such as nutrition and fitness, disease prevention and pain management. An article based on information gathered from the internet should have its facts checked, because that information may be inaccurate. Context can come from online libraries, other newsletters, or the websites of health organisations such as the American Heart Association or the American Cancer Society.
Internet readers, in her view, want to skim, scan and scram, so an internet newsletter has to be designed accordingly, and in any medium readers want access to the information quickly and easily.
In her advice, an internet newsletter should be written in a casual, conversational style with an interactive layout, and pages can be built with photographs, call-outs, captions, quotations, sidebars, or lists of five to seven items. A print newsletter can take the form of an 8½ by 11 inch trifold. An email newsletter should avoid subject lines that trigger spam filters, such as "free", "refund available" or "click here". She also suggested mixing media in health care communications, for instance with a cooking video featuring a recipe for a post-operative diet, and advocated inviting comments, conducting surveys and tracking readership.
Qualities judges praise
As AMWA's journal reported in 2008, ACOG Today, the official newsletter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, had recently received the gold award for general excellence among association newsletters in the Excel Awards of the Society of National Association Publications, and a silver award for newswriting for the second year in a row; it had also won the general excellence category in 2006. The judges lauded its timely, practical and well-written content and its clean, attractive design, and found the integration of images and text impressive.
From newsletter to magazine
An interstitial cystitis patient advocacy association's two-colour newsletter was turned into a four-colour magazine with features that help patients learn how to live better with a painful, chronic disease and even get them ahead of the clinical and research curves. According to the writer who made the change, patients often use the magazine to educate their doctors about the latest treatments.