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Home::Newsletters
Start a Home-Based Newsletter Business
Author : Peter Engelbrecht
Do you have a passion, something you love and enjoy talking
about with others? You have heard people say that you should do
what you love, sometimes what we do is not necessarily, what we
love but we do it because it pays the bills. Here a home
business opportunity to change that and to make some money from
something that is dear to you by starting a home-based
newsletter business.
The newsletter business is a huge business in of itself. Many
newsletters are distributed by a variety of organizations, from
for-profits to not-for-profits such as schools or charities. For
this reason, newsletters can be an easy sell since your audience
is not only accustomed to receiving newsletters but many people
look forward to receiving a short 4-page booklet about something
they find interesting and useful.
To get started, find a niche topic that you think others in your
community may find interesting and would like to hear about on a
periodic basis. Your topics could range from local bird
populations and species to bikes and bike trails. The topics to
select can be endless, but may be a product of your local
community and what the community finds interesting.
After you have decided on a topic, consider the frequency of
distribution, weekly/monthly/bi-annually. The period you select
may also depend on the amount of research you will have to
conduct. Even though you consider yourself an expert on the
topic, you may find yourself conducting research more often than
your first thought in order to keep the newsletters content
fresh and unique. You may even try to find a guest columnist or
conduct an interview with a local who knows something about the
topic. Lastly, you need time to sell a few advertisements to
offset the production costs of the newsletter.
To make your newsletters interesting consider a seasonal flare,
where the colors for instance of the newsletter match with the
upcoming seasons, bright reds, yellows and green for spring and
browns, grey and purple for autumn. Whatever you decide, make it
fun.
When it comes to pricing, the simplest method is to take your
production costs and add 20% to those costs. You may have to
absorb much of the initial costs if you do not have many
subscribers, which you should account for during the earliest
stages of launching your newsletter. If you have a computer and
a good laser printer, you can cut your costs dramatically.
Now that you have started up and are producing a quality
product, you have to distribute the newsletter. The quickest way
to get new subscribers is by word of mouth, which is when people
begin telling or referring others to your newsletter. You can
start by giving free copies to friends and family and ask them
to pass them around to their friends. You can drop off a few
copies at the local hair salon, dentist and doctor's office.
To create a buzz, you can run a price promotion, half off for
the first six months. Yet even better, you can run a combined
promotion with another complimentary business. Let us say that
your newsletter is about migratory birds, why not ask the local
pet store if you can include a coupon in the newsletter for
something free, such as a sampling of new birdseed. The store
manager may have birdseed that the birdseed manufacturer's
representative dropped off. This is a real win-win situation for
all parties involved as you get to provide your subscribers with
something free, the pet store gets traffic into the store, and
the birdseed manufacturer gets customers using their brand of
birdseed compared with that of the competitors.
I hope that you will have fun starting up your new business and
that it will be a wonderful chapter of your life.
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