Sometimes old habits shouldn't die; nor should they fade away -

However - over the last few years, print communications has naturally evolved into HTML.

Unfortunately, in many cases due to declining revenues, marketing budgets have been slashed or even evaporated. This has resulted in the disappearance of a critically important though underestimated public relations tool — the newsletter.

When crafted properly, newsletters are a cost-effective way to deliver the right messages to the right audiences. Newsletters can help a firm establish both credibility and authority. They can enhance an organization's image. They can build customer, employee and team loyalty, simply by keeping audiences better informed about an establishment.

A key sales and marketing tool, newsletters can help introduce or sell a product or service. And, by creating good will and keeping one's name out in front of customers, they can also potentially increase business.

Newsletters can work wonders

Smart hotels and their parent companies recognize the value of internal communications and the necessity of networking with their various publics. Consider these points and decide if now is the time for your organization to benefit from producing a newsletter.

• Do you share all the necessary information with your various publics?,/li>
• Do you regularly communicate with management and owners in a tangible format?
• Do you regularly communicate with a vehicle that can maintain some shelf life so that everyone can refer to it when necessary?
• Despite what we might assume, not everyone has access to a computer. For example, on property, do all line and management staff have personal e-mail addresses and access to memos on the computer? (Probably not.)
• Are all staff English speakers? (Probably not.)

Creating more attention

Newsletters allow us to translate important messages so that we can clearly talk to our employees, owners, and guests. In addition, newsletter articles can frequently be transformed into media releases and thus earn more publicity and attention for items of human interest.

Whether electronic or print, newsletters can encourage readership participation. For example, they can provide the opportunity to recommend useful Internet sites or books and articles of interest.

Tricks of the trade

Newsletters can be very simple and brief — but they must be carefully and methodically assembled. They, in a word, have to be "good" in order to be effective. One cannot just place words on a sheet of paper.

The contents must be focused, powerful, intriguing and informative, and the layout needs to be clean and easy to navigate. Remember, the contents must be useful, readable, user friendly, and—to maintain readership interest —interactive.

One of the key things to remember when drafting your newsletter is to strive for tight copy. People often claim that they have no time to read lengthy articles, and so they tend only to peruse the piece rather than read it in its entirety. Therefore, by using effective headlines, photo captions and blurbs, your message can come through quickly and clearly.

A regular newsletter not only helps a company to continually refine its marketing objectives and messages; it can actually help encourage the team to feel connected by "pulling" a company together and bringing employees that much closer to the firm's decision makers.

If you wish to revive your public relations efforts through the use of newsletters, or for us to review and enhance your existing internal communications pieces, do let us know.

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