Newsletter pitfalls: What keeps yours from relevance?

A lack of vision, commitment or executive support can starve a willing audience

After serving as an IABC regional judge a few times, I wanted to write about my reaction to some of the materials submitted. Overall, my impression was that most of the newsletters, magazines, etc., submitted weren’t good.

As someone I know has said many times, “We do a newsletter because, well, we have to.” And these pieces exemplified that.

It’s not that the people behind them don’t care. But I sensed that for many of the editors, writers and designers, communication isn’t their primary job, so the pieces became hodgepodges of news, acknowledgments, and tidbits without any purpose beyond, “It has to be done. Having done it, we may as well submit it for an honor.”

One newsletter had a prominent front-page article about a plant that achieved zero accidents and workers’ compensation claims for a number of years, apparently something the company had struggled with for a long time across multiple locations.