PDF NEWSLETTERS: retro or a smart move?

Exclusive interview with author, consultant and design guru Roger C. Parker

[Aug. 8, 2003]

By Debbie Weil
Publisher, WordBiz Report

The debate over HTML vs. plain text newsletters is still humming. But not at fever pitch. Without going out on a limb, I'd venture the pendulum has swung towards HTML e-newsletters. They're just plain nicer to read.

But what about PDF newsletters? Sounds retro but a PDF printed out has... heft, tangibility and a look of authority. Some publishers swear by them.

Paid newsletters delivered as PDFs

It's not at all unusual for a paid subscription newsletter to be issued as a PDF.

A B2C example is Matthew Bennett's First Class Flyer, an insider's guide to unpublished fares for business and first class airline tickets. Bennett delivers his paid monthly PDF publication as a link inside a text message.

A pricey B2B example is IOEnergy's Power Update, daily regional market analysis of the power industry. IOEnergy sends their PDFs as attachments, according to founder Tod Sedgwick. He told me their subscribers, who pay up to $1,000 annually for the daily updates, don't mind. They want to avoid the "extra click" to download the PDF.

(See samples of both these publications below.)

Free e-newsletters in PDF format...

are another choice for the reader

"The more choices for people to read your content, the better," Rafat Ali, editor of award-winning PaidContent.org, told me. His daily free e-newsletter is delivered in HTML but with a link at the bottom that "converts" it into a PDF for readers who so desire. You can also read the daily on his site or through a PDA or text-enabled mobile phone.

Note: the PDF is a screenshot of the HTML. It's not a version laid out with Quark, Adobe InDesign or another design program. See links to design software below.

Looks more credible for CXX readers

B2B marketing consultant Kristin Zhivago has another take on PDF e-newsletters. "It comes down to a question of formality. Higher level execs expect a certain amount of formality. If it's not formal, it's not credible," she said. She publishes two newsletters - intermittently - when not too busy as a revenue-generating consultant for big companies. Her Revenue Journal is a PDF aimed at CEOs. She produces her other newsletter, Marketing Technology, in HTML.

Adds value by making publication more tangible

Finally, a well-designed PDF looks like a real publication. It's less ephemeral than a message in your inbox.


Q & A with Roger C. Parker

Roger:
All media represents a compromise between quantity and quality.

I prefer to go the "quality" direction and make a big impression - through design - on those who make the effort to open my PDF rather than have a less memorable, harder-to-read text or HTML newsletter.

WordBiz:
What's wrong with HTML newsletters?

Roger:
They often frustrate me: they require me to resize my browser window, they often don't save properly, and they usually don't print properly. Page breaks never work out and the pages aren't numbered.

I know that many of my newsletter recipients may not always open my PDF newsletter the day it arrives, but I have a lot of anecdotal information
that many do save my PDF newsletters in a dedicated folder and print each issue for reader at home or on the road.

WordBiz:
What about text newsletters?

Roger:
They all look the same, and many of them I find downright ugly. There's no benefit to seeing rows of repeated exclamation points or other symbols.

The lack of control over line spacing makes them difficult to read. They don't print particularly well. Often, when printed, they take up more space than they should because of their short lines.

WordBiz:
Tell me more about the advantages of publishing in PDF

Roger:
I find it very helpful to have to write to fill available space. When formatted, my One-Page Newsletters contain space for between 625 and 650 words. In order to get everything in to my newsletter, I have to carefully self-edit.

This monthly self-editing for length is a challenge but it improves the quality of my writing in a very painless way. I'm writing shorter sentences and paragraphs, using shorter words.

There's a temptation to ramble when you there are no limits on the space you can take up.

WordBiz:
Any other PDF benefits?

Roger:
Design is a marketing tool. It separates me and it brands my newsletter.

Because I use a PDF format created in Adobe InDesign, I have total control over typeface, type size, line length, and line spacing.

I have control over hyphenation. I have control over paragraph spacing.

I have dozens of quotes from readers saying they like my "quick read" newsletter. Many say it's the easiest and fastest reading newsletter they receive. They can read it in about 2 1/2 minutes.

When driving, they can read it on the way home, when they stop at traffic lights.

The PDF enforces brevity and quick, easy reading in these busy times.

WordBiz:
How often do you send out your newsletter?

Roger:
Monthly, although if I come up with a great idea, or a special promotion, I sometimes send two issues a month.

WordBiz:
Why monthly?

Roger:
The one-page monthly format is the best way tokeep in touch with clients. Newsletter marketing typically fails because people send a four-page bimonthly newsletter or an eight-page quarterly newsletter.

4-page or 8-page newsletters are exponentially more difficult to produce than a one-pager.

WordBiz:
What's your content formula?

Roger:
Content is strictly educational. No promotion, no advertising. Topics are timeless, stressing the "how to" details that business schools forget to teach.

For example, each issue of Guerrilla Marketing & Design discusses a single, often-overlooked design or marketing topic and shows how to maximize it.

Typical topics include:
- E-mail subject lines and signatures
- Importance of subheads and formatting tips
- Building your Marketing Funnel
- Web site Incentives
- Education-based Marketing

Promotional messages - upcoming teleclasses or new e-books - are described in the covering e-mail the PDF is attached to.

Because the topics are educational and timeless, my current issues are as valid today as they were first sent.

This permits me to sell yearly compilations of the newsletters.

My "Best of Guerrilla Marketing & Design, Volume l," for example, contains 25 issues in a spiral-bound format.

Together, these printed issues can bring a busy marketer up to speed without reading dozens of individual books.

More important, the compendium of my back issues is a perfect credibility builder/leave behind when I meet a new client.

WordBiz:
How many topics in each issue? I tell my clients they can have no more than five topics in a table of contents for any given issue of their newsletter.

Roger:
That's too many! The key to success is to focus each One-Page Newsletter on a single topic.

This focuses both writer and reader. The one-topic-per-month format is essential to my concept of the One-Page Newsletter.

The minute you try to treat two subjects, you're making your life harder and you're losing your focus--and readers like the focus of a one-topic-per-month feature.

Writing becomes easier over time, because the one-topic per-month 625-650 word count creates a rhythm that makes each issue easy to write and easy to read.

WordBiz:
Anything you'd like to add?

Roger:
Never before has technology been so friendly to writers. Writers used to be pawns of publishers.

Now, with PDFs, print on demand, and low-cost telephone bridge line rentals, writers can be publishers and keep more of the profit for
themselves.

WordBiz:

Roger, thanks for your time. I especially like your point that writing for a PDF newsletter with a defined layout forces you to adapt to the space and write "shorter."

USEFUL LINKS:

Roger C. Parker

Download a sample of three of Roger Parker's One-Page E-newsletters (PDF)

Explore his Web sites:

NewEntrepreneur.com

OnePageNewsletters.com


Adobe PDF + design software

Definition of PDF - Adobe's Portable Document Format

Adobe InDesign (free trial)

QuarkXPress


Sample issues of paid PFD newsletters

Sample issue of First Class Flyer (PDF)

Sample issue of IOEnergy's PowerDaily (PDF)


Contrarian view of PDFs

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen: PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption
in his July 14, 2003 AlertBox column.


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