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Printing a Newspaper versus Printing a Newsletter
by Greg Baker It is important to keep your name before your church members and prospective visitorrs. The newsletter has been a wonderful tool to accomplish this goal. Unfortunately, using a newspaper to accomplish this same objective has never been available at a reasonable price or without expensive graphic programs. With advancements in technology and new processing, however, publishing a newspaper rather than a newsletter is now actually more affordable and offers much more room for content. Let us examine the benefits of printing a newspaper over a newsletter. SPACE Getting your message across is very important. Newsletters, to remain cost effective, usually have limited space. A typical 8.5 x 11 newsletter gives you enough space for a short message, a few small pictures, and little else. Obviously, choosing a larger format will give you more options. The typical newsletter sizes are: 8.5x11, 8.5x14, 11x17, 11x25.5. Taking the largest newsletter format, 11x25.5, and folding it in half provides a business with four pages worth of information at 11x12.75. In this size, you could have a lot of information given to your customers. Unfortunately, it is very, very expensive. A newspaper, on the other hand, usually starts at 11x28, or folded in half, four pages of 11x14. The base size for a newspaper is larger than the largest format offered by most newsletter companies. The ability to convey your message in a newspaper format is much more readily available. Giving yourself more room allows for more information that will be relevant to customers and employees. COST Cost is important to most churches and ministries, particularly smaller ones. Newsletter printing is a booming business and there are many companies that offer this service. I have found only one company that offers newspapers to the general public (something known as short-run newspapers). A short research into the cost of newsletter printing revealed the following: The average cost of printing 5000 newsletters: * 1 page at 8.5x11, front color, back b&w, - $550 * 4 pages at 11x12.75, (half color, half b&w) - $1,600 * Note: prices do not reflect shipping or mailing services. There is very little out there that will print a newspaper for a church at a cost that is anywhere reasonable. Normally, to retool the presses to accept what you are trying to do costs more money than it is worthwith a few exceptions. A bit of more intensive research will reveal that printing a newspaper is much more cost effective if you can find the right printer. The average cost of printing 5000 newspapers is: * 4 pages at 11x14, (2 pages color, the rest b&w) - $499 * 8 pages at 11x14, (4 pages color, the rest b&w) - $599 * 16 pages at 11x14, (4 pages color, the rest b&w) - $949 * Note: prices do not reflect shipping or mailing services. * Prices supplied by www.makemynewspaper.com. (They also offers free design services and templates.) For less money, you can print a 4 page newspaper that has 4 times the room than the 8.5x11 newsletter format typically available. If you have the time and content, you can print a 16 page newspaper that contains over 4 times the amount of space the largest newsletter format offers for almost half of the total cost. One of the benefits to having more room enables a church to solicit advertising to place in the paper. This is purely a perception issue, as newsletters do not facilitate the same notion of credibility for advertisers as newspapers. It is simply easier to sell advertising in newspapers. Done correctly, a church or ministry can not only pay for the entire paper by selling ads, but also make a profit! One church in Colorado averages around a $1,000 in profit per issue. CONCLUSION The advantages of printing a newspaper over a newsletter are obvious. Saving money, having more space, and utilizing a universal recognizable format is something that any church and ministry ought to consider before printing a newsletter. A newspaper can be much more effective. And, while the daily newspaper is slowly diminishing across the country, niche newspapers are growing by leaps and bounds. Now, publishing your own newspaper for your own specific needs and ideals is available as well. More at: http://articles.christianbaptists.com Or http://www.fitlyspoken.org for books on communication and social skills in relationships! Specifically, our books 'Fitly Spoken' and 'Restoring a Fallen Christian'. For editing and ghostwriting services: http://www.affordablechristianediting.com Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |