E-newsletters allow instantaneous, customized content to be communicated to clients at a small percentage of the cost of printed newsletters.

Firms that send e-newsletters can demonstrate leadership in the industry, and small firms can use this format to appear to be larger.

Berdon, a top 25 CPA firm nationally, located in New York City, sends eight different niche e-newsletters. They range from monthly to quarterly and from 300 to 12,000 per issue. These newsletters are produced in-house by the part-time efforts of two associates in charge of writing content which is adapted to specific needs in the client base. Without someone (or in this case a team) in charge of and responsible for the newsletter project, there is a good chance the program will suffer as other activities take priority.

Templates are created for each newsletter so that new articles can easily be placed in the newsletter for each issue.

Before converting a print newsletter to an e-mail newsletter, conduct a survey of readers to get their reactions to the change.

The biggest challenge to newsletter production is, naturally, developing valuable content. Outside services such as BizActions (www.bizactions.com), solve the content problem for firms by giving them the availability of more than 5,000 articles in 80 categories. The firm can add custom material to this. The BizActions program also eliminates IT involvement in-house. Firms can choose different layouts, colors, and frequency, and can obtain input on which articles are being read.

Monthly distribution can offer valuable reinforcement, but more frequently than monthly can be annoying.

Firms preparing in-house newsletters can accumulate banks of articles to eliminate last minute scrambling to meet deadlines.

A prescription for configuring newsletters can also be important. For example a typical newsletter may include a predetermined mixture of original stories, articles reprinted from other publications, industry analyses, and firm information. Overall length should be three to four pages.

BizActions has a program for sending content selected for certain segments of the data base. The content can be based on questions asked of the people in the data base, or the “click” results, e.g., those who have read estate planning articles.

Costs of BizActions newsletters can range from a few thousand dollars a year for small firms to as much as $30,000 for firms with 200 professionals. There is also an entry-level version at $75 per month for firms with fewer than five employees.

From Accounting Technology, June 2006, SourceMedia, Inc., One State Street, 27th Floor, New York, NY, 10004. For the complete article, click on the following link: http://www.webcpa.com/article.cfm?articleid=20279&;pg=acctech.