Five Tips for Making a Fantastic Holiday Newsletters

When making a holiday newsletter, either via template or on your own, here are five tips that will help your letter get the attention it deserves.

One: Visual Appeal. Use a sheet of paper that has a nice holiday border printed around the edges. If the letter is for family and friends, you could use the option of penciling in a border and having the children in the house draw holiday pictures and color them in with crayon or fine-tip marker, if it is appropriate for the letter you are making. I have seen this done and it was really well received among the grandparents, aunts, and such.

Whatever you choose, putting a festive border, either preprinted or created, gives your letter that finished touch that makes a reader want to dive right in when they receive it in the mail. Many times you will find that years later, some people have even decided to keep these newsletters in a scrap book or some other place of storage.

Two: Attitude. You want the letter to hit a positive note. Write only about cheerful things that have happened to you and your family throughout the year. This is a holiday newsletter and as such, you should have the text presented in such a manner that the recipient will feel happy when they are finished reading it.

Three: Brevity. Keep the newsletter informative but brief. This will help ensure that people are delighted to receive it. Newsletters are just the right amount of different to stand out during the holiday season, but if they are too long or simply boring, people will lose interest in them and not look forward to them in subsequent years. Make your newsletter short and to the point. One page is usually a good size for a holiday newsletter.

Four: Personality. To add a bit of personality that represents you or your family, add a photograph to the newsletter. You can place it anywhere on the letter, tilting it even, to ensure that it does not take up precious text space. Make sure the picture is relevant to the newsletter. If you have traveled over the year, you might want to put a picture of yourself and/or the family in front of a landmark on the letter, or perhaps a picture in front of the family Christmas tree. If there is a new baby in the family, maybe you want to put a picture of him or her in a Santa hat on the letter. There are a lot of options for which photograph to take or choose for the letter, and it really adds that nice touch to it that gives it a personality.

Five: Packaging. When mailing out the letters, putting them in holiday colored envelopes or in envelopes with a holiday return address label helps finish up your theme. If you really want to get fancy you can put a holiday stamp on it, purchased or created. There are many online sites available now that allow you to create your own postage stamps. You could put the picture that you chose for the newsletter onto a stamp for delivery, or you could choose a different picture altogether. Zazzle.com is a site that does quality work for these types of stamps, but there are many others as well.

By putting careful thought and creativity into your holiday newsletter, you will end up with a newsletter you can be proud of, and one that your recipients will enjoy and look forward to receiving from you, year after year.