Community Newsletter - Ideas?

Hi all,

I've been considering the idea of publishing a local community e-mail newsletter. Calendar of events, local human interest/feature stories submitted by readers, free non-business classifieds, PTA and school news, etc.

Step one is to begin building a subscriber list, but there is a budget of zero for this project. I'm also not sure if the local newspapers would be interested in helping us promote this venture :-)

If anyone has any ideas, crazy or otherwise, I'd be interested in hearing them....thanks!!

Richie




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my first question would be why are you doing it?
apparently,there's no money involved, so thats
not it...

let's say we give it a patriotic bent..tap into
the war effort...we're going to start this community email letter so we can return to life
as normal...plus provide a way to link all members
of our community together in the event of an emergency...

then, to publicize it, get a town crier dressed
up in american revolution garb go around town saying "if we don't email together, we shall all
hang together"....hmmm...

or, without the patriotic angle, try "stop communicating the old town crier way, read the
email letter"

btw, our local paper www.goerie.com has its own
website and i think it even has an ezine, but not
sure...

hope this helps....

> Hi all,

> I've been considering the idea of publishing
> a local community e-mail newsletter.
> Calendar of events, local human
> interest/feature stories submitted by
> readers, free non-business classifieds, PTA
> and school news, etc.

> Step one is to begin building a subscriber
> list, but there is a budget of zero for this
> project. I'm also not sure if the local
> newspapers would be interested in helping us
> promote this venture :-)

> If anyone has any ideas, crazy or otherwise,
> I'd be interested in hearing
> them....thanks!!

> Richie

> my first question would be why are you doing
> it? apparently,there's no money involved, so
> thats not it...

I definitely intend to have money involved! Building a targetted list is probably the most important thing you can do for your business...I figure that there are plenty of local merchants who would love to have access to relatively inexpensive HIGHLY targetted advertising.

> ...plus provide a way to link all
> members of our community together
> in the event of an emergency...

That's another really nice benefit of a community list...it's not going to be a non-profit newsletter, but I'm sure I can work that in as a strong benefit....great idea, thanks!

> then, to publicize it, get a town crier
> dressed up in american revolution garb go
> around town saying "if we don't email
> together, we shall all hang together"

Nice!! I live in Massachusetts too :-)

> btw, our local paper www.goerie.com has
> its own
> website and i think it even has an ezine,
> but not
> sure...

I definitely want to position this as a newsletter rather than a community website. I want to build an opt-in e-mail list of as many town residents as possible....

> hope this helps....

Great ideas....thanks!!

Richie


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