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    Star Quest – Newsletter Creation – Success Story


Challenge
Star Quest started out as a small 2 person communications agency specializing in the technology industry. I was hired as their in house communications specialist when they experienced rapid client growth and expanded to 10 employees plus numerous consultants. The partners realized that in order to retain their current clients, expand further into other target markets, and communicate effectively with their employees and consultants, fresh collateral materials needed to be created.

I was tasked with developing unified corporate collateral pieces and other external communications that would enhance brand identity, attract new clients, and expand sales prospecting outreach. After the success of that project, the partners felt we needed a vehicle that would communicate regularly with current clients and could also be used as a marketing tool to engage potential clients. Thus the idea of a quarterly newsletter was born.

Solution
My approach was 2 pronged: Discover what kind of information current clients needed to receive from us and uncover from those clients topics for articles they would be interested in reading. I interviewed 10 clients to receive their input, discussed with the partners what information should be disseminated on a quarterly basis, and asked some of my friends in other companies for copies of their newsletters.

Working with a budget that constricted the printing to our in house laser printer (we would be doing only 50 copies a quarter, not a huge amount) I decided to chose a paper that would reflect “quality”. As the editor for each issue, gathering and writing all stories and information, I planned the “editorial calendar” for the year, and what would be the topic of each issue. To make the workflow easy and assure that we could meet deadline I engaged the assistance of the partners’ secretary, teaching her how to use Adobe Pagemaker. Designing a simplified layout meant that once I had all the copy written, she could easily lay it out in the software program and print the copies.

Results
Our clients thoroughly enjoyed the articles. “ComQuest is a great newsletter, full of useful information. We especially like receiving notification of upcoming trade shows and new services that Star Quest is offering. Great idea.” Allen Brook, Deneba Software Solutions.
Over the course of a quarter, we printed out extra copies to give out at trade shows, and to leave behind with potential clients. We received feedback that the articles were right on target for our industry. Once again, the Star Quest brand was enhanced.