Kind of a poll....

How many of us still do printed and mailed newsletters vs. email? I’m curious as to which way everyone is heading. Given the expense of printing and mailing, I’d assume more of us have switched to email.

Hi Jay
I receive my Mass Bay RRE newsletter the CallBoy, in print, and the 470 RR club I receive it both in print and email. I also receive other newsletters in print, from the WW&F, and the East Broad Top in print.
I usually pass along the printed version of the newsletters to a friend of mine, because it is easier for him to read it.
I do prefer the printed newsletter over the email.

The "default" WW&F newsletter (bi-monthly) is printed and mailed. But members can choose to have an emailed version (instead of the print & mail) if they wish. I get the emailed version and am quite happy with it. If one tries to minimize the paper stored at home, and prefers digital storage, it is convenient to not have to scan the paper newsletter for storage.

Clearly, there is a cost savings to the museum when members choose an email version. Beyond that, if the printed & mailed newsletter is printed in black & white (less expensive than full color), then the emailed PDF version could be in full color at little to no additional cost to the museum.

Also, emailed versions come with relatively 'instant' delivery, even to members that may be outside the USPS delivery system.

After ten plus years of providing an emailed only newsletter, we returned to a printed version. Why? Donations had dropped off dramatically. Looking into the situation further, we found that emailed versions were often not opened and, sadly, were frequently trashed almost immediately. Furthermore, we discovered the printed versions were often left around, particularly at supporting businesses, allowing others to read. Since returning to the printed version about a year ago, donations are increasing.

Print or email?

Depends on your donor base.

Same thing in our vehicle club, after we went to e-mail newsletter, our membership dropped off. We found that members wanted "something in their hand" in exchange for their membership dues. To a lot of the members who did not attend many of the shows, the newsletter IS the club and they wanted something tangible. Most of the younger members were OK with an email copy but ALL the older members wanted a printed copy!

As Rader noted, the WW&F Newsletter is largely printed and mailed to our members. We do have a number who have chosen to receive it as an emailed PDF. We also post each issue as a PDF to the members-only section of our forum (forum.wwfry.org).

There are several benefits with the PDF route. It can be posted and emailed immediately, while it takes a few weeks for members receive the printed and mailed version. The PDF route could eliminate the expenses of printing and mailing, which would allow increased page counts and more in-depth articles. And we have posted our entire 30-year run of newsletters on our forum, which has become a very useful resource when researching our museum history.

With that said, we are firmly in the camp of continued printing and mailing. We're at 1200 members and have a press run of 1500 copies. While we have a very engaged social media community, our view is direct mailings, including our newsletter, is the only method that reaches all members, well worth the expense. Extra copies of the latest newsletter are put out in our gift shop as a way to encourage our guests to join our museum. I know it works--that is what hooked me to join.

I can do almost a doctoral dissertation on the subject by now, but I'll spare you.

Things to consider:

What is your newsletter's function?

Among the various functions:
News. Official issues and updates of importance, such as minutes of meetings, progress reports on ongoing projects, notification of proposed projects ("XVY Corp. has offered us the passenger car that has been stored on its property. Discuss."). Related railfan news of interest ("UP is sending its Big Boy through our state next month; here's the schedule...")
Entertainment. A place to publish articles and photos of interest, often historical in nature. Outlets for members to justify their research and efforts.
Public Relations. This is when you send copies not just to your members, but other rail operations, history societies, museums, and the like--and not just rail museums, either. The astute editors make the operation look attractive, productive, and functional. This is the stuff that gets looked at when the local industry's foundation is looking to dole out grants, establish working relationships, or even have a company party or picnic at your venue.

2) Your History/Archive.
Newsletters serve as a de facto "diary" of the organization. It forces the organization to document, to whatever extent, the organization's activities. Of course, selective editing comes into play--I've seen newsletters heavy on the PR side make no mention whatsoever of serious crises, to the point where it sometimes resembles the old Soviet Pravda in propaganda.
The biggest problem we have in this regard with attracting young people to this field is that they have the attention span of mayflies with ADHD, thanks to social media. We're, sadly, in an era when a Chief Executive sees fit to communicate to the masses in 160-character bites of bytes. How are you going to attract those folks to the stories and essays that take a commitment to sit down for five or twenty minutes to read? Thus, many groups have had to split their efforts between old-style marketing/news and social media nuggets.

3) Value to Membership.
As mentioned above, members want to be perceived as getting value for their membership dollars. Nothing speaks to that like a piece of mail delivered to the reader. There have been newsletters, back before the internet facilitated instant transmission of news, where NRHS members happily paid Chapter dues to chapters they never went to for meetings, just because the newsletters were thick and beefy, full of all manner of local rail news and articles. (Two examples I know if: the Phila. Chapter Cinders and the Baltimore Chapter Interchange.) Of late, the reduction in publication and content of the National NRHS' Bulletin has caused some dissent, and loss of membership, for the national NRHS, and I have seen members defect to the R&LHS and their vastly-improved Railroad History periodical.


Now, another valid issue:

Postage has skyrocketed. Printing costs continues to climb as "dead trees" are condemned.

I have at least three organizations with which I am involved that offer either e-mailed PDFs or mailed letters; with one, the e-mail is considered optional; the one's default is e-mail with print optional; and one adds a surcharge for mailed letters. I have told two of these organizations to skip the mailed letters; both of them replied to me explicitly: "We need to send 200 mailed hard copies to keep the bulk mailing permit; you're one of the ones we want to favor because you help us that much and you do the networking that helps us. You get the hard copy, no questions asked. Enjoy."

It's a little bit of a dirty secret that at least some previously big newsletters were quietly subsidized, knowingly or not, by members having access to a company photocopier or print room. I know of one group where a chapter officer was a top official of the state transportation offices; he quietly got approval to run off the print newsletters from his superiors as a perk instead of a pay raise or whatever. This continued until he retired; all of a sudden the Chapter had to pay for printing, and costs went up. (To be fair, by then they had laser printers and copiers donated to them....)

One of the British organisations to which I belong, the Deltic Preservation Society, recently announced that after forty years of the Deltic Deadline going from photocopier to black-and-white small magazine to colour covers to full glossy news magazine, issue 250 coming in January would be its last print issue. Even with a substantial membership (still over 700, I believe) and enough funds to do overhauls of three mainline diesels, it's not a matter of money, but of simple logistics, postage, and content. There are only so many history pieces and photos to be run, and so much current news to report--a syndrome that is a common lament of every rail newsletter publisher out there, to be sure.

I use digital only for the TP&W Historical Society’s newsletter/journal. That way we don’t have to charge anything to our members and having everything free brings in more members.

Thomas

This has been an issue for the Akron Railroad Club for a number of years. For years our dues were stuck at $12/yr. which did not cover the basic costs of membership - the newsletter and our annual donations to the church where we meet (which is a total bargain for a large meeting room on a Friday night with no time limit). Several years ago we managed to get an increase in dues passed to $16/yr. which covered our basic costs for about a year. Once again we started running deficits which had been largely covered by sales of donated items at a couple of regional train shows. That is ending. The officer/Bulletin Editor who kept our stock, picnic supplies, etc. had to move to a small apartment, and retired as editor (after about 23 years of service, so no one has anything but good wishes for him). The train show sales also fell off to nothing in the last year and we are ending our participation in those. Another member who does a newsletter/advertising as part of his hobby-related business stepped up to take over as editor and I believe our only real expense now is postage. We also voted a year or two ago to go to a bi-monthly newsletter with a digital only option. Our experience reflects that of others here, in that most of the older base wishes to keep getting a hard copy of the Bulletin.

“There are only so many history pieces and photos to be run, and so much current news to report--a syndrome that is a common lament of every rail newsletter publisher out there, to be sure.”

That really should never be a problem. Any operation should have parts of the collection that can be highlighted, and events and projects to be reported on. If there is nothing to report, sounds like the operation is dead and doesn’t deserve the membership dues to begin with.


“The biggest problem we have in this regard with attracting young people to this field is that they have the attention span of mayflies with ADHD, thanks to social media. We're, sadly, in an era when a Chief Executive sees fit to communicate to the masses in 160-character bites of bytes.”

So all “young people” are labeled with a medical condition and called a name because a 73 year old man tweets a lot?

“How are you going to attract those folks to the stories and essays that take a commitment to sit down for five or twenty minutes to read? Thus, many groups have had to split their efforts between old-style marketing/news and social media nuggets.”

I’m sure the ancient Egyptians complained that time had to be split between speaking and recording notes on papyrus. Social media marketing should be in connection with newsletter articles. Advertise a special historical report in the upcoming newsletter... not a member? Join today and don’t miss out!

That's not necessarily the issue.
The problem is getting someone to competently write up, and supply photos for, a good article--or, in some cases, even to just report to the editor what's going on. This is a problem in all kinds of groups, large and small. And often the brilliant machinist, track foreman, shop foreman, or project leader proves to be a wretchedly bad writer and/or photographer.
I've seen groups that were smart enough to appoint/draft/flatter into volunteering as editor a terrific writer and visual designer with incredible wit and intellect; the problem with one I worked with was that he lived 25 miles from the railroad and, because of work, synagogue, and family demands, seldom ever put in a first-hand appearance AT the line, enginehouse, shop, etc. He told me that getting accurate updates from anyone but the executive director eager to push a rose-colored-glasses PR angle was "like pulling teeth." He would have almost literally killed for the likes of Kelly Anderson's Strasburg shop updates--though, to be fair, a busy pro operation with paid staff has much more to report than an all-volunteer shop crew.




There's a lot of personal observation there, along with a lot of articles, studies, etc. confirming my observations--admittedly exaggerated for effect, but on point. I've even seen these effects in some people in their thirties by now. The current Chief Executive is a symptom, not a cause--and his "success" (such as it is) at garnering and maintaining support is ignored by people in marketing, politics, etc. at their peril.



Go ahead and try. Tell me how well that works.
The current social media and internet environment makes consumers expect "better product for free." It's not right; it's not good; and history groups are hardly the only ones being forced to change. CD and music stores have been killed; musicians can now make MORE money via self-publishing, self-promotion and staying small/local than they can under the old record-label model that pushed a chosen few to superstardom and screwed over the rest.

You may not like the reality that the old ways are disappearing, but we have to adapt to the new models of entertainment/promotion/doing things, or perish. We can't wait until the Gen X/Y/Millennials get old enough to turn into retired curmudgeons looking for a way to feel useful; we're gonna die off, and there's not as many of them (unless you count immigrants, at least in the U.S., etc.).
And the other demographic ticking time bomb: A whole lot of young, and even middle-aged, people either have no plans whatsoever to retire, or see their future as never being able to afford to retire. Disregard whether or not Social Security will survive that long, and/or how. You won't have that pool of "Greatest Generation" old-timers to inherit your stuff or position.

"The current social media and internet environment makes consumers expect "better product for free."

I'm not trying to derail the subject but I disagree, I think the 'social media and internet environment" is a great tool that has helped major fundraising efforts like the #611, Nashville Steam, etc. Using social media as a call to action to donate, join as members, etc. is a huge opportunity.

A great case in point is the 611 at strasburg. FireUp 611 and Strasburg Railroad made a joint announcement and many trains and events sold out in a matter of days. That's because of social media, it wasn't announced anywhere else yet because it was up until that time a secret.

Back to newspapers, I think the "cheap comes out expensive." A quality newspaper with interesting articles, photos, news reports, etc can go along way in securing donations and future business.

My argument was to do both - email with the option to opt in or out and a printed option for those that want it and for distribution. I consider the printing as a cost of doing business. I'm glad that others are thinking along the same lines and I'm not some ol' fuddy duddy that appreciates the value of print.

ADMIV: Are you looking over my shoulder or something? Getting people to feed me info or write articles (that I'll edit) is worse than pulling teeth. And don't get me started on poorly composed cell phone photos in portrait orientation. Sigh....

I edit Central Coast Chapter NRHS' Ferroequinologist, which is about 80% entertainment and 20% news.

I am not on the chapter's Board of Managers, but I agree completely with their philosophy, which is that basic chapter dues includes unlimited access to "The Foo's" online archive with pdfs of all issues going back to the club's founding in the 1950s and email notification when a new issue is available. For an additional fee, you get a copy printed and mailed; the chapter does not have a bulk mail permit, so all copies get a first-class stamp, which can add up. At first the pdf Foo was offered as an option to save the club money but later the Board elected to implement the add-on fee for the printed copy.

From what I can see, this procedure seems to work well, I believe NRHS national should adopt a similar procedure for NRHS News.

Side note: Getting good editorial content seems to be an issue for lots of volunteer publications. I have been blessed for four years to get content to fill issues.

We've adapted with the times, but we've doubled our investment in print quality/reader experience by moving to a bi-annual/annual report format over quarterly printed newsletters and now do monthly (at least) members updates on or about the first of each month.

This move to bi-annual means the page count comes to about 20, full-color pages, but when our members and donors get it, they recognize it as a serious chronicle of everything that's happening and can see where their support goes in an extremely detailed way. It's a good way to let them feel "in the know" and part of the core in a way that is above-and-beyond social media.

Use the printed medium for deep dives, big asks, storytelling and use the email newsletter for more time-sensitive, ongoing touchbases, etc. Our monthly email newsletter is basically a table of contents and summary that points to a special members area of the website were our managers have their weekly/monthly reports/updates/calls for help posted.

Keep the calls to action similar across all the platforms and mediums -- donate here, renew here, events and excursions here...etc. Bang the drum consistently.

As previously mentioned, the trick to all of this is to build an ecosystem (or a monster) that you can feed with quality content that respects the format of the medium and the way people will receive the information and does it with a predictable cadence.

Aim small, miss small.