What To Name Your Newsletter

Of course, content is the primary focus for a newsletter, as it is for any published document, but even the best written and most informative newsletter is useless if no one reads it. The title or name of any document is what we see first, and if it doesn’t catch the eye and entice us to read further, all the time and effort made in creating it is wasted.

Newsletters usually reflect the publication’s mission or purpose: “Neighborhood News”, for example, gives a very straightforward idea of what it’s about; any marketer will tell you that a name or a title that makes a specific and recognizable connection to the reader is an essential first start.

For example, the official journal of the medical profession is called “the Lancet”. A lancet is a “sharp, 2-edged pointed knife used in surgery”, but it is also a type of window. So the name is a sort of play on words, a newsletter that provides a “view “of the medical profession as well as the issues and milestones it confronts and achieves.

You don’t always have to have a play on words, a pun or a “cute” name for your newsletter. In fact, sometimes a straight forward name tells exactly what it about.  But then again, you’re newsletter is another form of advertisement, and you want it to stand out from all the other articles and advertisements and distractions that show up in the “inbox”.

There’s no law that says a newsletter, regardless of its theme or purpose, cannot have a eye catching or even whimsical title.  Content is, of course, the most important element, but useless if the reader doesn’t read what’s there.  The trick is to make your title both appealing and relevant to your content.