Most organizations create a monthly newsletter to share recent activities, resource needs and upcoming schedule. They usually create their newsletter as a pdf file to ensure their audience will be able to read it on whatever computing platform they’re using.
PDF stands for Portable Document Format. Most people will recognize these documents since you need Adobe Reader installed on your computer.
Once a newsletter has been created the organization needs to get the word out to their audience. That’s where many organizations turn to an email marketing solution like Constant Contact or MailChimp to reach their subscribers.
The idea of sending out a mass email with little effort sounds really good for the person tasked with the responsibility of Public Relations.
It sounds easy until you find out there is a big hurdle to overcome. At the time of this post these services don’t like to send PDF attachments.
What are the alternative methods to send the information?
You have several options
- Send the emails with PDF attachments yourself using your own email account
- Use one of their basic templates (Look like everyone else)
- Pay a premium for a more fancy looking template (Spend money)
- Create a custom template using their tools (Spend time)
- Create a custom template using your own tools (Some programming required)
- Convert the PDF into HTML, then try to use it as a template (Email services like gmail, yahoo, etc don’t like CSS too much)
- Convert the PDF into an image & send the image
Each of these options comes with its own pros and cons.
There seems to be extra time or money involved with each option.
Make things easier on yourself, give yourself plenty of time to get your newsletter out & decide early which option you plan to choose before there is an information deadline.
