Hi,
I’d like to start my own e-newsletter. Where can I get good ezine templates? Free is nice, but wouldn’t mind paying for them either.

Part of my job is creating templates and designing formats for business communications. I’ve been helping a colleague in Europe to develop a regional email newsletter that will be sent to several hundred employees. The purpose of the newsletter is to help employees feel more engaged, so it is a mix of articles on business topics (major initiatives, etc.) and personal topics (employee profiles, etc.). Her draft design used about 8 different colors, the layout was random and was very amateurish in appearance. I redesigned it to use just 2 alternating colors and tightened up the format so it looked more polished. She didn’t like it and wanted her rainbow of colors back. Her reasoning was “we don’t want it to look so professional.”

I have a REALLY hard time agreeing with that perspective and told her so, but I also couldn’t really articulate why I felt so strongly about it. What would you do? If you had a coworker or a customer say they didn’t want something to look so “professional”, what would you say to convince them otherwise?

To me, her approach looked sloppy, disorganized and was difficult to read. Other than telling her the blunt truth about the design, how could I have persuaded her to see that a clean, polished design is the better way to go?

I’m looking for a firm who have an on-line facility to create and upload email templates + datalists for the purpose of circulating newsletters. They also need to be able to provide analysis of the response. Anyone got any ideas?

Title: Communications Coordinator
Base Salary: $27,000
Basic Responsibilities:
1) Maintain standard templates for email signature files, MS Word documents, MS Powerpoint documents, business cards, letterhead, use of logo, brochures
2) Maintain press release distribution listservs for CEAI, OSTN, and CIT
3) Maintain and enhance public (external) and extranet (internal) CEAI, OSTN, and CIT websites to capture maximum leads from website, coordinate with the design team to deliver changes
4) Coordinate speaking opportunities to ensure maximum message impact and lead generation
5) Develop and publish press releases to be used for lead generation, references
6) Develop and maintain Client Reference Database
7) Develop and publish case studies/video testimonials to be used for lead generation, references Develop marketing brochures for lead generation
9) Host iSeminars where clients feature their success for lead generation
10) Develop quarterly newsletter for CEAI, OSTN for l