1. By Derek Mengwasser

2.  Content that a good effective notice must include are:  Name of institution, organization, or office issuing it.  Date of issuing a particular notice.  The heading ‘Notice’ to make it very clear.

3.  Content that a good effective notice must include are:  A suitable description/eye-catching caption or heading to hold immediate attention of the reader.  Purpose for which it has been written like calling a meeting, drawing attention, making an appeal or informing general public about some issue of concern.  Details of schedule (date, time, duration, etc.) in case the notice is about an event to be organized in the near future.

4.  Notice circulated for some kind of official/non-official meeting should have:  Date  Time  Venue  Agenda/Purpose  Who is to attend  Specific instructions  Contact person/addressee

5.  Notice issued for informing about some event:  Name  Objective/Purpose/Occasion  Date  Time/Duration  Place/Venue  Essential qualifications/Eligibility/Conditions  Contact address  Specific instructions

6.  Notice for lost and found of articles or other valuables:  Article lost/found  Date  Time (approx)  Place  Identification marks (color, size, contents, material)  Contents  Whom to contact, when, and where

7.  Notice issued for masses/general public for change of name  Drawing attention  Existing name  Address  New name  Reason of change

8.  Notice informing about tours/fairs/exhibitions/camps to be organized in the near future:  Name and nature  Occasion  Venue  Objective – information, awareness, appeal, invitation, etc.  Dates/Timing

9.  Notice informing about tours/fairs/exhibitions/camps to be organized in the near future:  Expenditure/Entry fee etc.  Beginning/Conclusion  Place (for tours)  Duration : From……To…..  Contact information  Specific instructions

10.  Important information to remember:  Notices can use capital letters for details such as names of organizations, captions, and important detail within the message itself.  Date of notice can be placed at the top right or left, or bottom right or left hand corner.

11.  Important information to remember:  The entire content of the notice is centered within a ‘box’.  The individual’s responsible for issuing the notice indicates the name below the signature in parenthesis, followed by their designation’s.  Complete sentences need not always be used in all types of notices. Abbreviations and symbols can also be used.

12.  Important information to remember:  Usually future time references predominate over other tense forms.  There is a penalty for exceeding the prescribed word limit.

13.  Do you need a brochure?  It is a professional, effective, and inexpensive way to provide information to your target audience.  Designed for people to walk by and pick up.  Can be used for a variety of things from tourist attractions to programs or a class being offered.

14.  Getting started.  It is helpful first to brainstorm ideas.  Get a plan and a feel for what you want in your brochure.

15.  Target Your Audience  Is your audience specialized or familiar with your subject, or are they a general audience not in the field or trade?  How will the audience use your brochure? Will it be to promote a one-time event brochure or will it be a “how to” brochure that will make people keep it?

16.  Target Your Audience  How will your brochure be used along with other marketing tools?  How can the audience take the action you want them to take?

17.  Be Brief!  Think of the brochure as an appetizer. Share important and interesting key points that gives the reader just a taste.  Include five or fewer key points.  Use pictures, charts, and drawings over words when possible.  Use bullets to break text into small, easy-to-scan chunks.

18.  Create Interest  Create interest by trying to appeal to the audience’s emotions and needs.  Organization  Use subheadings, bullets, and text boxes to break up and organize information.

19.  Check the Facts  Information in your brochure will be released to the public.  Check with other people or other forms of resources to make sure your information is correct and up to date.

20.  Long – Term Effectiveness  Make brochure worth keeping.  Give audience a reason to hang on to it.  A brochure that explains “how to” something will be kept longer.  A brochure that showcases your offer, or describes your business with contact information and directions will be kept longer because of its vital information.

21.  Layout  Determine the purpose of your brochure. ▪ Are you trying to persuade the audience or inform the audience?  Stand out from your competition. ▪ What do you offer that other companies, services or experiences do not?  Determine the call to action. ▪ Tell the reader to take some action like going onto the next step of making reservations or signing up.

22.  Creating your brochure.  Should be clear, attractive, and brief.  Grab the reader’s attention.  On the rack among other brochures, make sure your brochure stands out by catchy phrases or images on the top one third of your brochure.

23.  Include the 5 W’s and 1 H.  Who is the business or sponsor?  What is the service or event?  When is the event? ▪ Give the date, time of the event, or business operating hours.

24.  Include 5 W’s and 1 H.  Where is it located? ▪ If possible provide a map with major highways to help readers know where the event or business is located  Why should anyone attend, use your service, visit your business or store, or take this kind of action?  How should they go about contacting you? ▪ Provide contact information on your brochure, so that the reader knows where to get hold of you at and how they can get a hold of you for more questions.

25.  The entire look is important.  The design including color, fonts, graphics, and layout impacts attractiveness and attractiveness will increase the chance of your brochure being picked up.

26.  Size and Format  Size depends on your budget and determined by the amount of information you need to include.  Examples are: ▪ Simple rack card that is printed front and back but has no folds. ▪ Brochure with four panels or six panels. ▪ Very detailed brochure with eight panels or more.  Keep in mind that making your brochure longer is not always good idea.  Making it longer increases cost by increasing paper size and the process of folding brochure either by machine or hand folding.  8.5 * 11 paper works well with most typical folds.

27.  Back Panel  Easy to find place for contact information.  Good spot also to place a map of your business, attraction, or service you are providing.  Mailing information can be placed back here as well allowing the brochure to be mailed without an envelope.

28.  Graphic Design  Effective graphic design helps grab attention.  Consider some of these design elements: ▪ Emphasis ▪ Repetition ▪ Alignment ▪ Proximity ▪ Levels of information ▪ Typography ▪ White space ▪ Balance

29.  Brochure Rack Test  In a crowded rack, will your brochure stand out?  Making the front panel eye catching will help your brochure stand out among others.  Place name of your business or event on the top one third of the panel.

30.  Don’t forget final check.  Check spelling and grammar. ▪ Proofread a few times yourself and have others proofread.  Watch for widows and orphans. ▪ Widow is the last line of paragraph that appears as first line of new page. ▪ Orphan is a paragraph that starts at the end of the page and contains just one line.

31.  Don’t forget final check.  Include cost, such as admission price, when possible.  Double check the 5 W’s and 1 H.  Check for: ▪ Your company name and logo. ▪ Contact information including address, phone number, email and website address. ▪ Explain how to use your service or take action.

32.  Commit to consistency  Consistency is the key to newsletter success.  Best achieved by limiting the number of pages.  A single-page, two-sided newsletter that appears every month is preferred.  Your goal is to build awareness and maintain mindshare among clients and prospects.  Avoid overly-ambitious newsletter programs that require more time and money than you can comfortably invest.

33.  Choose a distinctive, benefit-oriented title  Newsletter success begins with the nameplate, the stylized treatment of your newsletter’s title that appears on the front page of each issue.  Your newsletter’s title should serve as an icon, or visual symbol, signaling the content of your newsletter.

34.  Choose a distinctive, benefit-oriented title  A title consisting of a few short words is better than one containing several long words.  Avoid “brag and boast” titles, titles that do not offer readers a benefit.  Avoid cluttered nameplates.  Newsletter nameplate emerges as a distinct visual element, separate from the headlines and text that follows.

35.  Choose the right margins and column layout.  White space is the least expensive way you can make your newsletter more attractive and easier to read.  Always provide sufficient “breathing room” at tops and bottoms of your pages.  Consider leaving some columns blank.

36.  Make headlines easy to locate and read.  Headlines are crucial to the success of your newsletter.  Make headlines as short and “telegraphic” as possible.  Use white space to make your headlines more effective and easier to read.  Be consistent.

37.  Insert frequent subheads  Subheads add visual interest to your articles and makes them easier to read by breaking long expanses of text into manageable, bite sized chunks.  Readers likely to skim subheads until they find a topic that is interesting to them.  Subheads must contrast with the text they introduce.

38.  Make body copy as easy to read as possible.  Body copy should be as transparent as possible.  Use a typeface that doesn’t draw undue attention to itself.  Consider setting body copy text flush-left/ragged- right. ▪ Allows readers to establish a rhythm, making their job easier.

39.  Choose the right punctuation and spacing.  Pay attention to details like punctuation and spacing.  Clients judge professionalism by the way you handle these two small things.  Use proper apostrophe symbol and open and closed quotation marks.  Double check for accuracy.  Use non-breaking spaces to avoid splitting proper nouns, cities and states and dates across two lines.

40.  Align visuals with column boundaries.  Avoid photographs that straddle two columns or extend into adjacent columns.  Aligning photographs with column boundaries emphasizes the structure of your newsletter and makes it easier to read.

41.  Provide meaningful and readable captions.  Captions are the third most noticed part of your newsletter.  Captions not only identify the contents and importance of each photograph, table or chart, but also explains their relationship to the adjacent text.

42.  Use color with restraint.  Exercise restraint when adding a second color.  Concentrate color in a few key locations.  Avoid using a different color for each issue.  Consider saving money by pre-printing second color highlights and accents.  Printing your newsletter on colored newsletter papers.

43.  Detail your newsletter  Go through newsletter line by line checking for simple errors.  Widows and orphans refer to lines, or sentence fragments, isolated at the tops or bottom of pages or columns.  Try to insert non-breaking spaces to prevent first and last names from appearing on two lines.

44.  Simplify your design.  Strive for simplicity.  Avoid temptation to use to much bold or italics within your body copy.  Eliminate unnecessary boxes, borders, or rulers.  Clutter detracts from your message.

45.  Faraday. (2000). Visual Paths Learning. Retrieved from http://spinner.cofc.edu/~learning/visualhier.html?referrer=we bcluster& http://spinner.cofc.edu/~learning/visualhier.html?referrer=we bcluster&  Notice writing examples. (2011, October 28). Retrieved from http://targetstudy.com/languages/english/notice-writing.html http://targetstudy.com/languages/english/notice-writing.html  Parker, R. C. (2000). Create the perfect business or organization newsletter: Twelve steps to success. Retrieved from http://www.newentrepreneur.com/Resources/Articles/12_Step _Newsletter/12_step_newsletter.html http://www.newentrepreneur.com/Resources/Articles/12_Step _Newsletter/12_step_newsletter.html  Pennisi, L. A. (2011). University of Lincoln Nebraska. In Retrieved from http://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/live/g2028/build/g2028.pdfhttp://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/live/g2028/build/g2028.pdf