The first few newsletters I get from a company are usually very informative. Because they've just started their newsletter printing they have a lot of different things to talk about. They go over all the different aspects of their company, different things they're selling, and a whole slew of other information that their customers have never had access to before.

But give the newsletter enough time and the quality begins to fade. Soon the topics start to repeat, the features remain the same, and the enthusiasm clearly begins to die off. After awhile I'd imagine that most of the customers are no longer even reading the newsletter. They don't bother to go through much of it because they already know what it's going to say. The boredom from the people running the newsletter printing begins to trickle down to the people receiving them, until the point is reached where no one particularly cares about it anymore.

Do you have any newsletters like this that you're getting on a regular basis? One shows up in your mail each month but you very rarely bother to read it anymore. The topics are never that interesting and it doesn't give you any new information. You've heard it all before?

Many companies fall into this rut, which is sad, because it isn't that hard to avoid it if you're careful about how you go about handling your newsletter.

As soon as you start to make too much of a routine out of your newsletter is the moment that you lose quality. Companies practically put their newsletters on auto pilot, never really considering anything new for it, and just pumping out a basic, boring newsletter.

Keep up that first enthusiasm that you had when the newsletter began. Try to figure out new articles you can write or new ways you can approach various subjects. Find out ways to make your newsletter interesting for anyone to read. All industries are going to be changing on a regular basis, so use that change to your advantage to give people something different than what they've been reading already.

The only way you can keep a newsletter popular is if you keep your own excitement about it high up there as well. You can change a lot about your newsletter while still maintaining a strong structure people are familiar with. This way you can have the benefits of repetition with the strengths of variety at the same time.