Internal Communications Email Newsletter: Benefits and How to Launch

Research indicates that companies with elevated employee engagement levels outperform their rivals by 147%.

Regardless of the sector, highly engaged workers are significantly more efficient, extremely content with their positions, and have a collaborative attitude.

We have a simple answer for you if you also want to maintain a pleasant workplace culture and a highly engaged workforce: an internal communication email newsletter.

A consistent internal newsletter can improve productivity, encourage collaboration, promote transparency, and more in a fast-paced workplace where employees are continuously chasing deadlines and job goals.

Emails for internal communications can be sent using a variety of digital platforms that are available.

Benefits of Email Newsletter

Newsletters for internal communications serve more purposes than only informing staff members of updates and critical information. You’ll be shocked to hear about all the advantages that email newsletters offer.

Examples of content for an employee newsletter could be company news updates, team accomplishment highlights, resources for professional growth, and interactive features like polls and surveys.

Here are the top five benefits of email newsletters worth considering:

1.  Foster Connection and Collaboration

Internal newsletters are a helpful medium for organization-wide announcements and updates. Collaborating and fostering a sense of community can also be achieved through sharing success stories. When workers feel linked, they are more inclined to collaborate well.

Furthermore, the culture of working remotely, which surfaced following the global COVID-19 outbreak, is expanding. The monthly and quarterly internal newsletters will keep all employees up to date on organization news, no matter where they are in the world.

2.  Enhance Professional Development

Internal newsletters can also be a great platform for addressing the professional development and learning needs of employees.

Valuable resources like industry trends, insights, training opportunities, recent statistics, and more can be added to the newsletter to ensure all employees learn something new each time they open the newsletter. All you have to do is spend some time researching and collecting important industry-related information while creating the newsletter.

3.  Boost Morale and Recognition

Highlighting employee accomplishments and milestones in a newsletter is a great way to raise spirits.

For example, a monthly incentive and recognition program with superhero teams, employee of the month, organizational brand ambassadors, and more can be implemented through internal newsletters. This also works as a motivating factor, urging teams and employees to work harder and featured in the organization-wide internal newsletter.

4.  Ensure Transparency and Alignment

While organizations follow a long-term strategy for achieving their goals, they also revisit it regularly to ensure market adaptability and achieve a competitive edge.

An internal newsletter can be utilized in these situations to openly discuss the company’s aims, plans, and developments as well as its culture.

Employee productivity and effectiveness are more likely to increase when they are in line with the organization’s aims and values.

5.  Improve Information Retention

Email newsletters prove to be a flexible way for employees to access and review important information as and when required.

Unlike verbal announcements or meetings, newsletters can be easily referenced, ensuring that key messages are not forgotten. Important messages and sections can be creatively highlighted to garner reader attention and foster long-term retention.

Internal newsletter examples that improve information retention might include highlighted key points and summaries to ensure crucial updates are easily accessible and memorable. Incorporating FAQs and how-to guides can address common questions and provide clear instructions, while visual reminders like infographics or charts help make complex information more digestible.

Also Read: Importance of Inclusive Communication in Deskless Work Environments

Key Elements of an Effective Internal Newsletter

The above-mentioned benefits of an internal newsletter can only be optimized through a well-curated and engaging newsletter.

Making sure your newsletters meet the demands of your audience is crucial. When writing your newsletter, use your imagination and include graphics, videos, and photographs to keep readers interested and involved.

Achieving the ideal balance between educational and entertaining material for the newsletter should be the aim.

Here are some key elements you must keep in mind while creating your newsletters:

1.  Engaging Subject Lines

Some of the common techniques used to create an engaging subject line are:

1. Asking a question
2. Sharing a how-to or step-by-step guide
3. Adding surprising facts or statistics
4. Predicting the desired outcome of reading the newsletter
5. Creating a sense of urgency
6. Personalizing the subject line beyond the recipient’s name
7. Being clear and avoiding jargon

2.  Design and Layout

A newsletter with good design and aesthetic appeal has a higher chance of being read. Make use of a professional, uncluttered layout with distinct headings, subheadings, and photos. Making sure that the layout is simple to utilize on desktop and mobile devices is also crucial.

Here are some tips for creating a well-designed newsletter layout:

1. Maintain consistent spacing and padding to give it a clean look.
2. Provide information as listicles, as they are easy to read and skim through.
3. Ensure a consistent use of brand elements like colours and fonts for a professional look.
4. Add a colour filter to images to match the brand colour.
5. Pick alternating brand colour to differentiate between sections.
6. Incorporate icons that reflect the theme of content.
7. Add GIF images instead of PNGs and JPEGs in some sections.

3.  Content Variety

“I have always tried to incorporate the ‘voice’ of the company’s people, with sections dedicated to Q&As, blogs or articles written by employees,” says Olga Sanchez, as reported by Forbes. Therefore, it is important to branch out and not just be limited to important announcements and updates.

Keep the newsletter engaging by incorporating sections where employees see themselves represented.

For instance, add sections like employee opinion pieces, creativity showcases, video testimonials, etc. You can also incorporate fun facts or quizzes to enhance the content variety and offer something exciting to the readers each time they open the newsletter.

4.  Interactivity

Another way to boost the open rate of your newsletter is by incorporating interactive elements. These elements allow the readers to interact with the content in a fun and engaging way. Add employee surveys, polls, animation, games and quizzes to make the reading experience in the newsletter more memorable for the readers.

Additionally, these interactive elements can also be leveraged to collect valuable data and insights. For instance, you can roll out surveys to gather your employees’ perspectives about your customers’ preferences, behaviors, and demographics.

Also Read: Strategies to Encourage Feedback From Deskless Worker

How to Launch Your Internal Communications Email Newsletter?

Source

With the benefits and the main elements of how to write a newsletter in mind, let’s move on to understanding how to create and launch your newsletter.

Here is a step-by-step guide to help you get started:

1.  Planning and Strategy

You must choose the newsletter’s purpose before you can begin creating it. You may choose your target audience and the kind of material you want to provide them with by clearly articulating the objectives.

You also need to begin considering the objectives of your newsletter in parallel. We strongly advise using the SMART goals to establish and stick to an action plan for your newsletter.

SMART objectives are time-bound, specific, measurable, achievable, and relevant. You can attain your objectives within the allotted time by defining these parameters during the planning and strategy stages.

Deciding how frequently to deliver your newsletter will be the next step. Sending a newsletter on a weekly, biweekly, monthly, or quarterly basis is up to you, but keep in mind that the secret to using it to develop an internal communications network is consistency.

2.  Choosing an Email Marketing Platform

Selecting a trustworthy newsletter platform that will help you send your email newsletters is the next step. It might be challenging to navigate the plethora of options available in the digital space. Moosend, HubSpot, Active Campaign, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and others are some of the reliable and popular options.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself while picking a newsletter platform:

1. How easy is it to write and design the newsletter?
2. How many people can be added to the sender’s list with each pricing plan?
3. What features does the platform offer to make the newsletter more creative and engaging?
4. What are its analytical and reporting capabilities?
5. How much will it cost as the newsletter grows?
6. How easy is it to migrate to it or from it?

3.  Content Creation

Once you have picked the right platform for you, it is time to start gathering and creating content. We have broken down the content creation process into three steps to help make it faster and smoother for you:

Step 1: Gather Content

Collect news, updates, stories, and other relevant information from various departments and teams within your organization. Also, spend some time researching the industry and collecting some insights you would like to add to the newsletter as knowledge pieces. If you have some other type of content you want to include like polls, surveys, videos, etc, gather those as well.

Step 2: Write a Compelling Copy

Pick up the sections which require creating content from scratch. Remember to keep the writing concise, engaging, and informative. Use a conversational tone and avoid jargon.

Step 3: Incorporate Visuals

It’s crucial to include some graphic components to break up the material and add visual appeal to the email because too much text can bore readers. Icons, pictures, GIFs, movies, animation, tables, charts, and more can all be added.

4.  Layout and Design

Creating the newsletter design is the next stage.

Nearly all email marketing systems offer pre-made email newsletter templates. After perusing those templates, you can select the one that most closely matches your desired layout and alter it to meet your branding requirements.

Keep in mind that big paragraphs should be broken up with bullet points and clear headers and subheadings to keep the design neat and uncluttered.

The best layouts are those which show off your content effectively while retaining some white space to avoid a cluttered look. Try to follow an F or Z pattern while distributing your content in the newsletter.

For instance, in the Z pattern, the top of the newsletter entails the most crucial information, the details of the information are mentioned in the middle, followed by a CTA at the bottom.

5.  Distribution and Feedback

Make sure you collect employee email addresses and ensure they have opted in to receive your newsletter. Once the list is ready, send your newsletter at the time that best suits all your emails.

Don’t forget to get feedback on your email newsletter after it has been sent successfully. By doing this, you’ll be able to better serve your audience while taking into account their interests and preferences.

You can increase the efficacy of your communications and develop a more knowledgeable and involved staff by adhering to the internal communications newsletter best practices outlined here.

Also Read: Proven Techniques to Maximize Internal Email Effectiveness

Closing Thoughts

The benefits of an internal communications email newsletter are numerous, as it is a highly versatile and effective tool for enhancing employee engagement, fostering a positive workplace culture, and driving organizational success.

You can establish an informative, motivating, and uplifting communication channel that engages and uplifts your staff by using the measures described in this guide and including the essential components of a successful newsletter.

Recall that your newsletter’s success rests on your dedication to producing insightful material, interacting with readers, and iteratively improving in response to criticism.

Unlock the full potential of your organization’s internal communications email newsletter by starting to plan it now.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the two best practices for internal newsletters?

Selecting the appropriate target audience for your newsletter and providing them with useful and educational content are two best practices for internal newsletters.

2. What is the objective of an email newsletter for internal communications?

An employee internal communication newsletter’s goals are to guarantee organizational transparency, improve professional development, and create a feeling of community within the workforce.

3. How frequently should an internal newsletter be sent out?

The needs of your company and the kind of content you want to provide will determine how often your newsletter is published. It can be sent monthly, every two weeks, or every week.

4. How can I assess whether my internal communications newsletter is a success?

Monitor data like open rates, click-through rates, and engagement levels to gauge the effectiveness of your internal communications newsletter. To evaluate the impact of the newsletter on communication efficacy and overall employee satisfaction, collect employee feedback via questionnaires or direct remarks.