How to Create an Employee Newsletter: Expert Tips
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Your employees deserve to feel like they know what’s going on in the business. It’s a win-win for employers and employees alike to be engaged because highly engaged employees can contribute to higher profits and lower turnover rates.
So, knowing how to create an employee newsletter, which promotes engagement, can have a measurable impact on your business! That’s why we’re going to share some fun employee newsletter ideas and internal newsletter examples that you can use in your business!
An employee newsletter is a workplace communication that is sent digitally to your internal staff. Also called a company newsletter, or internal communications newsletter, an employee newsletter helps to keep employees up-to-date on the company with relevant news, updates, events, milestones, and more.
While your entire staff may benefit from knowing the same news, it’s also possible to send an employee newsletter that’s tailored for each department individually.
Either way, employee newsletters should be sent consistently and with purpose to keep employees engaged and excited about receiving the next one.
The best employee newsletter examples all have something in common– they add value to the lives of employees who read them.
Knowing how to create an employee newsletter is important because employee newsletters aid in:
An employee newsletter offers a wide array of advantages for businesses who take the time to send them out on a recurrent basis. The best part of it all is that with an email builder, creating and distributing employee newsletters is a seamless experience.
The drag-and-drop functionality of an email builder, coupled with a library of pre-built templates, makes the design process a breeze (with no need for a designer or coder). Then, when you’re ready to send, you can use your preferred email service provider of choice to export your HTML and send just like your regular emails.
Creating the best employee newsletter doesn’t just happen by chance. It takes knowledge, planning, and the right tools to get it done!
We’re here to share some of the main things you need to know so that you’ll be on your way in mastering how to create an employee newsletter. These tips and tricks are dedicated towards maximizing engagement, driving value, and making the process as simple as possible.
We put this one at number one because honestly, it’s going to be the most game changing tip you can follow. Here’s why:
A drag-and-drop email builder makes it possible for anyone, with or without experience, to design and distribute a beautifully aesthetic and professionally branded employee newsletter.
Most importantly, an email builder has amazing features that enable you to incorporate multimedia seamlessly, ensure mobile responsiveness, and set up the email structure with best practices engrained and without added effort.
It’s a surefire tool of the trade, and you don’t want to be stuck without one as you can save time, money, and mistakes with an email builder in tow. All the while, you can boost engagement.
Let’s face it– your employees are stuck sifting through emails every day. The last thing they want is another email that’s too long, too hard to read, or too boring to care about.
This is where writing conversationally can give you the upper hand. Rather than being overly formal, stick to your brand’s tone of voice while making an employee newsletter friendly. After all, they aren’t meant to read like a technical how-to guide.
Employee newsletters are an internal communication piece, so naturally, they should be branded and in line with your company’s identity. To accomplish this, be sure to incorporate your business’ logo, color palette, and typography within your creation.
With an email builder, you can save styles and a brand kit, so you never have to think about updating these details every time you start a new email creation.
Another helpful element is a branded footer that will include all the extra tidbits that don’t fit within the body content, such as: contact information, social links, and an unsubscribe button.
With all the emails in your inbox, which ones do your eyes rush to? It’s either the one from someone that you consider important or the one with the headline that sparks intrigue.
A strong subject line should grab attention while also providing a hint at what the email content is all about. But, remember, don’t give it all away at first sight– let there be some mystery involved so that the reader wants to find out more by, you guessed it, opening the email!
Nowadays, nearly 2 billion people use their phones to open an email. You know what that means, right? Your employee newsletter must display properly across device sizes. There’s a term for this, which is called mobile responsiveness.
With an email builder that performs the tests inherently and structures templates that are mobile responsive, you’ll no longer have to test each email yourself before sending. This saves you a lot of time and worry!
Multimedia is the use of GIFs, videos, and imagery to break up your content. Not only is it visually appealing, but it can contribute to the content’s value greatly without clogging up the email with an overwhelming amount of information.
Some email builders offer an image editor directly within the design process, so you can crop and resize images as you see fit. Additionally, you can take advantage of their vast royalty-free image library.
When sending out an employee newsletter, the most important outcome is that employees enjoy it and derive value from it.
Along with data and analytics (which we will come back to shortly), requesting feedback from your employees is a great way to know how your newsletter is being received. Do employees enjoy the content?
Are they looking for different types of information? Ask them, and when they provide feedback, be sure to apply it moving forward!
Employee newsletters are meant to be sent via email. Email builders that integrate with your existing service providers like Gmail and Outlook add extra value.
Along with these simple ways to export HTML and send via email, you can also amplify your employee newsletter across other channels. For example, you may wish to share your employee newsletter on your company-wide messaging app, like Slack, or via your intranet.
The best email builders support that integration, too.
An employee newsletter is a great way to showcase upcoming events and drive attendance. In fact, an employee newsletter can be entirely dedicated to an upcoming event.
This can help to increase attendance and prompt engagement on behalf of employees, whether the event is intended for celebration, to boost teamwork, or offer training and development.
The structure of your employee newsletter determines the flow and also helps readers to navigate through the content. Since many people end up skimming emails, it is advisable to place the most important information at the very top.
Also, the use of headlines can help direct a readers’ attention to the most prominent points you wish to make. With pre-built templates provided by email builders, structuring the layout of an email is already managed for you.
This gives you back time to focus on the content itself rather than having to adjust the layout and boost engagement.
You’ve heard the saying, “Content is king.” It’s true, even when talking about employee newsletters because the content is what you have to say and how you get your message across.
As alluded to above, when you use an email builder and start with a template, rather than a blank slate, you can spend more time writing and optimizing your content.
A copywriting process with editing and proofreading to close it out proves beneficial for all.
Chances are that when you send an employee newsletter, there’s an action you want your employees to follow up with. Be it to read the entirety of a blog, register for an event, book a meeting, or the like, a strong call-to-action sets the tone for what comes next.
A call-to-action should be concise, appear as a button or link (so readers know it’s clickable), and stand out from the rest of the copy so it doesn’t go overlooked.
Analytics help you to know how your newsletter is performing with your audience. Some email builders offer this additional benefit by providing this insightful data upon sending to your list.
Some of the most critical analytics to pay attention to include: open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates (depending on your business goals).
In some cases, you’ll send an employee newsletter that is only intended or relevant to a select group of employees rather than your entire company. If this is the case, remember to segment your audience.
That means, break up your employee email list into sections based on the message you are sending. Only send information that is relevant to an audience because you want to avoid overload or them choosing to unsubscribe or ignore your next email under the guise that it’s not intended for them.
While we’re closing out with this point, it’s certainly one of the most important concepts to remember when learning how to create an employee newsletter.
Copy and design play hand-in-hand with one another. Even if you have a lot to say, you can’t just throw it all on the page without line breaks, white space, imagery, headlines versus body copy, etc.
Copy and design should balance each other out and serve as a tool for a reader. Again, an email builder provides you with the basics like templates, along with drag-and-drop functionality, so you don’t have to fret much about balance– it’s preconfigured for you accordingly.
To send or not to send? That is the question. And, the answer is a resounding, “Yes.”
With all the internal newsletter examples available to you, along with the help of an email builder that makes knowing how to create an employee newsletter a fun and direct experience, you can boost engagement, spark excitement, and keep your employees up-to-date with all they need to know at any point in time.
Suffice it to say, sending company newsletters can be low-cost, while providing a high return.
