31 Best Internal Communications Newsletter Ideas
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Looking for a way to inform your employees about important updates, events, industry news, and the like? Chances are you’re already using an internal communications newsletter to accomplish these goals.
Did you know that you can use an employee newsletter template on a web-based platform like Publicate to create beautiful newsletters in just minutes (that’s right: no graphic designer needed).
Here, we’ll share some of the best employee newsletter examples and show you how you can create an internal communications newsletter without hassle.
An employee newsletter is a regular newsletter that’s circulated internally.
It’s often a vehicle to share company news and events, build morale and celebrate achievements like Employee of the Month.
Employee newsletters can be shaped to suit your organization. Keep it light and funny or short and direct. The goal is to keep employees up-to-date and engaged in the organization, without relying on ad-hoc methods like Slack and Post-It notes.
Engaged employees are central to a healthy, growing business, so don’t put off starting an employee newsletter!
If you’re on the fence about creating an employee newsletter, this is for you.
Here are five reasons why relying on email as your internal communications channel is a good idea.
An internal communications newsletter can be a powerful tool for creating a sense of unity within a company.
Foster a culture of transparancy and information sharing between teams to help employees feel more connected and create a healthy culture.
Employees can get overwhelmed and lose track of updates that come from every angle: Zoom calls, Slack conversations, face-to-face meetings and more.
Reduce communication overload by funneling all important updates into one regular newsletter that people want to read.
Use an internal newsletter to regularly gather feedback from the people on the ground in your business - your employees.
Include surveys or polls to measure employee satisfaction, and ask for employee input on business decisions. This helps staff feel valued and makes sure your business is a great place to work.
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report found that 85% of employees are not engaged or are actively disengaged at work.
When employees feel involved, their productivity surges. One way your internal communications team can help is to regularly share news and updates, so everyone knows what’s happening at the company.
This is especially important in a post-COVID era, where more people work remotely and might appreciate an extra sense of connection.
Employee engagement triggers higher levels of morale which is good for building loyalty.
Including lots of employee-focused content in your internal newsletter shows staff their efforts don’t go unnoticed. Ultimately, you want to keep talent around and maintain a low staff turnover.
Before you dive into the best ways to create effective internal communications newsletters, be sure to review these best practices. These recommendations are geared at helping you better engage your audience and remain relevant through the messages that you send.
Use your organization’s brand voice to write newsletters but don’t be afraid to bring more humor and lightheartedness to your internal communications. Employee newsletters should be enjoyable to read.
Your employees are busy people. They don’t have lots of spare time to read internal newsletters, so keep yours short, clear and to the point. Break it up with titles and small sections so readers can jump to the information they want.
Speed up the creation of your newsletter and boost engagement by using newsletter templates. With email builders like Publicate, users can access hundreds of professionally designed templates that are perfect for an internal communications newsletter, and are optimised for sending through Gmail or Outlook. All you need to do is choose a template and customize it with Publicate’s drag-and-drop editor.
Don’t let a lack of content get in the way of an internal newsletter. There are almost endless ideas, so you’ll never run out of things to share.
You could have the most beautiful email newsletter of all time, but if the content is irrelevant to your audience, then you might as well just skip sending it. To avoid running into this issue, be sure to consider your audience and only deliver the information they actually need. Email overload and exhaustion is a real thing.
It’s also very important to be transparent with the information you share with your employees. Be honest about how the company is doing, its future plans and goals, and how they play a role in helping the organization succeed.
Emotional triggers sound intense, and sometimes, they can be. But, think of it this way: emotional triggers can be positive, too. They can be used to spur excitement, belonging, connection, curiosity, hope, and a sense of accomplishment.
Think about how you can spur those emotions on behalf of your employees when you send emails. For example, you can use a company newsletter template that touts the company’s accomplishments in the past month (i.e. sales increased by X%, and other exciting metrics that your team made possible).
Sharing thought leadership content is a surefire way to inspire and educate your readers. If you want to share content from your internal leadership, that’s just one option.
You can also include content that’s from entrepreneurs or industry leaders, such as interesting podcasts, articles, TED talks, and the like. A tool like Publicate features the options to curate content from URLs you find valuable with the click of a button. This way, you can embed various types of content, whether it be images, videos, GIFs, or links.
Before hitting send on any email, ask the big question: “Why should my team care about this?” If the answer isn’t clearly explained by the content itself, then get creative to connect it to the readers.
Here’s an idea: if you’re sharing some industry news about new trends, then share the company’s initiatives on what’s happening to keep up with the trends and how employees are making this a reality.
Don’t get too complicated with your internal communications newsletter. To avoid over complicating your emails, consider using Publicate’s templates that are already pre-designed and can be easily amended using drag-and-drop functionality.
It’s time to shine the spotlight on the people that keep your business running! You can include employees in a variety of ways. You may want to run an employee profile, share content written by employees, pass along an inspiring quote or a funny photo that made an employee smile during the week.
There’s no doubt that employees like to hear from the leaders of the business every now and then. Try to incorporate content from your leadership team when possible. If you follow recommendation #1 (refer back above), you can accomplish this better if you plan your content in advance. That way, your CEO will have adequate notice to contribute.
You can maximize the value of your internal newsletter by sharing exciting company news and making it easily shareable via social media links in the email itself. This way, your employees can be like megaphones and blast out the tidbits of information for a massive impact.
A fun way to get everyone involved in events is to publicize them internally via an internal newsletter template. Here are some example templates that serve this exact purpose; Company Bingo, Friday dress down, Quiz game.
Did your sales team surpass its sales goals for the second month in a row? That’s a big deal! Let the organization know and celebrate their wins. By sharing the big and small wins of employees and teams, you can help to boost company morale and provide motivation to employees to continue doing their best. Even celebrating birthdays can provide a little extra motivation.
Company news and policy updates don’t have to be dry and boring. Get creative with your newsletters. Share this kind of information using a meme or a witty headline. There’s always a way to make even the most serious of content more light-hearted. (Keep in mind: design can play a role in this, too. Think about the colors you use as backgrounds, the images you incorporate, and the layout of the newsletter itself).
Did you know that users spend 88% more time on a website that has video? We’re sure it’s safe to say that adding video and pictures to your email content surely won’t hurt your engagement (as long as it’s done right and doesn’t slow the load time). On Publicate’s email builder, you can very easily link a video with the click of a single button within the newsletter template of your choice.
A headline is meant to grab the reader’s attention and split up the content. Just like the synopsis on a movie title on Netflix can either catch your attention or keep you moving, so can the headline within an email template. So, infuse creativity in your headlines (some ideas: alliteration, wordplay, questions, etc.).
Reading can become passive, but you have the opportunity to make an internal communications newsletter interactive by adding polls, quizzes, or surveys. You can also make it interactive by providing a space for employees to respond and share their own content.
For example, if you have a roundup of the best articles of the week, you can keep a closing section that allows readers to share their favorite content from the week (this also is a win-win because the next time you send out this kind of email, you already have built a library of links that your team contributed).
Use your newsletter as a place to post open job vacancies. This way, you can work to promote internally first. Or, your employees may know someone that would be a perfect fit and they can recommend them for the job.
Your company has an anniversary from when it was founded, and that’s worth celebrating. You can also use newsletters to highlight passing certain milestones, which helps to keep your team motivated as they get to celebrate what they’ve helped to achieve.
Who doesn’t love a Top 10 list? Hey, you’re still here reading a Top 28 list! Top 10 lists are a snappy and simple way to share engaging content. Plus, your options for Top Lists are practically limitless.
Use your internal communications newsletter to gain feedback from your team by incorporating surveys.
Chances are that you send out emails to customers asking them how you can improve their latest experience. You can use this same approach by adding a virtual suggestion box in your newsletter.
This could be a mailto: (a hyperlink to a specific email address), which means that when someone clicks on the link to leave their feedback, it would just go to a dedicated email inbox. But, if you do this, be sure to actually monitor the inbox and take into consideration the suggestions being made.
You can add contests and giveaways into your newsletters. This way, employees have extra incentive to open the newsletter and take part in whatever contest you may be running this time around.
User-generated content is wonderful for everyone involved because employees feel heard and seen and the creator of the newsletter has to do less of the heavy lifting.
Speaking of less heavy lifting, see how a newsletter template tool like Publicate can work to dramatically reduce the time it takes to create a successful internal communications newsletter.
You might be sharing updates on your company’s intranet or social media channels, but that can easily be missed by your busy employees. Use an email newsletter template to share important company updates. This way, employees can refer back to the email easily when they have to review a new policy or process.
If you have employees constantly asking the same questions to management or HR, then devise a FAQ email to send out to the entire organization to help answer their questions and reduce your workload in answering the questions individually.
Sharing positive customer stories or product reviews internally will remind your employees why they do the work they do. Ultimately, every business wants happy customers, and a lot of that comes from how employees do their jobs. Let them know they are valued by distributing these messages!
Introduce new hires to the wider team so they can settle in faster and hit the ground running. A strong onboarding process makes great talent want to stick around, so it’s worth sharing an introduction in your internal newsletter.
Keep employees engaged by making sure they know what’s happening across the board. You can alert them to new blog posts or social media updates, and even encourage them to share the content on their own social media profiles.
Keep everyone up to date with new product releases, so they know everything they need to provide the best possible service to your customers.
Consider creating a welcome email workflow that goes out to new hires.
This could include reading material about the company (from its history to its processes) and ways employees can join in on events, fundraisers and more.
Keep staff on the same page when it comes to internal policies. Alert the team of any changes to your policies, making it clear why you’re making the changes and what it will mean for them.
Give readers the option to ask questions and share concerns.
Ask employees about their experience. Send out regular (anonymous) pulse surveys to uncover how staff feel about the organization, and spot ways to improve.
Where should you start if you want to create a newsletter for your employees?
Take the time to plan your internal comms for the best chance of creating an employee newsletter that goes the distance.
Consider why you want to start an employee newsletter.
Are you trying to keep the team connected? Do you want to keep staff more informed about company news and updates? OR do you want to entertain and have some fun?
Get clear on the goal of each newsletter so you can keep it relevant to your audience.
A whole team can jump on your internal newsletter, but it’s best to put one person in charge.
They will coordinate the internal communications team and give the final sign-off of each newsletter’s content and design.
Decide how often you’ll send newsletters (weekly, monthly or something else?) and set a schedule. This gives you a deadline so you don’t miss an email, and lets readers know when to expect the newsletter.
Most email-sending platforms let you create lists, so you can send newsletters to the entire company or you can segment recipients.
You could segment by department, location or seniority, so that each person receives relevant emails.
Outlook and Gmail also offer the ability to create lists, which is perfect for segmenting your internal reader base.
Use a tool like Publicate to create professional, highly engaging emails every time.
Publicate speeds up the email design process thanks to a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor, saving companies time and/or money on hiring designers.
There are hundreds of customizable, engaging newsletter templates to choose from. Adding your own content is simple, thanks to integrations with stock image and video sources, and the ability to add, save and organize your own content.
You’ll be able to collaborate with your team by making use of real-time editing and approvals, to streamline the newsletter creation process and ensure each one provides maximum value to employees.
When you design newsletters with an email builder like Publicate, you get access to important metrics. These metrics show you how employees interact with the emails you send, even when you send them through Outlook and Gmail.
Monitor the following metrics so you can continue to improve your internal communications newsletter.
An open rate is the percentage of recipients who open your email.
Most of the time, a healthy open rate depends on an intriguing subject line.
This reports on the percentage of recipients who click on the links in your email.
Most emails have a call-to-action (or a CTA), which directs readers somewhere else, such as a blog or an event page.
Click-through rate is a good measure of how well people interact with the content in your newsletter.
Get the stats to show how many times employees click on your content, to show you which content is the most popular and which doesn’t get much attention.
Tools like Publicate also show a visual representation of content performance, with heat maps that track other things like scroll, mouse hover and focus.
When you’re working hard to create a great internal communications newsletter, how can you be sure employees will actually read it?
We know how busy employees are, so sometimes they need an extra nudge to remind them about the newsletter. You can promote your newsletter in a few ways:
