Building Two-way Communication with Company Newsletters
Two-way communication is vital in improving employees’ experience at the workplace.
There are different channels recommended to build two-way connections with employees. A frequently used communication channel is an internal newsletter. It’s a simple and inexpensive way to inform employees and boost their engagement.
Company newsletters sound formal, but they can genuinely connect and inspire employees. We’ll discuss how internal newsletters and embedded surveys can be powerful tools for building effective two-way communication with employees and provide a newsletter template with tips.
This blog is a part of the Recipe of Employee Engagement series:
- Importance of Two-way Communication in the Workplace
- Building Two-way Communication with Company Newsletters
- Creating and Measuring Effective Employee Newsletters
- Employee Email Survey Templates Ideas
Content is king
When talking about internal newsletters, one of the biggest concerns of companies is the source of information. What should be communication topics? How to create quality content? How to make it engaging? We’ve prepared a template of 10 ideas to inspire your internal communication and boost employee engagement.
Newsletter template #1: Important news
We suggest pushing the most critical information to the top of your newsletter. This way, you can make sure that something employees must learn about is immediately visible when a newsletter is opened. The focus here is on providing valuable content.
Topics can vary depending on your company. It doesn’t have to include high-level company updates or goals but needs to be informative and digestible content for recipients.
Newsletter template #2: Company-focused content
A newsletter is a perfect channel to keep employees updated on what’s happening in the company and different departments. So, company changes, department updates, product or service releases, and policy changes can be posted in your newsletter. To keep the engagement level high, always remember that employees should see how that news and updates are related to their job role.
Newsletter template #3: Employee-focused content
Put your employees in the spotlight. The content focused on employees is an integral part of two-way communication. Celebrate people, their accomplishments, promotions, or positive feedback from clients or colleagues. Psychologists have proven that people enjoy talking about themselves. Let employees share their stories of success or their activities.
The newsletter is also a space to post about new opportunities for employees, such as open positions, conferences, or contests they can apply.
Newsletter template #4: Surveys and polls
Email survey and poll is the best tool to include two-way communication in your newsletters. Embedded surveys are easy to get responses to and engage employees to share their feedback and be heard. It’s also an effective way to bring creativity with questions and answer options and inspire employees.
There are many ways to use surveys for communication and company effectiveness. They can provide information about what your employees might like or dislike in internal communication or other company processes. For instance, use icons and emojis to ask to share feedback on a newsletter. Employees can add their comments and suggest future newsletter ideas. What is a better source for improving communication strategy than people who are the target audience?
Other use of surveys can be creative and fun. Asking exciting questions with fun answer options can boost engagement and turn the company newsletter into something exciting.
Image-based surveys can transform the feedback process to a new level – they grab the attention of any reader. Picture surveys also have multiple uses starting from questions about favorite coffee and finishing with high-importance questions on product prototypes or branding.
In JungleMail 365, we offer prepared survey templates ready to be sent to your employees and boost engagement (including image-based surveys!).
Newsletter template #5: Invitations
A newsletter is a suitable place for invitations and reminders – something you don’t want employees to miss out on. Invite employees to different events: contests, conferences, or office parties. We suggest putting it in a format that would be easily noticeable and spotted in the whole newsletter template.
Newsletter template #6: Events
Did any event take place in your office? How well it went? What about a program? An internal newsletter is the right place for events overview and highlights. You can also share a photo gallery or article about the event.
Newsletter template #7: Webinars
Any webinar, course, or generally helpful video you want to share? Add it to your newsletter. 59% of executives said that they would choose to watch a video rather than read text. So video format is worth considering and including in your newsletter for higher engagement rates.
Newsletter template #8: New hire congratulations
A newsletter can be a place to learn about staff who have joined the organization. Especially for enterprises, it can be tricky to present new hires to the whole workforce; a section dedicated to new company members keeps everyone informed about team changes and allows them to greet new people better.
Newsletter template #9: Employees’ out-of-work activities
Sharing moments out of work boosts employee engagement and company culture. This lets employees learn about each other and creates opportunities to connect. The option here is to collect a photo gallery or step it up and turn it into voting for the most fun picture or activity by doing an image-based survey that works by simply clicking on images or adding buttons – click here to learn more.
Newsletter template #10: CEO Message
In big companies, for board members, it can be tricky to connect with the whole workforce. A newsletter is where the CEO or other managers on a board can be seen and connect with employees by leaving messages or sharing something inspiring.
Communication is queen
An internal newsletter is a powerful tool for creating effective two-way communication. Besides the content and ideas, it’s essential to have an effective communication strategy – to have a plan and know your steps to create internal newsletters as a two-way communication channel. We broke down four steps.
Step #1: Identifying newsletter topics
Talk with your employees about what content they would like to receive. If you send internal newsletters to the workforce, your target audience is employees. They should be the focus of your emails; thus, employees’ content preferences should be collected and considered. In JungleMail 365, we offer subscription forms where employees can select the topics they want to receive news articles in their inboxes.
Step #2: Planning newsletters
Find a balance between formal information that needs to be shared and the content employees will genuinely enjoy. Usually, newsletters are used as a communication tool to inform employees about the changes and news in a company. When we think about two-way communication, we must focus on employee engagement. Focus on interesting topics, new opportunities, photos, video content, and surveys to make newsletters exciting.
Step #3: Scheduling newsletters
Plan and stay on schedule. The frequency of newsletters ranges differently from company to company. Newsletters can vary from weekly to monthly. Here are a couple of factors to consider when deciding on a frequency: staff resources, information sources, cost, quality of information, recipients, and engagement. It’s recommended to test different frequencies to check which works best for your company or organization.
Step #4: Making newsletters engaging
Add attractive features: surveys and polls. Two-way communication happens when there is a dialogue between different parties. So how do we avoid monologue and get employees to respond quickly? Embedded surveys and polls can be an answer. Surveys can be used in multiple ways, starting with star rating a newsletter and finishing with voting for the best product prototype visual included.
Newsletters can be an effective channel for two-way communication. The content and attractive features are the keys to making this platform work for your company or organization. Two-way communication with employees should be built step by step. We hope our templates and tips inspire you to boost your communication via newsletters. In the next blog, we’ll focus on embedded surveys and polls.
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