Why You Should be Sending Newsletters to Your Employees
Starting with this post, we will begin a new series outlining the best practices for Sending Internal Newsletters in SharePoint and SharePoint Online. Here we will be sharing some of our own experiences, and a number of simple tips on how to improve your internal communication using SharePoint.
Plan for Internal Newsletters in SharePoint
1. Why You Should be Sending Newsletters to Your Employees
2. How to Write an Internal Newsletter Your Employees Will Want to Read
3. 10 Topic Ideas to Help You Jumpstart your Internal Newsletter Campaign
4. Why Your Internal Newsletter Communications Should Be About Security, Too
5. How You Can Use Insights Into Your Internal Newsletter Campaign to Boost Results
6. How to Turn Your SharePoint into the Ultimate Engagement Platform
7. How Information Architecture Will Help You Automate Content Delivery
8. Responsive Email Templates, Why Do We Use Them?
9. Newsletter Metrics, Link Clicks and Opens, How They Work
From One Assembly Line to the Next
Remember how we used to work on an assembly line in some damp factory hall? Me neither. However, companies nowadays still resemble those factory assembly lines. Not in their abysmal working conditions, but in everyone having their own specialty and specific tasks. Needless to say, this is what makes a business run smoothly, but it can be a pitfall too. People at the start of the line lose sight of the end product. And then they lose morale.
Fortunately, we live in a time in which email is one of the main forms of communication. It could not be simpler to remind employees of that shared goal at the end of this modern-day assembly line. This is true for even the largest organizations.
Continuing this train of thought, internal communications and internal newsletters have become buzzwords you can no longer ignore. This is not without reason. Research has shown that internal newsletters can be a great way to keep staff informed, engaged and in positive spirits. And for those who want to see results: they can be a great productivity booster too.
Here I gathered the 5 most commonly asked questions, and their answers, about internal newsletters. All to help you jumpstart your own internal email campaign.
1. Do my employees want to receive newsletters?
Yes! But this can be a double-edged sword too. The last thing people wish to receive is yet another forged reminder of the company’s vision or strategy, at least not in that form. They want to receive tailored information. When deciding to read a newsletter anyone will ask themselves: Will reading this benefit me?
2. Won’t my employees’ inboxes get cluttered if I send newsletters?
Hold your horses (and newsletters)! I would claim that the opposite is true. As long as you do not send out mass generic newsletters you have dodged the first bullet. By using your employee data you can send out relevant, personalized information. Straight to the people you want to receive it. Research shows that Personalized Newsletters have more chance of being opened and read.
3. Why should I care about sending internal newsletters?
Keeping your staff up to date with the hottest developments and insights in your business – an upcoming merger, the CEO’s daily schedule, or even the purchase of a brand new office orange press – keeps them engaged. On top of that, it gives you the possibility, notwithstanding the size of your business, to make personal what may otherwise seem static and abstract.
4. I already have a well-working intranet. Why would I send internal newsletters on top of that?
Internal newsletters complement those channels you already work with, may they be Office 365, SharePoint, Yammer or any other. So don’t see your existing intranet as a drawback. Instead use the data from your intranet to create better, more personalized newsletters. You could even use your newsletters to boost traffic to your intranet.
5. How do I write a good internal newsletter?
Writing an effective and readable newsletter is not something you do at the end of the day with no time to spare. There is a whole checklist of factors you should keep in mind whilst writing and I will get into all of these later on in this blog series. Many of these tips, however, can be summarized into one golden rule: Know your audience. 70% of your newsletter should be covering topics that are of great interest to your reader. The remaining 30% can then be used to outline your own agenda points.
Out of the Assembly Line
To sum it all up: when a member of staff is engaged with the whole of your business and its eventual end product, he is no longer simply focused on the goings on in his own cubicle. Internal newsletters can keep your employees out of that dreaded assembly line, and instead place them at the front line of your organization.
Do you send internal newsletters? Would you recommend other businesses to use them? Or maybe you know of a good additional reason for sending internal newsletters.
Coming up next in our Best Practices for Internal Newsletters series:
How to Write an Internal Newsletter Your Employees Will Want to Read
