Your company newsletter is a powerful communication tool that can help build a consistent and trusted voice within your organization. From internal job postings to sharing news of behind-the-scenes activity, a company newsletter is an excellent way to foster growth and loyalty among your employees, as well as give potential clients or customers a glimpse of what your organization values and how it operates.
However, the process of curating an editorial schedule, creating engaging content on a consistent basis, and ensuring that the final product is free of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes is a lot to take on. This is especially true if it's just one or two people handling it each month.
That's why if you are going to create a company newsletter, it needs to be carefully planned and executed to ensure there will be engaging content that gets results. This requires first asking the question—what results do you hope to attain from the amount of time and effort that will go into publishing a company newsletter on a regular basis?
Some companies might prefer to create a newsletter that serves as a mode of communication between management and employees. In this case, the results you're wanting to achieve are likely to build employee morale and create an engaging publication that employees will actually read (instead of delete or throw away). Other companies might prefer to create a newsletter as a marketing strategy, in which case increased customer engagement or contact would be the preferred result. Of course, a newsletter could accomplish all of the above tasks but the important thing is to make sure you know what results you're wanting to achieve with the newsletter each time it is published.
Whether you are just starting out planning and creating your company newsletter, or simply need ideas to revamp the current one you're distributing, here are a few important tips on how to write a company newsletter that gets results.
Start with a name that grabs attention
Using the company name as the newsletter title might seem like a good idea but you'd be missing out on an opportunity to create a title that grabs attention and attracts the interest of your readers. For example, if a company's name is Society Catering and they offer catering services for special events, naming the newsletter "Society" would fail to attract readers – especially those unfamiliar with what the company offers. However, since the target audience would be current employees as well as potential clientele, a name like "Bits and Bites" would be catchier and provide a hint at the type of service your company provides.
Write it for a "soft sell"
Although publishing a newsletter can be a great way to attract new business and increase revenue, using it as a way to obviously promote your products or services can backfire and cause readers to lose interest. Even if the results you're hoping to achieve are for marketing strategy, your readers will prefer that you keep your company newsletter on the soft side of selling. For this reason, you should carefully curate and consider the content you include in your company newsletter to ensure that it doesn't read like an overt sales pitch. Any kind of obvious propaganda or sales tactics will likely cause your newsletter to lose readers' interest, especially your employee readership.
Instead, think of your company newsletter content as being similar to what you'd find in a newspaper. If the company has won awards or surpassed sales goals, you can report on these, but avoid content that sounds like it was written as a sales brochure. Think of your newsletter as a way to build your brand image more than a way to sell products or services.
Make it professional
As with any publication, ensuring that it is grammatically correct and typo-free will go a long way in building rapport and respect with your readership. Grammatical errors or mistypes generally come across as unprofessional, and can make it seem like you've published the newsletter in a hurry or as an afterthought rather than attempting to put out informative, engaging content.
Consider your company newsletter to be an invitation for potential customers or clients to get to know your business and the people who work there. In the same sense you wouldn't publish sales brochures or press releases with grammatical errors or typos, your newsletter should also be carefully edited, as well. If proofreading is too tedious a task, consider hiring a professional editor who can look over the content carefully before it is sent out to employees, clients, and potential clients.
Make use of the front page to attract reader interest
A newspaper focuses on its front-page story because editors are aware that this is the story that will first catch a potential reader's eye and make them want to continue reading the publication. Without this eye-catching material, it's very likely that your reader will dismiss the newsletter as junk mail and toss it (or delete the email if you send your newsletter in digital format).
This is where it gets a bit tricky if you are publishing a company newsletter for employees and prospective clients, because what an employee finds interesting to read might not be the same content as what a potential client would find intriguing. If your intended audience is both employees and clients, consider articles focusing on behind the scenes on the job or noteworthy activities the company has participated in. This can be especially useful if your company has participated in fundraising activities for a local charity, or has won an award for its product or services. These types of articles will raise employee morale and boost your company brand for current and prospective clients who might be reading.
Use graphics and photos to create visual breaks
If you've ever paid close attention to how magazines and newspapers are designed, you'll notice that both attempt to break up large chunks of words with photos, artwork, charts, or pull-out quotes. These graphics help make the overall design of the page more visually appealing, and ultimately, easier to read compared to solid blocks of text.
According to Brain Rules by John Medina, humans have an incredible capacity to remember pictures. If you simply hear a piece of information, three days later, you'll remember 10% of it. Add a picture to that information and three days later, you'll remember 65%.
Use the opportunity to build employee morale
While some company newsletters are meant for present and potential clients to read, others are intended for employees only. If your company newsletter is the latter, there are great ideas to include in your newsletter content to help build employee morale and inspire a better team spirit within your organization. These types of content could include:
- News from headquarters
- Branch office news
- Employee benefits news
- Sales tips for employees
- Educating employees about a new service your company is offering to customers
- Articles about ways in which the company gives back to the community
- Featured employee profiles
- Employee news announcements (birth of a new baby, employees who have recently earned a degree or recognition, etc.)
- Employee service anniversaries
Include guest articles and articles written by employees
This can be fun content regardless of the purpose of your company newsletter, and is a great way to get people excited to read the publication. You could even provide story starters or suggested topics when you task an employee to write. These types of stories or "listicle" articles generate interest for both the person writing the content for you, as well as their peers in the office. Some examples might be:
- "My Top-10 Favorite Life Moments"
- "10 Reasons Why I Love [favorite book or movie]"
- "One Life Lesson I Learned the Hard Way"
- "My Bucket List"
- "A Book That Changed My Life"
Use surveys for team recommendations and similar engaging content
Another type of content people enjoy reading are recommendation articles and the surveys that inspire them. You might include an article for the "Top Five Favorite Lunch Spots Near Work" or "Funniest Office Moments of the Year." Surveys can be especially easy if you use an email newsletter template, with links to take the survey online. These types of surveys are quick to make and generate interest for a lot of readers.
Publish team spotlights and employee profiles
This type of content is especially engaging for employees and prospective clients, alike. Your clients like to learn more about the people who will provide the service or product your company offers, while employees enjoy getting to know each other on a more personal level. Team spotlight articles are not only great for employee morale, they also show your clients how your organization runs and who handles what in the purchasing process.
