Increase employee engagement with emails that don’t suck

Connecting with employees is both an art and a science. As a communications professional, your role is to engage employees, drive awareness and build culture. But as you know, that’s easier said than done.

So, how can your message cut through the communications clutter and actually reach employees?

At ContactMonkey, we believe that an employee newsletter is the cornerstone of internal comms. Better employee emails have the power to educate, empower and entertain — the communications triple threat.

Leveraging proven tools to build emails that employees will genuinely like, or even love, is game-changing. Deploying the right internal communications platform is the difference between “meh” and great engagement — which affects all facets of your organization.

Read on as we share the five ways a great employee newsletter boosts engagement and helps to surpass communications goals.

The 5 Traits of Highly Effective Email Newsletters

1. Never too much, too soon.

Employee newsletters are a vital tool for sharing critical information with employees in an accessible, easy-to-digest way. With so many employees suffering from communication overload, newsletters can decrease your organization’s overall email volume and consolidate essential updates into a single, engaging communication channel — ensuring that all employees are on the same page.

Plus, a thoughtfully organized newsletter makes the key takeaways obvious, which offloads the work of prioritizing information from readers. Whether they’re receiving company updates, education and training, or celebrating achievements, employees can be sure they’re getting the most important information, resulting in a more informed and connected workforce!

2. Ready for a conversation, not a monologue.

Newsletters don’t have to be one-sided. Sure, they’re a great tool for informing employees, but they can also be a way for employees to keep leaders and communicators informed in turn.

Including interactive elements like pulse surveys, emoji reactions, eNPS and anonymous comments in your newsletters can help you gather actionable employee feedback.

By asking for regular feedback, you make employees feel heard and valued. In this way, your newsletter can contribute to a more productive work environment and foster a sense of belonging and community within the company.

3. Candid, yet conscientious.

A positive work environment depends on trust between employees and leadership, and trust requires transparency. Unfortunately, even well-meaning leaders can get bogged down and leave employees in the dark.

That’s why having a regular format and cadence for leadership updates is handy for both leaders and employees.

Employee newsletters provide an easy avenue for leadership to provide transparent updates and share key messaging around strategic alignment and organizational agility. With a regular, repeatable format (for example, a weekly CEO update), it’s so much easier for leaders to incorporate employee updates into their routine.

Leaders stay communicative, and employees feel confident knowing when and how they’ll be kept in the loop.

4. A humble self-promoter.

A great employee newsletter is a powerful tool for promoting your internal branding, combining style and content to communicate your company’s voice, values and priorities and build a strong sense of identity and loyalty among employees.

The best part? When employees feel connected to your internal brand, they become your company’s biggest cheerleaders.

5. An unblocked throat chakra of praise!

Do your employees know that they’re appreciated?

Thanking your employees privately is a good first step, but celebrating employee achievements publicly can help you turn individual successes into team successes. After all, inspiration doesn’t just come from the top down.

When you feature team spotlights and share success stories in your employee newsletters, you affirm to individual employees that their contributions are being seen while encouraging innovation and collaboration within and between teams.

The collective creativity and expertise of your workforce should be celebrated, so take the opportunity to insert some praise into your internal newsletters and watch how employee morale — and your company — grows.

Take Charge of Employee Engagement

Picture this: employees opening your emails, clicking the right links and connecting more with your branded mission. Mastering the art (and science) of a company newsletter is your ticket to not just sharing the 411 but also pumping up employees, sparking two-way engagement and knitting a tighter company culture.

Enter ContactMonkey.

With a drag-and-drop email template builder for Outlook and Gmail, in-depth email tracking and analytics, and more, ContactMonkey gives you the power to create employee newsletters better, faster and smarter than ever before.

Ready to elevate your internal communications and deepen company culture? See how hundreds of top organizations are creating sticky, open-worthy newsletters with ContactMonkey.

Are you attending Ragan’s Employee Communications & Culture Conference on April 16-18, 2024? If so, make sure you check out ContactMonkey to learn more about how it can help you create a better employee communications experience that engages.