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Internal newsletters are important tools for keeping teams informed company-wide. This is especially
true for larger organizations where teams may be in silos. Team members rely on these emails to know
what's happening around the business. However, making them engaging isn’t easy. People already
spend too much time in their inbox. How can you convince them to read one more email? It takes
careful planning, consistent execution, and an understanding of what your coworkers want to read.
Fortunately, that's exactly what this post will cover (and more). This complete step-by-step guide will
turn tired internal communications into invaluable insights that make an impact.
Build Strategic Partnerships To Grow Your Brand
Your employees are just one audience that can help you promote your brand, products, & company.
Tap into other key relationships with a strong PR Strategy. Enroll in Actionable Marketing Institute's
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Table of Contents
1. Build Strategic Partnerships To Grow Your Brand
2. What Exactly Is An Internal Newsletter?
3. Why Does My Company Need a Newsletter?
4. Getting Started: Know Your Audience
5. Planning Your Newsletter Content: 20 Ideas Anyone Can Use
6. Next, Nail Down Your Newsletter Content Strategy
7. 4 Newsletter Best Practices to Follow
8. How to Write the Best Newsletter Possible
9. Designing Your Newsletter
10. Setting Your Distribution Frequency
11. Measuring Impact
12. A Simple Newsletter Creation Workflow Checklist
13. Managing Everything With CoSchedule
14. Now Continue To Grow Your Team Of Brand Advocates
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Now, odds are, you’re not equally in tune with every single one.
1. What do you like (or dislike) about our current company newsletter (if you have one)?
Drop each of these questions into your survey. For demonstration purposes, this post will look at using
Google Forms. First, the Blank option:
Next, add each question, selecting the Short Answer option for each one:
At this point, click Send. This will bring up the following screen (select the middle option to send this
form as a link):
Finally, drop the link into a company-wide email. Here’s some copy-and-paste text you can use:
Greetings, The marketing team is preparing a new internal email newsletter to keep
everyone up-to-date on the latest happenings at [YOUR COMPANY]. To make it the best
it can be, we’d like your feedback on what you’d like to see in the newsletter. It’ll only
take a few moments to complete, and your responses will help us make sure it’s a useful
resource company-wide. Thanks for your time! Let me know if you have questions. Best,
[SIGNATURE]
That should give you a good start on developing a newsletter content strategy.
Recommended Reading: How to Plan and Execute a Content Strategy That Will Quadruple Your
Results (Free Templates)
Simple as that.
2. Company Achievements
Did your organization just smash a sales goal? Appear at a major industry conference? Land an
awesome new customer? Let everyone know instead of assuming word of mouth will get around!
4. Revenue Updates
People like to know their jobs are secure. They also need to know when things aren’t going so well,
too. Consider including monthly or quarterly revenue numbers, so everyone knows where the company
stands.
5. Event Announcements
From potlucks to trade show appearances, let people know what’s coming up. That could include:
Event dates. Toss those on your company’s internal calendar, too.
How staff should dress. No one wants to look out of place.
Do they need to bring anything? Avoid potlucks where you have 12 bags and chips and nothing else.
Small details like this can help ensure those events are attended and successful.
The data bears that out, too. According to a study from Pyschometrics, 58% of employees said
recognition was the number one thing leadership could do to make them feel more engaged.
Source When asked what leaders could do more of to improve engagement, 58% of respondents replied
“give recognition”
8. Awards
Did your company win an industry award, get placed on the Inc. 5000, or something similar? Let
everyone know what the award is all about, why it’s important, and how it’ll help raise the company’s
authority and visibility.
Recommended Reading: The Best Way to Organize an Effective Email Marketing Strategy
Next, Nail Down Your Newsletter Content Strategy
So, that’s plenty of ideas to get you thinking. At some point though, you’ll need to determine what
types of content you’ll include in each newsletter. Keeping it consistent makes it easier to gather and
write what you need, rather than wondering what to include. If you need a starting point, here’s a
recommended mix:
1 “fun” piece.
2. Keep It Concise
People don’t have time to read 10,000-word articles on work time. Get to the point.
3. Be Truthful
Encouraging transparency is a major benefit for creating a newsletter in the first place. If it isn’t
truthful, or if its used to mask company failings, then the trust transparency builds can be lost quickly.
Don’t lie, obfuscate facts, or otherwise try to spin negatives into positives in ways that are dishonest.
Give it a Name
A good name helps your newsletter be more recognizable. Try to create something more interesting
than “the company newsletter,” or something generic.
Writing Headlines
Now, each section will likely have a headline or sub-headline. If you want to really give each one some
polish, use the Headline Analyzer Studio. The public version is always free to use, and it’s also built
directly into CoSchedule:
Then, get a full analysis of what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve:
Like the Headline Analyzer Studio, the web version is free, and it’s also built directly into CoSchedule.
Test some subject lines here.
Drafting Articles
Readers will most likely skim your email. So, stick to standard web writing best practices:
Choosing a Template
If you have a designer or developer who can build you a template, you might choose to skip this
section. However, if you don’t have access to someone who can build an email template for you, there
are tons available on the web you can customize and use for free.
Where to Find 1,000+ Free Newsletter Templates
900+ Free Responsive Email Templates from Chamaileon
30 Free Email Templates from SpeckBoy
138 MailChimp Templates from Stripo
Free eNewsletter Templates from Lucid Press
Free Email Template Library from Campaign Monitor
Getting Feedback
Listen to direct feedback from recipients. Once you’ve been sending these emails for a while, send out
a survey asking what people think. Include questions like:
Keep it short and sweet. Then, use the date you gather to continue improving your content (and driving
up your metrics—ideally, you’d like to get to as close to 100% readership as possible).
A Simple Newsletter Creation Workflow Checklist
Checklists make managing any workflow easier, and your newsletter creation process is no exception.
Follow this simple checklist to make creating each one more efficient:
1. [ ] Establish theme.
6. [ ] Design graphics.
8. [ ] Proofread.
Give the newsletter a title and select MailChimp to create the email (for other email service providers,
the email will need to be created in your ESP first, and will then appear on the CoSchedule calendar):
Next, write your subject line and get real-time analysis to improve it:
As you create your newsletter content, follow the steps in your task template, and collaborate with
other team members (like designers and project managers) using Discussion Threads:
That’s just a quick look inside CoSchedule. To see how it all works together, schedule a demo with an
expert, or get started free. It’s the best way to keep your entire marketing department organized.
Ben Sailer
Ben was the Inbound Marketing Director at CoSchedule. His specialties include content strategy, SEO, copywriting, and more.
When he's not hard at work helping people do better marketing, he can be found cross-country skiing with his wife and their
dog.