Let’s be honest. When most people think of a company newsletter, they think of one more thing to delete from their inbox. And the way many company newsletters are written — dry summaries of things no one really cares about — might deserve that bad reputation.
But if done right, a company newsletter can be a great asset for your business, whether you’re thinking about sending one internally to your employees, externally to your target market, or to both.
Four great reasons to send an internal company newsletter:
— Unless you’re running a very small business, it’s incredibly easy for the different parts of your business to become isolated from each other. This is a problem for several reasons: it makes it hard for employees to get a sense of the big picture work that the company is doing. This is a recipe for wasted work and departments talking past each other, not to mention employees becoming demotivated or insular.
Having a monthly company newsletter can do a lot to encourage the different parts of your business to pull together. If nothing else, at least everyone knows the general direction that the business is pulling in, which is much more of an issue than you’d think
— A company newsletter can be also used to build morale. Simple things like having a featured employee of the month or a star department can go a long way in motivating your employees. Encouraging staff to contribute to the newsletter can also help with getting employees engaged with the company in general. You can even use the newsletter to build the relationship between management and staff by having things like side by side pieces, or conversations between different departments.
— Showcase projects. When you’re caught up in the day to day of running your business, it can be hard to remember everything you’ve already accomplished! But it’s so important to do this, not only to ensure that your employees are getting the recognition they deserve, but also so you easily have a record when it comes time to speak to investors or you need to highlight your accomplishments for PR.
If you’re regularly chronicling your company’s accomplishments in your monthly newsletter, you’ve got a skeleton laid out for those things whenever you need them, and you don’t have to worry about something slipping through the cracks.
— Keep employees in the loop. Of course, a newsletter can also be used for just that: news. Making sure your employees know what’s going on, any new developments in the company, and information about events like retreats or happy hours is so crucial for engagement — and having all that kind of information centralised can prevent those situations where you end up sending the same information out to a bunch of different people over and over again.
Of course, you don’t have to keep things internal. Sending out a monthly newsletter to your customers and potential customers can be great too. Here’s why:
— It can help you keep your business top of mind with your customers.
Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve already got a fairly developed target market, it’s important that you’re constantly working to keep your business top of mind for them. Think of it like preventive maintenance. The more you do it regularly, the less work you’ll have to do with your marketing to differentiate yourself from your competition.
— You can use it to support your content marketing … and your regular marketing.
Even if you’re putting out the greatest content in the world and your email open rates are through the roof, chances are that people aren’t going to see everything you’re putting out. A monthly newsletter can be a great place to include a round up of your latest content so you can get more views, more shares, and of course, let the content do what it’s supposed to, which is get people ready to work with you.
And of course, you can use your company newsletter to market to people too — lots of companies include ads in the sidebar or distributed throughout the newsletter. Do be careful with this though. You don’t want people to feel like they’re just getting an ad circular. Make sure they have plenty of other reasons to open the newsletter.
— It’s a great way to build your brand.
Even if you don’t want to market with your company newsletter, you can still use it to build your brand and develop your relationship with your customers. By giving people behind the scenes looks at your company, getting them to connect with your bigger mission and the story of your business, and putting faces to the names of employees, you can do a lot to make your customers feel personally connected to your business, which makes sales a whole lot easier.
So how do you get started?
The exact way that you write your company newsletter is going to vary depending on your business and who you’re sending the newsletter to. But follow these basics and you won’t go far wrong.
— First, establish your goals with the newsletter.
What do you want to accomplish with it? Boosting your content? Looping your employees in? Whatever it is, keep that top of mind as you…
— Decide what to include.
Again, this is going to vary according to your goals, but many companies include things like news, accomplishments, featured employees, featured departments, upcoming events, general announcements, a letter from the owner, etc. If you’re sending your newsletter to your target market, think about what they would really enjoy hearing from you, and how you can use this opportunity to make them feel connected to your company.
— See what’s working and what’s not, and adjust accordingly.
If you’re sending out an internal newsletter, you’ve got it easy — you can ask employees what they’re enjoying and finding useful, and go from there. If you’re sending an external newsletter, then focus on things like open rates, click through rates, responses, and upticks in your content other places.
