4 best practices for internal newsletters

While newsletters can distill important information into an easy-to-consume package for audiences, they can be just as easy for readers to scroll without a second thought if they’re not visually engaging or relevant. The best internal comms newsletters seamlessly marry visuals that pop, information that’s relevant across functions of the organizations — and it’s up to internal communicators to figure out how that balance works best for their audiences.

Kevin Berchou, head of enterprise and business communications for M&T Bank, told Ragan that internal comms newsletters are more than just a way to keep people informed at his organization — they’re also a cultural touchpoint.

“I’m equipping you with information that helps you do your job at the highest possible level,” Berchou said of internal comms newsletters. “Also, I’m reinforcing your decision to work here. We send you the stories that make you feel like, ‘Yeah, this is a great place to be.’”

Berchou shared best practices for internal comms pros putting together newsletter strategies:

1. Looks matter: You can have all the exciting and pertinent information in the world, but if it’s not packaged in a visually appealing fashion you might have a hard time getting engagement metrics up. Berchou told Ragan that his team designed newsletters templates with busy bank employees in mind. “You get out of a meeting, you come back to your inbox, and you’ve got 30 messages,” he said. “Most of them are boring, text-based emails you just scroll through. You’re unlikely to pause on any of them. We try to make our messaging just a bit more graphically compelling and have it stand out a little bit. There are all sorts of great templates we’ve designed and leveraged to help our messages cut through in a crowded inbox.”
2. The right cadence can help people engage more. When the audience can set their watch to a newsletter’s release schedule, they’re more likely to engage with it. Berchou shared the example of M&T’s newsletter, “The Weekly News.” He said that the newsletter’s Friday release schedule helps it serve as a way for busy employees to inform themselves about what’s going on around them as the workweek winds down. “It’s part week-in-review, part highlight reel,” Berchou said. “We include the pieces of content that defined the week, the things that came out over the past four or five days from around the enterprise. Some of it you may have already received as a standalone email, some of it might be something you missed from another part of the business. But it’s all there in one place — packaged and delivered at a predictable cadence.”
3. The more tailored the newsletter, the better. The more focused a newsletter is on its audience, the more receptive the audience is likely to be. Berchou told Ragan that his team creates newsletters for each function of the organization to ensure that audiences feel the information in their inbox is customized to them, with notes from other parts of the company to create cross-company ties and knowledge. “Each of our business lines has its own weekly digest newsletter,” Berchou said. “We work closely with product teams and operations to understand what their audience needs to know. Sometimes that content is new, other times it’s a reminder — content they’ve seen before but need to see again in a different format or context.”
4. Find out what people want to read. Regular feedback on newsletters should inform how communicators approach them. Berchou said that his team incorporates reader feedback into everything from formatting to content. “That feedback can inform everything from what’s included to whether the content is multimedia-based or just a series of short, staccato blurbs,” he said.

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Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and hosting trivia.