Essential email guidance for the COVID-19 era

Email is still the most reliable way to reach your employees with crucial communication.

Unfortunately, many employers misuse, misjudge and flat-out misunderstand how to maximize this powerful messaging tool, says Michael DesRochers, CEO of PoliteMail. Email should be an asset, not treated as a nuisance, a liability or a neglected afterthought, he says. He suggests avoiding two blunders in particular.

“The two biggest mistakes are completely abandoning email broadcasts for intranet posts—and using email messages for long-winded information.”

Citing PoliteMail data to back his claim, DesRochers says that “less than 20% of your audience will read intranet-only messaging.” PoliteMail’s findings, which come from an analysis of more than 600 million internal emails, also found that brevity is best. As Desrochers says, “The longer and more content-heavy your email (for example sending more than 10 articles or 10 links in one message), the less people actually read.”

How to reach employees right now