Laconic Quality of Newsletter
With the advent of technology and easiness, we find and develop methods that either cut our work in half or also make it simpler for others. Communications have transformed from corporate news and info to newsletters or a company newspapers – weekly, monthly, those get delivered to staff desks. In the modern era, communication is electronic, except perhaps for field or shop-floor staff. Newsletters have been converted into PDFs, and are emailed out or posted to the intranet.
Electronic newsletters take many forms, from plain text in an all-staff email to simple PDF updates or beautifully formatted documents.
Regardless of the format or method of delivery, electronic newsletters suffer from a number of significant issues:
Updates are only sent out on a regular schedule even though changes happen more frequently.
Communication is inherently one-way, with no mechanism for staff to comment or participate.
Newsletters often contain key information among social updates and less important news. This can be very hard to find at a later date
Delivering updates by newsletters devalues the intranet, and potentially competes with it, particularly when newsletters are delivered via email.
It is hard to target newsletter content to the needs of specific audiences without proliferating multiple newsletters, each delivered separately.
There is a simple answer: use the news box on the intranet homepage instead. Almost all intranets provide the straightforward ability to create and publish news items, which are then seen throughout the organization.
Replacing newsletters with news provides many benefits:
Each news item contains a single topic, making easier for staff to assess what to read, and to find it again later.
A rich mix of news, updates and social activities can be published on the intranet, with staff picking the items that interest them.
News items can be published as needed, without having to wait for a scheduled newsletter.
Staff can comment on news items.
More advanced intranets allow news to be targeted or tailored for key audience groups, ensuring that relevance is maintained, even as the volume of news grows.
Intranet news can be delivered directly to mobile devices.
Putting key news on the intranet enhances the value of the intranet, thereby making it a more powerful communications channel.
‘Noise’ and ‘internal spam’ is reduced, by providing a single comms channel.
Email notification can still be used as a ‘push channel’, linking back to the intranet rather than containing the actual content.
A cultural change
In this day and age, there is no reason to maintain practices developed 50 years ago, with newer technologies (such as the intranet) offering much better solutions.
A good communications strategy will also be needed to ensure that messages reach all staff, including those not regularly in front of a PC.
Newsletters must be current and timely. What makes newsletter valuable to your readers? Information about:
Work-related news and activities.
New products, services and opportunities
Personal interests and hobbies
Events, deadlines, and important dates
Newsletters must be relevant today and address the user's specific needs in the moment. What can you do for me now is the key issue.
Newsletters can also build relationships with readers, and because it's so easy for readers to ignore individual editions, newsletters can have some leeway. The key is for a newsletter to be predictably relevant at particular times. During periods in which a newsletter isn't relevant to users, they can simply ignore it rather than unsubscribing.
Keep the content short and relevant. Make hyperlinks back to your website intuitive underscored hyperlink blue. Don't make them guess - remember - you have less than 60 seconds attention from the average reader.
Keep the email file size small. Rather than embedding images, create the newsletter in your website and call the images to the newsletter page through absolute hyperlinks to your website.
Many newsletters don't necessarily need images.
There are other advantages to putting the newsletter in your website. You have a new page of content. The page might get a search ranking. You can use the information as a resource for new clients. Refer them to your previous newsletters that have relevant content.
Keep your newsletter brief but offer powerful, value-packed content. You always want to give your customer take-away value. If you have too much information or too many pages in the newsletter, it's unlikely that your customer will read it all, let alone finish it. Although newsletters typically range from two to twenty pages, a comfortable, readable length would be 4 pages, including an order or response page.
Always place in the newsletter a call to action from your customer. Whether it's to request more information or to place an order, if you request something from the customer, they are more likely to respond. This works in most any industry as long as you offer a product or service that your customers would want.
With the advent of technology and easiness, we find and develop methods that either cut our work in half or also make it simpler for others. Communications have transformed from corporate news and info to newsletters or a company newspapers – weekly, monthly, those get delivered to staff desks. In the modern era, communication is electronic, except perhaps for field or shop-floor staff. Newsletters have been converted into PDFs, and are emailed out or posted to the intranet.
Electronic newsletters take many forms, from plain text in an all-staff email to simple PDF updates or beautifully formatted documents.
Regardless of the format or method of delivery, electronic newsletters suffer from a number of significant issues:
Updates are only sent out on a regular schedule even though changes happen more frequently.
Communication is inherently one-way, with no mechanism for staff to comment or participate.
Newsletters often contain key information among social updates and less important news. This can be very hard to find at a later date
Delivering updates by newsletters devalues the intranet, and potentially competes with it, particularly when newsletters are delivered via email.
It is hard to target newsletter content to the needs of specific audiences without proliferating multiple newsletters, each delivered separately.
There is a simple answer: use the news box on the intranet homepage instead. Almost all intranets provide the straightforward ability to create and publish news items, which are then seen throughout the organization.
Replacing newsletters with news provides many benefits:
Each news item contains a single topic, making easier for staff to assess what to read, and to find it again later.
A rich mix of news, updates and social activities can be published on the intranet, with staff picking the items that interest them.
News items can be published as needed, without having to wait for a scheduled newsletter.
Staff can comment on news items.
More advanced intranets allow news to be targeted or tailored for key audience groups, ensuring that relevance is maintained, even as the volume of news grows.
Intranet news can be delivered directly to mobile devices.
Putting key news on the intranet enhances the value of the intranet, thereby making it a more powerful communications channel.
‘Noise’ and ‘internal spam’ is reduced, by providing a single comms channel.
Email notification can still be used as a ‘push channel’, linking back to the intranet rather than containing the actual content.
A cultural change
In this day and age, there is no reason to maintain practices developed 50 years ago, with newer technologies (such as the intranet) offering much better solutions.
A good communications strategy will also be needed to ensure that messages reach all staff, including those not regularly in front of a PC.
Newsletters must be current and timely. What makes newsletter valuable to your readers? Information about:
Work-related news and activities.
New products, services and opportunities
Personal interests and hobbies
Events, deadlines, and important dates
Newsletters must be relevant today and address the user's specific needs in the moment. What can you do for me now is the key issue.
Newsletters can also build relationships with readers, and because it's so easy for readers to ignore individual editions, newsletters can have some leeway. The key is for a newsletter to be predictably relevant at particular times. During periods in which a newsletter isn't relevant to users, they can simply ignore it rather than unsubscribing.
Keep the content short and relevant. Make hyperlinks back to your website intuitive underscored hyperlink blue. Don't make them guess - remember - you have less than 60 seconds attention from the average reader.
Keep the email file size small. Rather than embedding images, create the newsletter in your website and call the images to the newsletter page through absolute hyperlinks to your website.
Many newsletters don't necessarily need images.
There are other advantages to putting the newsletter in your website. You have a new page of content. The page might get a search ranking. You can use the information as a resource for new clients. Refer them to your previous newsletters that have relevant content.
Keep your newsletter brief but offer powerful, value-packed content. You always want to give your customer take-away value. If you have too much information or too many pages in the newsletter, it's unlikely that your customer will read it all, let alone finish it. Although newsletters typically range from two to twenty pages, a comfortable, readable length would be 4 pages, including an order or response page.
Always place in the newsletter a call to action from your customer. Whether it's to request more information or to place an order, if you request something from the customer, they are more likely to respond. This works in most any industry as long as you offer a product or service that your customers would want.