Why Your Company Needs a (Fabulous) Internal Newsletter and How You Should Go About Creating One

I have published 21 issues of our internal newsletter over the course of nine years. This represents a total of more than 600 pages of editorial content, using 7 to 8 different magazine templates, with contributions from more than ten departments in the company (R&D, CEO, Human Resources, Sales, Asic Design, Marketing, Support, Presale, Communication, Legal, Business Development, etc.).

More than that, these issues were actually read and often commented upon by my colleagues. This is why I believe I have acquired some experience in creating a company newsletter, and I would like to share what I’ve learned over the years with you today.

There is little doubt that a newsletter can be a fantastic tool for internal communication, yet many companies and Communication Directors remain hesitant when it comes to creating one. It seems that the obstacles are too numerous: what to say, when and how to say it, what workload is it going to represent, how many times should it be released, how much is it going to cost, is there any advantage compared to top-down meetings 2 to 4 times a year, etc.?

Let’s try and study this subject together to appease the sometimes legitimate concerns you might have when you work for the Communication Department and wonder about the internal newsletter’s tricky subject.

When can you or should you launch your internal newsletter?

If you have only one site and less than 70 to 80 employees, I don’t think you should consider a company newsletter unless you have a lot of time on your hands, which does not happen very often for the Communication department. Nevertheless, this threshold can be lowered if your structure is, for example, in the following situation: research center A employs 12 people and is 200 miles away from Headquarters B that employs 45 people and has a dozen employees scattered across the country, or even abroad. Your total employee count is admittedly only at 67, but the geographic split-up can justify an internal newsletter as a way to reinforce cohesion and fight against isolation due to distance.

When does it make sense to start a newsletter? In our case, the company was already 11 years old, but the need might arise earlier; it’s ultimately your call! Don’t forget that you can also start with a simple PDF newsletter published four times a year, and that fits on one A3 page, folded and printed on a regular color printer. In time, you can move to a monthly 48-page magazine that would be printed on coated paper. You don’t have to start straight away with an ultra-packed newsletter! The only thing you absolutely need is to produce quality content; if the newsletter is also easy on the eye and easy to read, it’s undoubtedly a significant bonus.

For newcomers in the company, the newsletter is a useful historical tool that will allow them to live the company’s values, discover where it comes from, its former products, successes, technological choices, and the sometimes extraordinary stories around it, the culture and heritage, etc. All this will make it easier and faster to become a part of it!

Publication schedule, format, and diffusion of your company newsletter

The publication schedule will vary widely depending on the volume of news and information you want to share, and this will depend on your company’s size and activity. The company newsletter can be published monthly (therefore 12 issues), bimonthly (6), quarterly (4), bi-annually (2), or annually (1). Keeping a monthly schedule is an incredibly difficult challenge. Therefore, my advice is to start with two or three issues a year, then aim for a quarterly schedule after two or three years.

The format is also variable and can be adapted to your needs, from a simple A3 folded page to the 48-page monthly magazine. It’s your call, but keep in mind that it’s easier to print when you have multiples of 4.

The publication is now very often done in PDF format, but it’s worth noting that the cost of printing is not outrageous. If you only publish two 28-pages issues a year for 100 employees, you could consider printing and distributing it. The impact will be widely different, and the reading ratio can improve dramatically, thanks to the print medium.

The flat plan, editorial policy, content, and main sections

The flat plan is the presentation of the newsletter, page after page, and as a whole, by way of a simple model that allows you to visualize everything at a glance. This helps you build it, follow its progress, and it gives you a fair representation of the newsletter’s visual dynamics. In written press, the newspaper or magazine flat plan is built by literally pinning it up to the walls or laying it down on the floor so that the whole editorial team can get an idea of what the current issue will look like. You should consider doing it as it is quite eye-catching and, most importantly, very useful. If your office is too small to lay it all out, transform it into a PPT… This flat plan is the first secret to a successful internal newsletter.

The editorial policy: you will have to define it by working with the CEO and Human Resources Department, two essential partners in this adventure. You just need to keep in mind that the purpose is to inform employees, and not do some advertorial exercise whose sole purpose would be to praise the CEO and top management. The internal newsletter should be a tool to show off the company and its employees. This doesn’t mean the CEO can’t express his views. I would actually advise you to save a space for him in your flat plan, a whole page, “A word from our CEO,” or even just half a page. It’s more than enough. Take advantage of your first issue to put forward an employee who has no management position so that employees will understand that this newsletter is for them and shows some editorial objectivity. Follow up on this editorial policy: always mix up articles written by managers who supervise 10 to 200 people with pieces about or written by employees who don’t hold a manager position. Some will undoubtedly see some lefty demagoguery in this; I see this as promoting diversity, which is what a company is made of… much like the world around!

To achieve this, you will have to manage a few managers’ egos. You are a Communication Director or Manager, that’s part of your job! You need to explain to them that a “simple” blue-collar or “regular” employee will be at the heart of a leading article… and not them, the “Captains,” at least not exclusively! Indeed, this company newsletter has to be for each and everyone… and you are not the campaign director of the top management. If the CEO is convinced that this is true, you will have no problem explaining that to all the managers; therefore, convince “Eagle 1”, the CEO, before trying to convince “Eagle 4”, the CFO.

Content and main sections: I am laying them out in the order we were using. Pick and choose, take them all or just some, add some of your own, and build your editorial organization, the one that will suit you best, your first flat plan!

• The cover: there is a lot of work involved in this, as it is the first thing people see! It should include the editorial policy for the issue, 4 to 5 highlighted articles, and the newsletter’s name.
• The inside cover: the first page on the left, a nice-looking design, some corporate advertisement, or the issue’s table of contents. Go for a smooth start to put the reader at ease.
• The editorial: it has to give some hints on the central theme for the issue, be concise and impactful, lively, full of sense and emotion… This is where your talent as a writer should shine!
• Newcomers and births: newcomers always like to be featured in the internal newsletter, and it’s an excellent way to present them to the whole company. The same goes for employees’ babies. For this part, the Human Resources Department is your best friend.
• A word from our CEO: this is a page dedicated to the Big Honcho. Provide him with the central theme for the issue so that he can relate to it. It’s an op-ed, he can say whatever he wants, but you need to make sure it doesn’t go sideways or turns into a saga. To that end, give him the number of words necessary to fit in the space.
• Trade shows: those you will exhibit at in the upcoming months and those you exhibited at that were worth it. A simple chart for the future and a couple of pages with pictures for the past trade shows, to be co-redacted with Sales, Business Development and Marketing.
• Company news and X leading articles: this is where you put the X content contributions of partnering departments (basically, the whole company can contribute; you could very well be surprised by the quality of the content your colleagues can produce as they take seriously the fact to be published and read by their colleagues and the CEO), along with publications from the Communication Department (feedback from a training day, the end-of-year party, an incentive, press fallout due to your (good) media relations, etc.)
• The double central page: if you print, make the most of this space! A poster, a striking visual, the picture of a new product, or your fantastic booth during the latest trade show you attended, an outstanding infographic. Take advantage of this double page!
• Portrait/Interview of an employee or a department : here are a few of the questions I would ask for a discovery interview:

1- Can you give us a quick overview of your training and professional life before you decided to join us? 
2- What were your past roles at "insert the name of your company here, CY," and what is your current position? 
3- How did your integration in the company go? How did it go with your team? 
4- What do you most/least like, and what could be changed at CY? 
5- What is your biggest takeaway after working X months for CY? 
6- If you had to change the current slogan for CY, "Lorem Ipsums Dolores," what would you pick? 
7- Can you share your favorite saying with us, a phrase in Latin that you particularly like, your secret motto? 
8- The question you wish we asked? (and your answer!) 
9- Do you have a favorite picture, drawing, music score, book that you would like to share with us?

• A bit of fun: crosswords using the business glossary, a product model to cut and build yourself, a photo contest, etc. Make your newsletter more fun with some “funky business”!
• The inside back cover: for last-minute news.
• The back cover: design or advertisement, with the nameplate if you couldn’t place it anywhere else.

Internal newsletter and business confidentiality: how to walk on eggshells! 
You need to be aware that an internal newsletter doesn't stay internal very long, and it doesn't matter how many confidentiality warnings you put forward. Think long and hard about the articles you publish concerning your new products or future clients, as your competition could well read them!

The template, design, and illustrations of the internal newsletter, aka the sinews of (visual) war

The second secret to a successful newsletter, as for any other magazine actually, lies in the quality of the DTP, template, and illustrations. There is no denying that quality content is the first key to success, but (almost) nobody will read an internal newsletter if the template is hideous, illegible, lousy, or lopsided. Don’t use templates from Word, Canva, and others. Make your own, ask your graphic designer to do it, or ask a service provider if you don’t have this kind of expertise internally. Already made templates will constrain you to use a specific layout, a certain size, and preformatted everything, when what you need is to express your creativity and be adaptable! And for heaven’s sake, it’s your job, respect it (and yourself)!

Remember that you need an enjoyable text/image ratio, around 60% for text, and 40% for pictures/illustrations. This way, you will end up with a lively and airy magazine thanks to a substantial amount of visuals, colors, backgrounds, layouts. Also, dare to reverse the ratio for individual articles, give yourself the luxury of a double-page composed exclusively from illustrations, especially if you do not pay for printing!

For your newsletter illustrations, you have only three choices:

1. You produce them yourself, take your own pictures, and make your own drawings, symbols, illustrations, infographics, etc. That’s the best solution. Congratulations!

2. You have access to stock photo sites, where you can find (after some research) interesting illustrations and pictures with a good print quality and not too run-of-the-mill.

3. You have no budget (welcome to the world of hardcore communication!). You then have to rely on free stock photo sites. Some of them are actually pretty good, such as Pixambo, Pixabay, Burst.shopify, Skitter, Pexels, Fotomelia, Kaboompics, DevoStock, Picjumbo, etc. There are more than 50, just like that, and some of them have more than a million photos in store. They offer beautiful pictures, sometimes professional-looking, almost always high-res, available for downloading under CC0 license, and free to use (sometimes you have to credit the photographer).

Editorial collaboration between departments, the third secret of a rich (and most importantly, read) internal newsletter

An internal newsletter that is 100% written by the Communication department and the CEO is of no interest whatsoever.

The secret of your newsletter success resides for 80% in the editorial participation of other departments outside Communication!

There is no doubt you will find volunteers; you just need to ask people and sometimes help them formalize their ideas or work on the content to make it a little more readable, less technical, and more accessible for everybody. Some big companies even pay people who write articles for their internal newsletter to create motivation and facilitate some journalistic callings :) Don’t forget the notion of validation channel before diffusion: who proofreads, who is in charge of content, who edits, improves, etc. I believe it’s essential to include the Human Resources Department and the CEO, who should authorize the final page proof before the newsletter can be circulated.

Here is an idea provided by SFC, our Super Financial Controller (who is an imaginary person, as you correctly assumed!): sell advertising space to other departments to improve their image, and most importantly, to make the newsletter profitable. Thank you, SFC, for the suggestion; we will broach the subject during one of the editorial board meetings (or maybe we won’t).

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Let’s get the view of a CEO on the internal newsletter. We have five questions for him.

A special thank you to Lionel Boissier, CEO of Neotion and SmarDTV Global, who generously agreed to answer this short questionnaire.

What kind of advice would you give to CEOs who think they won’t have the time to write the “A word from our CEO” section or an editorial, or who just struggle with the fear of the blank page?

“Many CEOs have indeed a lot of tasks that always seem to have a higher priority than to write an editorial for their internal newsletter. But what if this excuse was just a way to hide a real struggle with giving a clear and motivating vision to employees, more than just a lack of time? For a long time, I had postponed this kind of task, up until the day when I finally realized that this exercise was actually forcing me to take a step back and answer the vital question of how employees see their own company. Employees need a vision; they need to find a sense in their work. When you share your vision, explain your strategic positioning, you show you are willing to communicate with your teams, and it’s the first step towards efficient internal communication. If time is in short supply, do what I do: summon your Communication department for a short 15-minute meeting to summarize the situation and give your vision for the company. Ensure you articulate what you wish your employees to take away from what’s happening in the company and its strategic positioning. Your Communication department should be able to lay out an excellent editorial that you will only need to proofread, fine-tune, and sign. ;)”

Do you think unions and other workers associations should have a dedicated publishing space in an internal newsletter?

“They already have spaces and forums where they can communicate in the company. Personally, I don’t wish to give them a dedicated space in the internal newsletter.”

We usually hear that an internal newsletter is only showcasing good news: do you think it’s possible to publish an article about a failure encountered by the company?

“Of course! Obviously, good news makes people feel good and helps motivate the teams, especially in these challenging times brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, you won’t fool anybody: failures are often very well known and largely commented upon in the break room. The internal newsletter gives the opportunity to acknowledge these failures, explain them and, most importantly, learn from these mistakes by giving some clarity on corrective measures, therefore providing a more serene vision of the future.”

What are the three main things you are expecting from the internal newsletter?

1. “Know the company better and what we aim to achieve in the next 3 to 5 years.
2. Get to know your employees.
3. Discover the jobs in the company and our clients.”

Did you read the internal newsletter, NeoNews, that we show in this article?

“Absolutely, 2 to 3 times actually for each issue: the first time before I would authorize the final page proof, the second time when the newsletter was distributed and, more often than not, a third time for some articles that I wanted to talk about with certain employees.”

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Five more things for your internal newsletter

• Feel free to incorporate ads for NGOs: take advantage of the space in your newsletter to offer a page to some NGOs (avoid controversial, religious, or political ones). Of course, it’s not a print run of 100,000 issues, but many NGOs will appreciate that you want to highlight their work, even more so than, in general, you won’t have more than one or two ads per issue! In our newsletter, we would put forward Les Restos du Coeur (French food bank), but the choice is almost limitless: SPCA, UNICEF, food banks, AIDES (French NGO working on HIV issues), Doctors Without Borders, Doctors of the World, Red Cross, etc.
• Be bold and dare to use a trendy template for your magazine: why would you want to choose something old-fashioned, ultra corporate when you can do something new, modern, fresh, punchy, creative? As long as you keep a good readability, almost anything is allowed: enjoy yourself and entertain your colleagues-readers!
• Some KPIs (Key Performance Indicator) for your internal newsletter: you can measure the reading ratio (if your newsletter is published on an intranet, the number of times it’s been opened/downloaded) and if it’s of interest (via a poll, or discussions in the lunchroom), also the number of contributions from departments other than Communication (whose job it is to contribute).
• Change the medium, be modern! This periodic information medium can also take the shape of a short audiovisual film or an audio message: indeed, it’s a bit more complicated to pull off but, in the era of vlogs and podcasts, it can make sense!
• Top five mistakes to avoid: 1- Make it the sole platform for the CEO and top management: nobody will read it. 2- Produce issues with no content and depth: people will stop reading it soon. 3- No work on DTP, illustrations, esthetics: not enough people will read it. 4- Only publish technical, or sales, or strategic articles: it will only be read by the people interested in those issues. 5- Neglect maieutics, and produce a newsletter that doesn’t question anything, doesn’t make people think, doesn’t help reflect on the future: the newsletter won’t get any support, contributions will dwindle down… and it won’t be read anymore after a while.

The final word, finally

The internal newsletter helps reinforce your company’s culture and build relationships between teams and between departments. It’s also a great tool to show off your teams and some individual profiles, which are usually not put forward. It’s an excellent way for you to celebrate and encourage values that should be at the heart of any company, such as surpassing yourself, self-fulfillment, or collective fulfillment.

Your company newsletter will also allow you to improve communication on your future projects. Employees will get a clearer vision of their company’s future and the technical, strategic, or commercial orientations: you should see pretty quickly that this will reinforce employees’ motivation by strongly increasing their sense of belonging and their support to the values and goals of your company.

In conclusion, there are only advantages to creating a (fabulous) company newsletter!

On to you readers!

Do you have an internal newsletter?

Do you have plans to get one started?

Any questions?

║ Let’s talk about COM #3 ║ © Ch Depernet ║Nov 2020 ║