Benefits of establishing an office email newsletter - and how to do it
Do you find it time consuming to keep calling your team together for weekly updates and news items? Are you tired of sending out short emails whenever something comes up that you have to share with your team?
If you’ve answered, “Yes!” to either of these questions, you might want to consider establishing an office email newsletter. It can be a great way to update your team on general housekeeping items, inform them about project progress, notify them about company developments and share interesting or important news. At the same time, you can use it to enhance engagement by highlighting your team members’ accomplishments every now and then.
Now you know the value of an office email newsletter, how do you go about creating one? The following tips can help:
- Collect news items in a specific file or document. When you’re busy, it’s easy to forget things. That’s why it’s advisable to create a separate file on your computer where you can store updates and news items you want to share. Organize the file by week or month — whatever the frequency of the newsletter will be.
- Work it into your schedule. You’ll need to set aside some time to create the newsletter. If you block out an hour or 90 minutes at the same time every week, you’re more likely to actually get around to doing it.
- Use a template and a mailing program. There are various platforms that offer newsletter creation capabilities. Mailchimp, for example, has a free plan that offers all the basics you need. Choose a template that appeals to you and is mobile friendly, since many people are likely to read the newsletter on their phones.
- Focus on user-friendly design. In her Fast Company article “How to Launch a Killer Email Newsletter,” Cayleigh Parrish advises using short paragraphs, lots of bullet points and short sentences. In addition, don’t overuse photos, as they can take a long time to load.
- Send out a test newsletter. Before sending out the newsletter to the entire team, send one to your own email address first so you can see if it looks the way you want it to. If you’re not satisfied, tweak the design until you are.
- Get help. If you find the newsletter too time consuming, enlist one of your team members to help. You can still gather the news items and have the final say on design, but you’ll save a lot of time on putting the copy and images into the template.
By periodically sending out all of your updates in one single communication, you can save yourself and your employees a lot of time. And that means you’ll have more hours in the day to focus on the rest of your work.
Sources:
https://www.fastcompany.com/40425745/how-to-launch-a-killer-email-newsletter