In a perfect world, your employee newsletter would arrive in your colleagues inbox, and they would be eager to open it.
To convert employees from apathetic newsletter deleters to engaged consumers, you need to provide employees with what they want, when they want it, how they want it.
And what they want, is great content.
Here are 28 content ideas for your employee newsletter that will help you capture employees attention and keep them coming back for more.
Employee-Focused Newsletter Content Ideas
The first rule of employee newsletters is that they should be for employees.
This principle seems pretty straight-forward, but it is very rarely executed well.
Obviously your employee newsletter should include information that is important for your employees to know, but if you want to employees to actually find value in the newsletter, it has to have content that is about them and targetted at their success and enjoyment.
Here are some great employee-focused newsletter content ideas:
1. Jobs
Job postings are irresistible to employees. Whether they are looking for a promotion or not, job postings are indicative of how the company is growing and changing, which is very interesting to employees.
2. Anniversaries or milestones
Celebrating work anniversaries, birthdays, or other milestones is a great way to encourage employees to reach out to each other. Some employees are shy, or simply aren’t paying attention, so giving them a shout out in the newsletter is a great way to recognize them and make them feel appreciated.
3. Top 10 lists
No one can resist a good listicle. Make a list of the top ten best places for lunch in the area or the top ten best desk setups—the list can be of anything, so get creative. If ten items is too long, try three or five item lists.
4. Behind-the-scenes
What goes on in each department?
How do they do what they do?
An hour/day-in-the-life segment on a particular department or project is a great way for employees to understand the goals, struggles, and strengths of their colleagues. It also helps them connect their personal work to the bigger picture.
5. Recommendations
Have employees recommend books, TV shows, movies, podcasts, restaurants, apps, tools, or even service providers. This is a great way to connect employees with common interests and provide more value in their everyday life.
6. Surveys
Give employees a chance to offer their feedback and sentiment on your content, organizational changes, or policy updates. Surveys and polls encourage a culture of feedback while helping employees feel heard.
7. Inspirational quotes
Quotes are a great way to break up your content and give people something to chew on.
8. Employee profiles
Who is Susan from accounting? What are her super-powers? Employee profiles are a great way to encourage connection and discourse, while recognizing and appreciating employees.
9. Employee stories
Feature cool stories that happen on the job or interesting stories about employee’s lives.
10. Team spotlights
Who is hitting and exceeding their goals this quarter? Who is working on a cool new project? Focus on a new team or sub-group each newsletter and tell everyone who they are, what they are working on, and why.
11. Contests
Everyone likes to win stuff. Simple as that.
Bonus tip: Ask specific questions about the newsletter on the entry form to encourage people scroll through and read it!
12. User-submitted content
People tend to value things they have contributed to more than they would otherwise. You can use a simple Google form and ask for user submissions in each newsletter to get user submissions. Whether it’s book reviews, features, images or stories, user-generated content is a great way to get employees involved and interested.
Company-Focused Newsletter Content Ideas
Your employee newsletter is a great place to talk about important company updates. But make sure the info is relevant to employees, clear, and timely, or else you risk losing their attention.
13. Recent articles about your company
Don’t let employees be the last to know. Keep them up-to-date with the latest press on the company. It’s a great way to show employees how impactful their work has been and what the company is doing on a broader scale.
14. Business changes
Employees value transparency. Notify employees about external and internal changes, as well as changes to company mandates and policy.
15. Events
Announce company wide events or events the company is sponsoring to maximize your promotion impact and attendance. Company events can help employees get to know their colleagues and encourage community.
16. Departmental updates
Did marketing launch a new campaign? Is development beta-testing a new product? Let employees in on what is happening, how it affects their work, and how it contributes to the broader company vision.
17. Advice column
An advice column is a great way to drive home your company’s values. You can focus on a number of topics like tips for great communication, how to deal with a team member who is going through a hard time, or even proper email etiquette.
18. FAQ
A good FAQ section (or even a weekly question and answer section) is a great way to get employees reading the newsletter and help them understand the company’s broader vision and goals.
19. Big wins
Never miss an excuse to celebrate the success of your teams.
20. Training opportunities
Tell employees about local conferences, online courses, workshops, webinars or any other training opportunities you offer. This is a great way to encourage ongoing education and show employees your organization values their growth.
21. Free resources
Give employees access to career advice and work-life balance advice. It's also a good idea to promote other tools/services the company has access to through your benefits program or other initiatives your organization has invested in.
22. Reminders
If you want employees to take action, you’re going to have to remind them pretty regularly. Make sure everyone knows about events, flu shots, open hours, closures, etc.
23. Competitor news
Let everyone know what the competition is up to so they can get perspective and see the context of their work efforts.
24. New hire profiles
Encourage community, culture, and a welcoming onboarding process by doing small write-ups about new hires. You can encourage employees to add new hires on LinkedIn. Employees will be more inclined to say hello after they have read about their new colleagues and have connected on social.
Customer-Focused Newsletter Content
Certain departments never come into contact with the end product or customers. By helping them understand how your services or product are received, you’ll help employees contextualize their work and projects, and give them the satisfaction of seeing their work make an impact in the real world.
26. Customer stories
Use this opportunity to praise employees for a job well done. Feature positive stories from customers that your organization or product has helped. When employees can see their work impact lives, it can help make their jobs feel more meaningful.
27. Great reviews
Give everyone a well-deserved pat on the back with good reviews you find about your company and/or product.
28. Social media chatter
If your company has a social media presence, screenshot Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram comments or posts of customers talking about your company.
Getting employees to engage with your internal newsletter is both an art and a science.
The best way to find out which content employees will enjoy and engage with the most is to experiment. Take some time to try out some different content blocks and see how employees react. Once you find a few content blocks that are working, get creative with formatting, writing style, and design to maximize that existing engagement.
Do you have any great content ideas?
Tweet us @Bananatag and share your newsletter success stories.
