What if a barrier to employee engagement is the newsletter you keep sending?
You or your team likely spend 30 to 40 hours (a conservative estimate) producing a companywide newsletter.
- Hours in editorial content meetings. Does everyone really need to be there? Does every article have the same importance or relevance?
- You write the articles and review them with partners. Does every piece of content need to follow the same review process? Can you streamline the approval process?
- Then you revise the content to obtain partner / stakeholder approval. Did they focus on the facts and verify for accuracy or editorialize and provide feedback on word choice and style?
- While that’s going on, you locate images. Is it stock photography, a corporate grip and grin picture, or a candid employee action shot? Does the image for each article require that level of effort?
- Once you have partner / stakeholder approval, you format and finesse the content and secure the additional required internal approvals. Is it a rubber stamp or did the additional approvers add value? If they added value, could they contribute earlier in the process to streamline it?
Finally, you send it. Yeah you!
But the vast majority of employees? They’re not opening it, let alone reading it.
Not because they’re disengaged. Not because they’re lazy. Because the newsletter isn’t worth their time.
Why Your Newsletter Isn’t Working
When you launched your newsletter, it worked well. It was new, shiny and filled a gap. It built connection. It shared wins across the enterprise.
But in today’s noisy, multi-channel, hyper-targeted world, your audience has evolved—and your newsletter hasn’t.
The top 5 reasons employees tune it out:
- Too much noise. The daily demands of the job are high. Their inbox is full of email. Your newsletter is just more, and it’s not a priority.
- Too little relevance. The content is global, national or enterprisewide, but employees care about local and what’s in it for them.
- Too corporate. The style and tone are formal, jargon-heavy, not easy to scan and void of personality.
- Too leadership focused. It’s written to showcase company programs and, too often, leadership egos, not to serve employees.
- Too much work. Lackluster headlines. Long scrolls and no clear call to action? They’re out.
It’s not that employees don’t care. It’s that the content doesn’t create curiosity, deliver what they need to know or inspire by helping them see how they’re contributing to something bigger than themselves.
The bottom line: Your newsletter doesn’t earn their attention.
Employees Aren’t That Different from Us
Do the executives and senior leaders read your newsletter? Would you read your newsletter if you didn’t have to?
Don’t answer that… out loud.
My guess is that your newsletter has become a tool that serves your leadership, not your reader.
It’s written to satisfy partners and stakeholders, not to deliver a nice mix of need-to-know and nice-to-know content employees care about. And it’s delivered in a voice that sounds like your father’s Oldsmobile—not a real person talking using their weekend words.
So, let’s do what communicators do best: be courageous, face the truth and tell a better story.
A Strategic Shift: From Output to Outcome
It’s time to abandon the SOS (send out stuff) strategy. Stop producing content out of habit—and start communicating with strategic intent.
Here’s the hard truth: The newsletter is no longer your primary channel. It’s the enticing appetizer, offering just enough to pique curiosity, give a satisfying taste, and invite the reader to read more. For those who want a quick bite, it delivers a crisp, digestible insight. For those hungry for depth, it serves up rich links to layered narratives with more detailed and meaningful content.
It’s an Appetizer, Not the Meal
Your newsletter is the appetizer—not a snack and definitely not the meal. The newsletter’s purpose is to spark curiosity, drive clicks, and lead employees to the content they’re hungry to consume.
Just like a great appetizer offers a taste of what’s to come, a well-crafted newsletter gives employees a quick, engaging preview of the most important news, updates, and stories. It should be flavorful, easy to digest, and leave them wanting more, clicking through to your intranet, attending an event, or taking meaningful action.
When done well, your newsletter sets the tone, opens the door, and leads to increased engagement.
Design for a Mobile-first Strategy
Employees are busy and many are on the move. If your newsletter isn’t optimized for a mobile device, you’re losing eyeballs on your content.
Designing a newsletter to be mobile-first means prioritizing readability, clarity, and ease of interaction on small screens.
Why? Because that’s where many employees are reading.
Use short, scannable blocks of text, bold headlines, and tappable buttons. Keep images lightweight and layouts single-column to avoid pinch-and-zoom frustration. Most importantly, make sure every link works seamlessly on mobile. A great mobile-first design doesn’t just look good; it respects your audience’s time and context, making it effortless to engage on the go.
Spoiler: The Frontline Doesn’t Read Newsletters
The reasons newsletters aren’t effective with frontline employees vary and are beyond the scope of this article.
Many frontline employees don’t have regular access to a company device. Those that do may receive email, but they rarely, if ever, check it… except during Open Enrollment each year. Frontliners get their company news from their leader or local signage.
The bottom line: stop fooling yourself (and your leaders) that your company newsletter is a channel for the frontline. Instead, get crystal clear about the audience for your publication. Write for them and find other ways to meet the content needs of your frontline employees.
Reimagine Your Newsletter
- Put your audience—not the org chart— first. Always!
- Go Glocal. Combine global and local (Glocal) news into a shared format that feels local. Create one publication with multiple voices. This works with national and regional content as well. It’s about balance and blend. Readers will come for local news and information and simultaneously be exposed to content you want all employees to know.
- Same structure, personalized flavor. Use a consistent name and layout across all geographies but change up the masthead imagery and stories to reflect local life.
- Write about humans and for humans. People like reading about other people, not programs and policies. Humanize your article by crafting content with a person at the heart of the story. Communicate with clarity. Embrace Smart Brevity. Ditch the jargon. Be transparent and helpful.
- Leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI). All content doesn’t have to be treated equally. Use AI for business-as-usual content and edit to add the human factor. That enables you to invest time and creative energy into drafting more engaging content for your top priorities (i.e., the things you want to promote).
- Drive traffic to your intranet. Every story should lead somewhere useful or meaningful. Avoid clickbait to maintain trust and credibility. Also, avoid “click here.” To respect your readers’ time and improve their experience, ensure every link is meaningful.
Operationalize It Without the Overhead
With the right editorial policies, processes, and people, you can produce a high-quality newsletter with fewer resources and greater impact:
HOW? |
WHY? |
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Filter every content request through a funnel, like Purpose, People, and Priorities. While the categories may vary from company to company, the concept remains the same. If the topic passes though the funnel, consider it. If not, redirect it. |
Having a lens helps you make content decisions more easily. |
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Apply the Pass, Pause, Publish, Promote model to evaluate what earns attention. |
All content isn’t equal. Some is need-to-know because it requires action; some nice-to-know because it’s beneficial, interesting or both. Some must be sent because it’s required by law.
All that said…
Notes:
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Use AI tools like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot. Claude and Axios HQ to save time. |
All content isn’t created equally. Most of your content is likely business-as-usual (BAU). While BAU content may be important, it doesn’t require you to invest the same time and energy as content you want to promote.
AI technology enables you to create content quickly, which will free your team to invest more time and creative energy developing content that generates higher engagement and makes a bigger impact. |
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Stick to an effective Content Creation Framework that delivers the right content in the right portion at the right time.
For example: bite / appetizer (newsletter), snack (intranet article), meal (supporting content for those who wish to dig deeper), experience (an event either live or virtual). |
The trick, if there is one, is to whet and satisfy your reader’s appetite regardless of how hungry they are for the information.
Some may only read the headline. Some may have more time and read the article. Others may be more curious and want to dig deeper.
Sure, you need to deliver the meat and potatoes (priority messaging) and employees need to eat their peas (corporate messaging). But you need to balance what’s good for them with some content that’s too good to pass up.
By delivering a balanced meal of content, you satisfy the wide array of appetites that employees have. |
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Fully embrace Big “C” and little “c” by empowering regional and functional communicators to co-create content, not just contribute. |
When you collaborate with operational / functional communicators, you gain insight into what matters most and context that will help you cut through the clutter. |
Encourage your team to spend less time managing business-as-usual content and more time crafting stories that matter.
Important: When introducing this strategic framework, it’s important to explain it to the C-suite and your partners. They’ll be quick to understand it, and the conversation gives you an opportunity to answer their questions up front and gain their support at the start.
The Most Critical Communicators: Frontline Leaders
Here’s the hard truth: even the best newsletter won’t drive engagement if frontline leaders aren’t equipped to carry the message.
Most frontline leaders are overwhelmed. Their priority is operations, not higher-level (nice-to-know) messages from headquarters. So, if we want them to cascade information, we need to make it more worthwhile—and easier.
Here’s how…
- Add simple standard labels to articles like KNOW, ACT, SHARE to make expectations clear.
- Explain the WHY behind each ask so that leaders understand what’s in it for them and their team.
- Provide download-on-demand talking points with every newsletter (i.e., something that a frontline leader could relay in a 5-minute huddle or a manager can share at the beginning of their weekly staff meeting).
- Create a system of accountability and recognition for those leaders who communicate well. Focus attention and reward those who are getting it right. Others will follow their lead.
When you enable people leaders, you increase the reach of your message.
Measure Impact, not just Activity
Regularly assess and analyze metrics associated with your newsletter to track progress. It’s not enough to review the data. It’s important to ask, “what’s the data telling us?”
Measuring a newsletter’s effectiveness goes beyond clicks, opens, and likes—it’s about real-world impact. True success is holistic and reflected in outcomes, not just activity.
Did employees register for training? Show up to the event? Complete the task?
The goal is to increase awareness and drive action. That means connecting your newsletter metrics to business results: tracking attendance, completion rates, and behavioral follow-through to see whether communication inspired the response you intended.
If you think it landed (e.g., readership and likes are high), but it didn’t stick (i.e., action wasn’t taken), then it didn’t truly land.
Create Feedback Loops that are Easy to Use
Solicit audience feedback throughout the year. Be systematic and be open to taking it in whatever form you’re able to capture it (e.g., likes, comments, quick polls, one-question surveys (e.g., Did you find this newsletter helpful?), focus groups, hallway conversations).
Look for themes and patterns of engagement. What’s resonating? What’s not?
Use feedback to refine your editorial strategies and adjust your tactics.
Al’s Actionable Insights
Here are five steps you can take now:
- Be Honest and tell the truth. Acknowledge your newsletter isn’t working. Ask why—and listen. Then learn!
- Shift your mindset. Serve employees, not executives. Relevance is everything.
- Simplify and streamline your process. Automate where you can. Reduce the review and approval process by trusting the professionals responsible for communication. Focus on what moves people.
- Use your weekend words. Introduce a style guide with a conversational tone that supports consistency. Ditch jargon. Add warmth. Sound like a real person talking.
- Support your frontline leaders. If they’re not well equipped to reinforce the message, little will get through and nothing will stick.
Parting Thoughts
You don’t need to send more stuff. You need to send the right stuff with the right tone of voice, to the right people, at the right time.
And it all starts by rethinking your content strategy overall and more specifically, the purpose of your newsletter. It’s not a task to check off your list. It’s a chance to spark curiosity, build trust, increase engagement and truly serve your employees.
Lead with Light!
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