They say communication is 90% non-verbal. You can think of your employee newsletter design the same way: how you organize and present information to your employees matters just as much as the information itself.
The best employee newsletter designs excel at the same thing: putting the right information in the right place. Great internal email newsletter design is all about matching the information you’re communicating with the right format.
However, employee newsletter design doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, the best internal newsletter designs are flexible, and allow for variability in how information is presented. In this post, we’ll cover:
- Why good email newsletter design matters
- Our best employee newsletter design tips and best practices
- How you can save time and effort on your email newsletter design
Why Are Employee Newsletters Important?
Why use employee newsletters at all? Because they’re incredibly effective tools for keeping your employees in the loop about important information that affects their work. Strong employee newsletters:
- Create a centralized hub for sharing information with employees
- Offer employees a recurring and familiar venue for getting updates
- Strengthen your internal brand voice and contribute to your company culture
- Make your internal communications into 2-way communication tools via surveys and employee feedback
- Give internal communicators a tool for benchmarking internal communications engagement.
If you want to improve your employee newsletter design immediately, we cannot emphasize the importance of using an employee newsletter design software like ContactMonkey. Design stunning internal newsletters from scratch using an easy-to-use drag-and-drop email template builder, or choose from our library of professionally designed employee newsletter templates. Click the button below to get started today:
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Why is good employee newsletter design important?
Your employee newsletters are only effective if your employees actually read them. The best internal newsletter designs all have this common goal, and achieve this in several different ways:
- Grab your employees’ attention: Your design can be flashy or subtle, but it should always entice your employees to start (and keep) reading your newsletter.
- Show your employees where to read: Email newsletter formatting visually organizes information in ways that employees intuitively understand.
- Create a logical flow of facts: You can’t start a story at the conclusion. Effective email newsletter design ensures that employees get the right context about the information they’re reading.
- Highlight important information: Don’t make your employees search for information that matters to them. The best newsletter designs put the most important content front and centre for your employees.
- Encourage employees to take certain actions: Whether you want your employees to take a survey or RSVP for an upcoming event, good email newsletter design should make it obvious how employees can take the action you want them to take.
Ultimately, employee newsletters are great because they can be created to achieve a variety of objectives. By understanding the best practices and tips for great company newsletter design, you’ll be able to mold your newsletter into whatever you need it to be.
10 Employee Newsletter Design Tips, Ideas, and Best Practices For Success
We’ve collected our best employee newsletter design best practices and tips to help you create compelling internal communications for your employees.
1. Use a layout that best suits your content
While it may be tempting to copy your layout from a newsletter you like, it may not be the best choice for your employee newsletter design. The best newsletter designs are those that use a layout that best shows off your content.
To give you an idea of your employee newsletter layout options, here are two of the most popular formats:
This F-pattern is designed for scanning and works to prioritize the most important email newsletter information. Employees will begin by reading the first horizontal line of content, so make sure you put the necessary key details in that first line.
This email pattern imitates how Western readers scan text, from left to right and top to bottom. This creates a Z-shape pattern. The top elements of the email should be the most crucial info, with detail in the middle, leading to the bold CTA at the bottom.
However you format your email newsletters, ContactMonkey’s email template builder will make realizing your dream newsletter design a reality:
Easiest internal emails: drag, drop, and you’re done!
2. Embody your brand with your employee newsletter
When it comes to good newsletter design, consistency is key. Be sure to use your company’s branding and style when creating your newsletter.
With ContactMonkey, you can set your brand colours, fonts, headings, and more as default within the email builder. This saves you loads of time on your employee newsletter design process and helps ensure consistent and effective newsletter branding.
3. Always, always use employee newsletter templates
Another huge time saver for employee newsletters is templates. Email templates are reusable models for emails and newsletters that save you having to re-create information you’ve used in past campaigns.
Every email you create using ContactMonkey’s email template builder can be used as a template. Or you can choose from our library of professionally-designed email and newsletter templates:
Do you want a professional-quality newsletter template but lack the adequate skills? No problem! ContactMonkey offers an Email Design Service where you can collaborate with our in-house designers to get a reusable, personalized email newsletter template.
4. Let employees engage with your newsletter content
A great way to keep employees reading your newsletter is to make it interactive. Interactive newsletter design is a great way to grab your employees’ attention while simultaneously gathering employee feedback.
Embed pulse surveys, eNPS surveys, anonymous employee feedback collection, and more the next time you are designing your internal newsletter. These features can have a huge impact on your overall internal communications engagement, and give you actionable insights on how to give your employees the content they want to see.
5. Don’t forget about writing compelling email copy
Regardless of how you design your employee newsletter, your employees will quickly tune out if you don’t grab their attention with effective writing.
Even with a creative newsletter design, you have limited space for text. This means you have to choose your words carefully and make every choice count.
Want to learn more about effective writing? Read our tips on how to write effective internal newsletters.
6. Make your CTAs stand out
We mentioned how you can design your newsletters to encourage your employees to take certain actions. Call-to-action (CTA) buttons and links play a huge role in getting employees to take that action.
Using ContactMonkey’s email template builder, you can feature CTAs prominently and customize their appearance to grab your employees’ attention:
However, we recommend you be conservative with how often you include CTA buttons on your employee newsletter. If you use them too frequently, employees will start to tune them out and your engagement will drop.
7. Reach every employee with responsive design
Not all of your employees will view your newsletter the same way. Some may use their desktop computers, while others may use their phones.
When designing your employee newsletter, it’s important to consider these factors. Choosing the right employee newsletter design software allows you to create responsive internal communications that adapt to the device on which they’re viewed.
Every email sent with ContactMonkey features fully-responsive HTML code, which will help your email fit whatever devices your employees are using. You can even preview how your email will look on those devices using the mobile and tablet preview features:
8. Target your employees with relevant content
While employee newsletters are generally designed for entire workforces, larger companies may create different employee newsletters depending on the group of employees they’re sent to.
By sending segment-specific content to your employees, you can better target them with information relevant to their jobs. If this is the approach you take, we recommend creating dedicated distribution lists for your various newsletter recipient groups.
With ContactMonkey’s list management feature, you can quickly and easily create your own distribution lists without having to wait on IT. And because ContactMonkey can integrate with your Human Resource Information System (HRIS), your custom lists will automatically stay up-to-date.
9. Show, don’t tell: use multimedia in your newsletter
Remember how we mentioned you have limited space on your newsletter for text? Optimize the space that you have by showing your newsletter content to employees, rather than telling them.
Animated GIFs, videos, and images can all save you space and copy in your employee newsletter. And with ContactMonkey, you can add this content to your employee newsletter design in an instant.
But we’ll issue the same warning we did for CTAs: don’t go overboard with your employee newsletter multimedia content, as employees can be overwhelmed if it is not placed strategically.
10. Don’t be afraid to change what isn’t working
You’ve optimized your employee newsletter workflow and found a layout and content strategy that match your organization’s brand identity: now what?
We cannot stress enough the importance of internal email analytics for internal communications. This is the data you need to determine whether your content is resonating with employees or needs a few more tweaks.
With ContactMonkey’s email analytics dashboard, you can see exactly how your internal newsletter is performing with real-time metrics:
Don’t guess at your email newsletter design. Gather email metrics so you can make data-based decisions to inform your internal communications strategy.
Take your newsletters to the next level with our employee newsletter checklist, our post on what to include in your staff newsletter, and our newsletter content ideas by month of the year. If you are just starting with staff newsletters, you must check out our complete guide to employee newsletters, which is packed with actionable ideas and strategies.
Get to know your team beyond clicks and opens
Decode employee patterns with real-time analytics.
The Right Employee Newsletter Design Software Can Make A Huge Difference
We hope that you now have a solid idea of what goes into the best employee newsletter designs. And we hope you recognize how much easier it is to implement these strategies using a dedicated internal newsletter tool like ContactMonkey.
Want to see the ContactMonkey difference firsthand? Book a free demo today to make your employee newsletters reach their full potential.
