So, you want to write a company newsletter? Great idea! Whether you want to send a quarterly email, a carefully curated PDF, or make something interactive on your company intranet, a company newsletter can make a positive impact within your business. Plus, they’re an effective way to connect and communicate with employees and management alike.
The main benefit of a company newsletter is that it’s informative: everything employees need to know is collated in one place. However, it’s important to know they can be a great tool for keeping staff connected and for building a sense of community within the company. It can be easy in the workplace for departments to keep to themselves, especially when their day-to-day roles don’t require contact with other teams, so creating a fun employee newsletter is a great way to help employees interact.
What to Include in a Newsletter
To come up with company newsletter ideas for your business, you should begin by deciding what information is best and relevant. For example, you don’t want to fill up most of the space with figures and numbers if the percentage of people who need or want to see them is significantly smaller than those who don’t. That kind of information might be better suited to a quick email blast to the relevant people.
The scope of employees you want to feel included must also be reflected in the content of your newsletter and the way it’s written. For example, if you’re including information and updates from each department separately, make sure these sections are easy to navigate so that people can find what is relevant. Pro tip: steer clear of jargon wherever possible!
Use your company newsletter to connect staff, praise achievements, and cultivate a sense of community.
“Snackable” is a great word to keep in mind when crafting your content. There’s no need for the newsletter to be a complete ten-course meal when only three or four snappy and concise tidbits will suffice. If it gets too dense and heavy, readers’ attention will fade. The priority on what content you include will also depend on your industry.
A great way to test if your information will engage is to ask yourself “so what?” – whatever your response to this question is will determine whether it’s really necessary to include that information.
Employee newsletters are a great way to keep all staff engaged and excited about the company they work for. The newsletter will let each employee feel involved, especially if they have the chance to contribute to it. It might even be a good idea to send around an internal communications survey and ask staff what kind of content they’d like to see in a company newsletter. These are the people you’re writing it for, after all!
It’s also important when sorting through your company newsletter ideas to factor in attention span and ease-of-reading. A general recommendation is to use at least one graphic on each page as this breaks up big blocks of texts and keeps your reader’s eye moving forwards. If you’re including internal information and successes from each department, make sure they’re easy to sort through. A marketing intern may not be as interested in the accounts department’s updates on payroll as they are in the sales team’s latest target smash which could be used in a new campaign.
Your Company Newsletter: Ideas for Names
Before we get ahead of ourselves and get into fun company newsletter ideas, let’s talk about titles and how to come up with company newsletter names.
Naturally, this depends on the type of business you are and the tone you want to have throughout. For something really employee-centric and fun, don’t let anyone tell you that puns are bad. When they’re used right, they can be fantastic.
You could take a leaf out of MOO.com’s book – they absolutely would have missed a trick if they didn’t call their company newsletter the MOOsLETTER. But they did, and it’s an iconic, unforgettable name.
Things that rhyme, play on words, or embrace alliteration – use all these to your advantage if you can. Other tried and tested employee newsletter names include a variation on “The [company name] Times” or “The [company name] Gazette”. Have a play around and find one that fits your branding.
We’ve come up with a few fun company newsletter names you could try:
- In the Loop
- [Company name]’s Digest
- The [Company name] Chronicle
- The Bottom Line
- The Keynote
- Between the Lines
- The Quarterly Catch Up
- Monthly Mentions
Fun Employee Newsletter Ideas
We’ve got a slew of fun employee newsletter ideas just for you. Even better, you can encourage employees to get involved in most of them! Encourage them to submit ideas for games or nominations for the spotlight or send in their photos from any company events.
Employee Spotlight or ‘A Day in the Life’
Not only does this add a level of personability to your newsletter but it can really improve the culture within the workplace. Employees will feel included and appreciated while getting to know their coworkers. A ‘day in the life’ section is particularly good for showcasing how a certain department functions within the company. Unless employees work directly with that department, they’re unlikely to know what they actually do. All of this is a way to strengthen a sense of camaraderie and teamwork.
CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)
Showcase what your company is doing to support charities or the environment. Particularly within larger offices, there is often a handful of people competing in races for charities and worthwhile causes. Champion these and encourage people to donate if they are able. CSR doesn’t just center around charity work, however; you could include information about how you’re handling sustainability in the workplace or encourage open dialogue with staff to discuss how you can do more.
Photo Page
Everyone loves a photo montage! Your newsletter is an opportunity to share some of the top moments from any business award ceremonies, office Christmas parties, or work anniversary celebrations. And the best part? Pretty much everyone can contribute. Ask colleagues to send in their best pics!
Employee milestones
No matter the size of your company, there will always be at least a handful of milestones to be celebrated. These can include work anniversaries, completed professional qualifications and promotions, and even personal achievements like recent marriages or babies on the way.
“Take A Break”
All work and no play make… well, it’s no fun. Consider a section with a couple of crosswords or word games or even some ‘bonding’ ideas between teams. A personal favorite at the office here is as simple as “what’s your all-time favorite chip?” or deciding each course of your ultimate dream meal. This is another great section for encouraging participation, so ask employees or teams to send in some of their favorite ice-breakers.
Quote of the Month
This one might seem cheesy, but it’s bound to be memorable. Depending on the tone and personality of your company, you could mix it up and alternate between inspirational and movie quotes. (Sometimes they can be one and the same!)
Interest Checks
This could be for an office book club, an outing to a new lunch place that’s opened in your area, or maybe a watch party for a sports event or new movie. Use the newsletter to gauge interest for future team-building events.
Recommended Reading
Another section that everyone can contribute to is a ‘recommended reading’ section. Having a recommended reading section is a great opportunity for leadership and staff alike to shout out any literature that has helped them during their career. It doesn’t even have to be solely focused on career; it could be anything that they found inspirational and helpful in any way.
Company Newsletter Examples
The possibilities for how to structure your company newsletter are endless. Because there are so many choices, we’ve narrowed down a few of our top ideas to give you a helping hand. Whether you’re going for a downloadable PDF, long-form email, or a page on your company’s intranet, these fun company newsletter examples can work in almost any format.
Facts, Facts, and More Facts
This type of employee newsletter is very no-nonsense. To keep it simple and to the point, just include the facts and figures you need your employees to know. These can be sales targets and achievements, upcoming events, action points, industry news, or a simple “here’s what’s happened, and here’s what’s coming up”. A fact-centric newsletter works well for those that are being sent out on quite a regular basis, like once or twice a month.
The “Gazette”
Try compiling your company newsletter ideas into the style of a newspaper. Grab some ideas from your local newspaper and give each of your pieces a strong, attention-grabbing headline. Has your team recently smashed their targets or acquired a new client? Shout about it in the headlines!
There are many different sections in a newspaper that can be repurposed for your company newsletter ideas: worldwide news, sports, lifestyle, letters to the editor, and even a paparazzi page for your photographs.
Human Interest
This – as you might have guessed – is people-centric. Rather than dense information about sales and figures and achievements, focus on the people of the company. New hires, old hands, temps, freelancers, retiree, people love to feel recognized and noticed, and this is a clever way to do just that.
The human-interest company newsletter is great for showcasing your staff and really stoking the feeling of community within a business. People love to find out about other people, it’s human nature! Anyone you want to feature could answer a couple of questions about their hobbies, lifestyle and/or job role and make connections with someone they never thought they’d have anything in common with. You like true crime podcasts? So does Sue from accounts! Who knew?
Listicle Newsletter
Listicles have become very popular over the last few years and with good reason. They’re a great way to concisely sum up some content that you want to get out, quick. Not only that, but they’re fun. You can be as tongue-in-cheek as you like with it, too. Try titles like:
“Ten reasons 2019 was our best year: number four will surprise you!” or “The top ten things about working at [company name] as voted for by YOU.” The list goes on (and on!).
The Roundup
Possibly the simplest of all the company newsletter examples we’ve touched upon, but by no means the least effective. Sometimes less is more and if something quick, sleek and clean suits your brand, absolutely go with it.
This works particularly well for a quarterly or bi-annual newsletter, as you can pick the top three to five things that have happened in the last 3 or 6 months and summarize them for your employees to keep them up to speed. Maybe you had some posts from your blog go unexpectedly viral, or the company won a prestigious award, or hosted an event that surpassed predicted ticket sales. Sing those praises and keep all your employees up to date.
Hopefully by now you’ve got some great company newsletter ideas to play around with and have more of a sense of what to include in a newsletter. It can be a great tool within your business for keeping open communication and nurturing a community amongst your staff; especially if you involve them in the process.
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