Are Your Quarterly Newsletters Reaching Your Most Important Demographic?

A few common-sense tips to make the connection

Chances are your company has a newsletter of some type. It probably has a schedule which ends up at the bottom of priority lists and is the first thing to ‘be flexible on’ when an important project   pops up. Hey, it happens! However, if you send your communication piece via email  and track open metrics then listen up … our quarterly newsletters (see an example of our most recent Champs Chicken ‘Town Fryer’ Newsletter) are our number one, without-a-doubt, highest open rate of any communication we send to our retail and wholesale partners.

For example, you can head on over to smartinsights.com and see what your industry average is for email open rates. In food service the average is 25.16% according to their study and our last customer newsletter is still going strong at over 40%!

Quarterly Newsletters = More Transparency

In the business of selling licensed and franchise businesses it seems as if we were knocking it out of the park, however, we would be overlooking one essential demographic to our own success – an internal newsletter! If our customers value the information enough to give us mind-blowingly high open rates when compared to industry standards… think how beneficial a regular communication piece to those most invested in our corporate success might be. Thus, you’ll find the first tip in our business communication series to establish a quarterly newsletter.

Frequency

This is something you may need to feel out for a few editions and see what works best for your company. A few things to consider:

1. How much time do you have to devote?
2. How many articles will it include? (for instance, we shoot for 5-7 with each distribution)
3. Do you have the appropriate software for tracking? (if not please leave a comment and we can suggest a suitable solution!)

Still not sold? Here are a few benefits we’ve seen from developing these regular communications (in no particular order)…

1. Collaboration – Perhaps form a newsletter committee with members from your key departments. This shares the burden of content and also makes for a great, balanced piece.
2. Communication -- Simple as that. Having a reason to communicate across departments ensures that it happens somewhat regularly. This makes everyone think through initiatives for clarity as well.
3. Celebration – This has become a great way to set goals and celebrate victories for our company.
4. Coordination – This takes planning and timing, we’ve even seen people rush to accomplish projects due to upcoming publish dates!
5. Citation – You really know you’ve succeeded when company members start citing newsletter content in meetings and other emails. They found the information relevant and retained it.

Why did we choose quarterly newsletters?

Every three months is attainable for most content creators to fit into busy schedules. This also helps those needing to provide graphics and build the structure. It isn’t so repetitive it will be ignored or deleted and if planned effectively it can help keep the very precious inbox space clean.

Wrap-Up

Sometimes it is easy to get busy taking awesome care of your customers and forget to communicate within your own organization. Quarterly newsletters can provide crystal clear communication and run along with other quarterly goals or awards your company may already have in place.

If not, don’t worry. We’ve got an upcoming post slated to discuss formal and informal employee recognition – stay tuned! Until then check out how the intranet and social groups can improve your business communication!