Member Article

What does your company newsletter say about yours?

Company newsletters are becoming increasingly popular with as many as 61% of SME’s within the United Kingdom producing a monthly newsletter. The reasoning and logic behind such newsletters has been questioned in recent times, with 41% of employees seeing them as a waste of time and 24% not even reading them. This has led to the obvious question of are they really worth it? The time and cost it takes to produce them compared with those that read it, internally and externally to the organisation, and then act upon it is likely to be insignificant. With this in mind it begs the question, are companies aware of this and, if so, what are they doing about it?

I worked for a national sports retailer in which the newsletters were basically a way for Management to tell the assistants and lower-level employees what they were doing wrong. It was as far away from a motivational tool as possible and it did not provide any constructive feedback or positive announcements at all. For someone who takes great pride in their work and does all they can for their employee, it certainly did not make me feel valued. Needless to say, this newsletter was not distributed externally; but had it been then it would have certainly given the company a tarnished reputation.

Even the little things count

As I am I responsible for the newsletters at my current employment, I am pleased to be able to produce a newsletter that reflects our company and provides news and articles that I am happy with relaying. I am of the belief that having a newsletter that accurately reflects your company can support in its branding and create the image you want too. I try to make the articles newsworthy, relevant and include some interaction on them. As a company that needs to ensure we are ahead with the latest technologies, it is imperative our articles are relevant, current and of interest to the market.

I came across a newsletter the other day, from a company that will remain anonymous, that had articles with website source addresses copy and pasted into the article. Needless to say, when following the link through, the newsletter article reflected word for word on the article online. This lazy and sloppy behaviour tells me you do not really care what your customers or readers think and that you do not even believe people will read the newsletter. Big mistake.

Next time you write an article for your company newsletter or read it whilst on your break, think about if this reflects on you and your view of the company. If you are bored, uninterested or think it is not very appealing whilst reading it, it is likely that your customers will share that view too of your company.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by David Elvis .