SUCCESS STORIES by CompanyNewsletter.com
Plan a series of articles in each issue of your employee newsletter that
reinforce the year's top objectives. You can't count on just one article
to get the job done. You have to continually reinforce the message with
a series of articles.
One way to do that
is to write about employee success stories, especially those made by
lower-ranking workers. This not only gives the featured employees
recognition and positive reinforcement, it serves as a model for other
employees to follow.
|
Write about employee success stories, especially those made by
lower-ranking workers. |
For instance, if a
mail room clerk figured out a new way to save your company thousands of
dollars per year by streamlining inter-office mail distribution, be sure
to write about it.
Then in the
following issue, you may want to write about an employee who looked into
ways to cut costs and discovered the company would save $15,000 per year
by leasing copiers rather than buying them.
These articles
will reinforce your CEO's priorities and show that, no matter what the
employee's job title, he or she can have an impact in helping the
company reach its goals.
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Highlights
from
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What do I want
my employee newsletter to achieve?
-
Motivate
employees and establish an effective work culture
-
Demonstrate appreciation of every individual and the role they
play
-
Keep
employees up-to-date with company development
-
Inform
employees on specific issue(s)
-
Any or all of
the above, or others not listed
What should I
call my employee newsletter?
The name of
your newsletter is very important and you need to establish what it
will be before creating a basic design. The name should have
significance for your readers - you may want to consult with them or
run a competition to choose a name that will be both suitable and
popular.
What content
should I include in my employee newsletter?
A general
employee newsletter could include:
-
Personal
message from managing director
-
Profiles
of departments or employees
-
Company
news (your employees want to hear about), e.g. products,
organizational changes, new appointments, company performance
-
Social
news
-
Contributions from employees, letters, etc
To create
continuity from one issue to the next, include regular features,
e.g. employees writing about their interests. If there is a lot of
detailed company information, make it more digestible by splitting
into several articles in more than one issue.
What about
photographs and images for my newsletter?
Photographs
can produce a very strong impact and add a lot of interest to a
newsletter - their inclusion should be considered when developing
the basic newsletter design. Wherever possible, try to obtain
a good quality photograph of people contributing articles or
mentioned in them.
Where budgets
allow, use professional photography.
Try to shoot
interesting photographs - avoid people sitting at PCs or standing
with their hands crossed in front of them. Photographs of
people looking natural make better than those of people posing
artificially. Do not use passport-style photographs.
Use
photographic prints the same size or bigger than each photograph as
it will appear in the newsletter - even better, use transparencies.
Digital
photographs must be taken at 300 dots per inch resolution.
Photographs taken at 72 dpi may look good on the internet, but are
not good enough for quality printing.
More info at
http://www.editorialresources.co.uk/prompts/z2zprm10.html#Whatachieve
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Get Information on
your employees, family members, teachers, etc.
Birthdays
Anniversaries
Work Anniversaries
Weddings
New Babies
Graduations
People Attending Meetings
Awards & Certificates Given Out
Employee Spotlight
Inside Scoop on Employees
More info at
http://www.fender.entryhost.com/Ideas and Tips.htm
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Not using photos in your
newsletter?
Using photos in
your newsletter is probably the best way to draw-in readers and make
your newsletter look visually exciting. Readership experts have
concluded that when people look at a page, the first thing their
eyes are attracted to are photos.
Pictures also
make articles more memorable for readers. It's one thing to read
about a company's new sales manager, whom you've never met. But when
you also see a photo of that person along with the article, it makes
the story much more personal and impactful.
Photos also add
credibility to a newsletter because they put the look of the
publication more on par with a newspaper or magazine, both of which
use photos generously.
Why don't more
newsletter editors use photos in their layouts? It's mostly because
coordinating the photography requires extra work and a lot of lead
time to plan. However, most editors find that the extra effort pays
off because the enhanced look can dramatically improve readership.
Too often,
photos are nothing more than an afterthought that takes place after
all the newsletter's articles have been written. Then there is not
enough time to coordinate the taking and developing of the photos.
Make sure to plan ahead for photos. The best way to do this is, when
you are putting together an article outline for your next newsletter
issue, list out a photo possibility for each major story.
For instance, if
you plan to feature a story about your company's new human resources
director, make a note to "arrange head and shoulders studio photo"
of the employee. Or if you are doing an article about a new plant
that your company is opening in Miami, make a note to "arrange to
have photo taken of new plant's assembly line."
Once you have
your story outline done for the upcoming issue, simply assign the
photo duties along with your story assignments.
More info at
http://desktoppub.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.companynewsletters.com%2Fmistakes.htm
