Email Best Practice for Internal Communication
How small improvements can transform internal communication and email engagement
An increasing number of Concep clients use our platform to communicate with their employees. It makes sense. Despite the proliferation of collaboration tools for teams and workspace social channels, email is still the primary work tool for most people working in professional services.
Whether internal communication includes information about an upcoming company event, compliance training, or forms part of the comms plan for a wider transformation programme, understanding how and why your employees are engaging with your communication is key.
In Concep’s 2019 global email marketing benchmark report we compared email campaign metrics for different sectors within professional services and for three different geographic regions: North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.
The findings show that when it comes to internal communication, email open rates in APAC were 17 per cent higher than in North America and 22 percent higher than open rates in Europe. As for click-to-open rates, APAC firms achieved 4.9 per cent higher than firms in North America and as much as 11 percent higher than European firms.
So what are firms in APAC doing differently to engage their employees via email?
We don’t have an answer, but it certainly piqued our curiosity. We set out to find if we could identify trends and best practice from the top 10 performing internal email campaigns based on view rates and open rates.
Here is what we found:
# 1 Targeting matters
Just as with external campaigns, internal campaigns with highly targeted recipient lists perform better than a blanket ‘Send to All Employees’ Campaign.
Tailoring content and language to a specific employee group appears to drive higher levels of recipient engagement. The bottom line is: ‘know your audience’ and understand what drives them.
# 2 Clear objectives drive engagement
Great internal communication should have a specific purpose that causes a group of employees to think, feel or do something different Campaigns may range from compliance or policy issues to company socials as well as providing company or strategic project updates. Whatever the subject, it’s always a good idea to include a link or a call to action that allows the recipient to engage in some way or another.
# 3 Small improvements make a big difference
Between the top performing campaigns and the rest, it was clear that making small improvements in the layout, content length, use of buttons and the use of quality imagery had an impact on campaign results. A well designed, engaging email will have a knock-on effect to the next campaign too: we are more likely to open an email from the same source if the previous one was positive experience – and vice versa!
Time for new tactics?
We took a look at a selection of campaigns to see what worked and what could be improved. It's time to go away and make your internal communication much more effective!
Example #1
Click rate: 78%
View rate: 89%
The email has a clear objective and a crisp clean layout with a clear call to action button.
The email reiterates the importance of the topic, what the recipient needs to do. It also doubles up the links, which is always advisable.
Example #2
Click rate: 67%
View rate: 91%
This weekly staff email with business news balances need-to-know content with more light-hearted topics. (TGIF content gets 90% of all clicks!)
It’s a long scrolling email, which can work well if viewed on a mobile phone for example. While it gets a bonus point for the cute squirrels it could still do with some work on the quality of the images used - and correct, consistent sizing.
Example #3
Click rate: 61.54%
View rate: 100%
This template was created as a ‘thank you’ email to employees.
It has a header and top line message that is clear to read. It includes several links and a video message making the email feel personal and appreciative.
The importance for action is made clear, and could have had even more attention brought to the action required by using call to action buttons.
More Top Tips
- Your employees are a captive audience. It’s the perfect opportunity to test new initiatives and try new things. Find what works - and then improve on it!
- Always know what you are measuring.Have an objective and a metric even if it is just for an audit trail.
- Think about what you receive and how you respond to it. Your colleagues are no different, so always try and put yourself in their shoes.
- If you are communicating an internal event, think about adding links to your thought-leadership or other content you may have on the topic for employees to read in advance. You’ll not only be able to gauge interest, but you’ll increase the quality of Q&A at the event.
- Save time creating an internal campaign and use Concep’s web automation tool so that employees receive relevant content on your website as soon as it is published – straight to their inbox on your branded template.
To find out how Concep’s email marketing, web automation and event platform can transform internal communication and email engagement in your organization, contact us.
