The Art of Internal Newsletters: Lessons from the Cortico-X Heartbeat and Beyond

A survey by 15Five revealed that 81% of employees would rather work for a company that values open communication.

• Share information within the team, either from leadership or among team members. Examples: project updates, initiative progress, best practices, company news.
• Reinforce transparency from leadership, including messages like strategic updates, change management communications, and policy changes.
• Build team culture, which is broad but could mean things like celebrating achievements and work anniversaries, reinforcing team norms, and recognizing teammates for performance that aligns with cultural values.
• Encourage connection among colleagues through sharing individuals’ human sides (e.g., fun personal facts, photos, achievements from outside of work).
• Consolidate messages that might otherwise come via multiple or other emails. In our Cortico-X Heartbeat, for example, we folded a regular business update email into our weekly newsletter.

• Use the purpose as a pressure test for content to include. Simple: If it doesn’t fit, don’t include it. I know, I know, it’s easy to say but much harder to do. Editing down is always a challenge. When in doubt, exclude something at first and bring the idea back later if it still resonates.
• Establish a realistic regular cadence – and stick to it. Your leadership may want a weekly newsletter – but is it really sustainable to come up with content that frequently? And will someone have to sign off on content or edit it? Will you even have enough new content that’s worth highlighting? Be intentional and realistic about what you can do successfully. You can always start with less frequent newsletters and speed up if you find that it’s manageable.
• Get buy-in from contributors ahead of time. If there’s a leadership update or a regular contribution from team members, make sure that they’re comfortable committing to the timeline and frequency. And be prepared to chase people down sometimes or exclude a section because it isn’t ready (no puppies will die!).
• Make it fun to read. If it’s not engaging, employees won’t bother to read it. Your newsletter needs a little… je ne sais quoi. In my experience, that means identifying good writers who will convey messages authentically. And have fun while you write it; your mood will come through in the writing.
• Leverage formats like images and video to make it more compelling. So often newsletters rely on long text blocks when a photo, image, or short video could convey more with less. According to a study from TechSmith, nearly 70% of employees who received visual communications absorb the information better than when they received text-based ones. If you’re experimenting with short-form video for employees, we have advice on that, too.
• Use formatting to enable scanning and easy reading. Text formatting like bold, bullets, and numbered lists can draw the eye to the most important content and enable a quick understanding of what’s in a section. And avoid overly wordy headings and body text; write concisely as much as possible.

• Maintaining a regular newsletter can be a slog. Early enthusiasm will fade. There will be times when you don’t feel like doing it. That’s normal. Push through it because there is value in what you’re doing. Or revisit your purpose and evaluate whether you’re achieving it. If you’re not, consider pulling the plug. There’s no shame in that game.
• There’s no built-in validation. We’re conditioned by social media likes and reactions to want immediate affirmation. But emails are one sided; they disappear out into the ether. Unless a team member deliberately tells you how great the newsletter is, you won’t know whether teammates like it (and open rates and click-through rates only indicate readership, not enjoyment or appreciation). It can feel deflating sometimes. Ask for feedback – not just for your own validation, but to help you make the newsletter better, too.
• The tools are imperfect. We use a newsletter tool to enable easy composition and formatting, but, frankly, it’s buggy. Sometimes I can’t insert an image or format bullets correctly. Copying and pasting from emails causes weird text formatting. Some weeks half the team never receives their copies because of our corporate security and junk filters. But it’s still easier than formatting an email in Outlook.