How Can I Create an Engaging E-Newsletter for Our Remote Employees? Seeking Your Ideas!

Greetings, folks,

I am planning to develop an E-NEWSLETTER for my company, even though our employees are working in different locations for different companies. This way, we can keep them informed about what is happening at our company. Could anyone help me by providing suggestions on what the content should include in the E-Newsletter? I would be grateful to those who can share some information or examples of E-Newsletters here.

Wow, Thanks Raj. I will surely go through it. When I need your help, I will contact you. Your reply gave me a lot of ideas. I think I will proceed with that as of now. Will get back to you later!

Thanks again,
Pramod,
Bangalore, India.

Hi Ahsok,

I hope you are back in the office. If so, please send me a copy of the E-Newsletter and tell me the difference between an E-Newsletter and an E-Zine. Is an E-Zine something that has more pages than an E-Newsletter? Which is better, and where is an E-Zine used versus an E-Newsletter? I am searching for more information on these topics.

Regards,

Hello Promod,

The line between E-Zine and E-Newsletter is very thin. Both are meant for distributing the information across but there is a certain difference in theory.

E-Newsletter:- Is sent to subscribers OR in your case it can be distributed to a community of people (in this case subscription may not be necessary). Basically it contains only the information which you want to convey. In theory this is not used for commercial purpose (but practically anything can be violated), I mean no advertisements etc… E-Newsletter is a standalone body and requires no external dependencies such as server, internet/intranet etc... All the content is distributed as part of E-Newsletter.

E-Zine:- The term E-Zine is coined from Electronic Magazine. It could be a web site on your server. Interested can browse but this also can be circulated for subscribers but not as a whole E-Zine but as links to selected topics. You are correct that in theory the pages OR size of E-Zine is high, so it always resides in your server and interested could only be sent links to various high-lights of each version. Note that if you are concentrating on an intranet distribution the server must be accessible by all the subscribers in this case.

All above are theory, they both can be mixed based on the commercial and personal requirements. I am sure that the terms in B2B OR WWW are only subjective words and not to do much technically.

As a whole,

‘E-Newsletter - An E-Newsletter is a newsletter sent via e-mail to subscribers.'

‘E-Zine; a part-promotional, part-informational newsletter or magazine distributed on the Internet.'

Hope I am clear; let me know if you need much on this topic. BTW, am searching for a suitable E-Newsletter that can be distributed outside; let you know once I found the same.

Thanks,

Ashokraj.R

Hi Ashok,

Thank you so much. I am no longer confused after reading your reply. I am also planning to search for a good E-Newsletter tool that is user-friendly to create E-Newsletters. Currently, if I have all the necessary materials such as pictures and information, I believe I can use Outlook Express to create the E-Newsletter. I prefer starting with E-Newsletters initially, and maybe later I can consider transitioning to an E-Zine.

Thank you once again.

I'll give you basic points for sharing:

- Candidates' professional and personal experiences (ask for small write-ups).
- Track development in the technology or area your company is working on (research).
- Track company corporate business news.
- May have one humor column.
- Company announcements, especially on locations, employees, and champions.
- Company heads' messages, if any.
- Make it lively.
- Publish original material.

That's it for small suggestions.

Hello Promod,

Are you going to directly create E-Newletter OR you are going to co-ordinate a person OR team for creating E-Newletter?

It is always better to do a research/study on HTML and/or web based technologies before starting the task. There are some sites offer (free of cost) E-Newsletter generation supports, I couldn't remember exactly the URL. Anyways a simple GOOGLE search will do this for you.

BTW, still am out of office and I will NOT be back until May 24th. But you can communicate for any information; after all I don't know much on HR internals.

Anyways am clubbing some clarification with this post as below,

Even though I am a technical guy, it is a must to deal with the team to complete the accepted assignments. So more over HR dept, I guess mostly the middle OR upper technical management plays intangible HR role in most of the organizations. I am not here to debate whether this is correct OR not, but this is the fact, over load and unknown region. So coming to my question, in this practical scenario how the effectively the HR dept. can remove this unknown overload forced on Technical management?

Thanks in advance,

Ashokraj.R

Hi Raj,

Indeed, we have a team that is developing an HR Portal. So, I am planning to give my suggestions and propose to the top management about an E-Newsletter.

As you said, I need to search in Google or look for some other software that supports creating an e-Newsletter.

Coming to your question - as you said, the upper technical management plays an intangible role. However, you see HR cannot be viewed on a micro-level; it involves various activities where decision-making is a major factor. I agree they are indeed a support to the whole organization; still, they have a major role in keeping the employees engaged. They might not directly contribute to the growth of the organization, but if there is an increase in attrition, the technical people will not be responsible; it's HR who has to be responsible and should address it. So, I see that by default, the roles have been disturbed. As for the overload on Tech Management, I think the Top Management has to oversee this.

HR can make some plans like sending employees on vacation to overcome stress, etc. I have given my view on this. You can have your own views.

Understanding a machine is easier than understanding humans!

Hi,

It was indeed a good discussion on e-newsletters and e-zines.

I am the Chief Editor of my organization's internal magazine. Somewhere in the discussion, you were discussing about the potential topics that can be covered in such magazines. I would like to share what we are doing in our magazine.

We have given a big facelift to the company magazine in the last 6 months. Prior to my taking up the responsibility as the Chief Editor, the magazine was more of a technical publication with details about the events, news, and performance of the company, and the MD's message.

I felt that this was restricting the influence and effect that the magazine could have, and therefore decided to transform the magazine into a completely reader-friendly employee and family publication.

We decided to have sections of varied interests to suit the reading inclinations of the technical employees, the commercial employees, and also those interested in light reading and self-development. Additionally, the magazine now covers fields that are of interest not only to the employees but also to their families, including kids.

The following sections are included in the magazine:

- Application section (discusses technical advancements in the industry and our own achievements and innovations)
- Knowledge sharing (covers general management principles and self-development tools)
- Experience sharing (employees share about trainings, get-togethers, or other forums within the company from which they've benefited - it's an open sharing by employees)
- Book Review (provides summaries of selected books in every issue)
- Talents and Achievements (highlights the talents and achievements of the children of our employees)
- Hobbies and Interests (features the hobbies and interests of our employees, showcasing unique hobbies in each issue)
- Travel and Leisure (discusses memorable trips of our employees)
- Health and Fitness (includes articles and tips for health and fitness)
- IT Pick (provides general information related to IT)
- Inspirational Gems
- Events and Happenings (captures all major events and celebrations in the company at all locations)
- Long Service Awards (includes photographs of all the long-service award winners during the considered period)
- New Family Members (provides preliminary details about all the new joiners)
- Kid's Corner (offers puzzles, fun games, and activities for kids of different age groups)
- Food for Thought (contains an inspiring and motivating article for self-development)

This is how we operate with our company magazine.

Regards,

Swati

Those interested in knowing the basic considerations before launching a newsletter might find this helpful:

http://www.repairtxt.com/the-newsletter-challenge/

Those looking for basic considerations before starting a newsletter might find this helpful:

http://www.repairtxt.com/the-newsletter-challenge/