Weekly email newsletter delivers information in highly appealing format

One of the rules communicators tend to follow when it comes to email newsletters is getting to the content quickly. Requiring readers to scroll past the newsletter header before they get to content is a violation of that rule, one that the Howard Hughes Corporation is happy to ignore. Despite that, it’s taken first place in the “Newsletter” category of Ragan’s 2018 Employee Communications Awards.

The big, colorful photo featuring employees at the top of every issue of the weekly newsletter draws readers into the “Weekly Briefing,” which employs photos throughout each issue to introduce employees to new hires and highlight retirements, CSR activities, company news, videos (using a screenshot of from the video with a “play” button that takes readers to the web page where the video can be played) and other content.

There’s lots of color, plenty of white space and an easy flow to the newsletter, inviting readers interested in more than the most cursory information to click a button and read an entire article on the company’s intranet. Content varies from week to week, but always includes a list of employees celebrating birthdays, a feature that would lead employees to open the email just to see if they should share wishes with someone they know.

The internal communicators took advantage of Adobe Campaign, in use by external marketers, allowing them to deliver the email every Monday morning (even on holidays), and target each employee’s time zone. Adobe Campaign also provides email open rates, click rates and delivery reports, enabling the team to determine which stories resonate with employees so they can adjust the content they include.

Congratulations to the team of Van Reed, Ellen Dulweber and Alexis Luoma.