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What is considered a good open rate for enewsletters?

Are there any sources that give benchmarks that you can measure the results of your enewsletter?Many thanks in advance! Chrysoula

Hi Chrysoula,

Thank you very much for your question.  It is salutary that more and more communicators are interested in outcomes rather than outputs.

Too often in the past our job was to get stuff out, on time and on budget.  If we achieved those three things we thought that we had achieved our goals.  Never mind that what we were sending was ignored by our audiences.

Often when we look at the stats of open rates on long-standing newsletters the results are very disappointing - down in the 17-25% range.  But this is quite typical where the editorial agenda is set from above and there is little or no understanding of what our colleauges are truly interested in.

We have been working with a food packaging company on their newsletter to their Middle East region and over 18 months they have got opening levels up to over 80% which is pretty impressive.  The trick - good content and the development of a compelling CEO blog.

 

How do you get them to read our communications?
I work for a large site with over 2500 people, I look after internal site communications. We have a fortnightly newsletter, TV screens (as we are a posterless site) and an intranet. We also do site briefings for managers, yet we still find people are not aware of what is happening on-site, do not read emails etc. So I wanted to see if you had any innovative ways to get information to a large group of people without flooding them with emails?

We put your question to Euan Semple in a recent edition of simplytv

You can hear his answer by spinning forward to 50 mins into the programme.

Any advice for publishing staff survey results when detailed action plan to address issues has not yet been agreed

There's no standard reply. It certainly depends on the situation.

But in general, my advice is to write a story about the results that quotes senior management on some of the items, and makes it clear that they're listening and contemplating a course of action. The story should also tell readers that further developments will be reported--and then make sure they are!

It's perfectly reasonable in one of these stories to say that the survey raises important issues and that leaders have to take the time to address them. It also opens the door for further interaction, through blogs and town hall meetings to hear more from employees and announce changes as they come.

Hope that helps. Please email me to discuss further, if needed.

Best,

Jim Ylisela
 jylisela@gmail.com

I am looking for best practices for Social Networking for Businesses.
I am looking for best practices for Social Networking for Businesses, both internal social networks within a company and external.

There is a short answer and a long answer to this question. 

 

The short - this overview from Getit Comms:

The long answer is to join our free lunchtime webinar on the subject on Tuesday 31st May at 13:00 GMT.  Email marc.wright@simply-communicate.com to book your place.

Looking for some benchmarks on internal communications.
Looking for some benchmarks on internal communications. Is there an industry standard for organizations with 16,000 employees on click through rates for monthly online newsletters, news on intranet, and weekly update e-mails?

I wonder if you have any information about communicating with pilots?

There are fewer employee groups as challenging to reach than pilots for airlines.

And there are fewer employee groups that can be as instrumental to helping your employee communication efforts succeed.

Part of this is simply because of logistics. Because pilots don’t have “an office” they can be challenging to find, secure time from and be available for one-to-one conversation. A greater challenge, however, can be one of perspective. Airline pilots, because of all they see on the ground and in the air, have been known to believe they know more about running the company than anyone else. They are always good for an opinion, an insight and a good piece of gossip.

At the same time, they can be very important partners in your communication efforts, because of the reach of their work, the authority of their roles and the inquisitive nature of their minds.

So anyone assigned to job to communicate with pilots should keep a few ideas in mind.

Make senior leaders available. Pilots believe they are entitled to have easy access to senior leaders. Many do not handle disappointment well. As you schedule senior leaders, make sure to offer enough face time to pilots so they have the chance, without relying on media, to question senior leaders on business strategy, decision and future plans. Their questions will be informed, detailed and awaiting thoughtful response.

Reach beyond the Intranet and email. Yes, today, most pilots travel with laptops and can easily be reached through conventional Intranet and email communication. But pilots believe they are special and, as such, want special efforts to be made on their behalf. So consider how a pilot’s channel on an Intranet – or a pilot’s community on a social media site – can help pilots absorb and appreciate information that is created just for them.

Approach pilots as an audience as well as a channel. Pilots seriously consider their role as communicators with authority. So each time a plane lands, and a pilot interacts with the ground crew, as well as the flight attendants, they articulate their views with confidence and clarity. So make sure, as you prepare material, to give pilots what they are hungry for, not only as recipients, but also as authentic communicators themselves.

Involve pilots in measuring communication effectiveness. Finally, reach beyond looking at pilots as a destination only; instead look to these critical employees as a fundamental channel in the effort to collect accurate feedback. During my years in the airline business, I always relied upon a small number of senior pilots who, within minutes, could give me an accurate pulse on what people in the company were thinking, simply because they hear and absorb so much.

Good luck with your efforts and, if you have additional ideas or questions, feel free to drop me a line at mark@dmarkschumann.com.

-Mark Schumann

Mark Schumann, ABC, is the immediate past chair of IABC, and the winner of 17 Gold Quill awards. He started his career as the director of employee communications for Frontier Airlines and later, as a consultant for Towers Perrin, worked closely with such airlines as Southwest, Continental, Cathay Pacific, American and TWA. Check out his daily blog at www.acommunicatorsview.com.

Core behavioural values of a successful internal communicator
If you were to define the core behavioural values of a successful internal communicator and their key responsibilities at a strategic level - what would this look like please?

No longer is the internal communication role simply about tactical activities. Today we are a coach, negotiator, facilitator and networker, someone who is prepared to challenge – in a constructive way – based on our understanding of effective application of theory to practice.

Most organisations understand the importance of employing strategic communications to deal with external stakeholders, but not all approach internal communications in the same way. For internal communication to be successful, internal communicators need to ensure their behavioural attitudes and those of senior managers reflect the values, principles, and purposes of their organisation communicated externally internally.

Internal communicators also need to ensure their actions are in tune with the organisation’s objectives. All internal comms activities should be rooted in the organisation’s business objectives and their success can be measured against the impact they have on them.

It is increasingly evident that internal communicators need to become more strategic in their approach and speak the language of business if they are to earn their place in the boardroom. By learning the theory that underpins their activities, internal communicators can contribute to the business with confidence. Operating at a strategic level, internal communicators’ key responsibilities include carrying out situation analyses and developing appropriate strategies to tackle these. They need to manage stakeholder relationships and work with others to achieve results. This responsibility, as many internal communicators will testify to, requires good negotiation and diplomacy skills. Internal communicators also need to understand the P&L sheet and demonstrate their worth through effective objective setting and measurement. This is extremely important. In business things always come down to the bottom line and in all sectors people want to see evidence of success.

-Kevin Ruck

Kevin Ruck is founding director of PR Academy and an experienced internal communications practitioner and trainer. He is also the editor and co-author of "Exploring Internal Communication".

How do I start in developing a methodology to asess the health of an organization in the matter of internal Communications and get cuantifiable results so i can recomend the best curses of action?

I am trying to find out about best practice in the communication of compensation & benefits in medium to large organsiations and how social networking is/is not creating change in this area.

I am trying to find information specifically about improving communications within a small group of an organisation.
Lately there has been a break down in respect and communication and I am looking into ways to redress that. Generally attitudes to things like 'away days' have been pretty cynical, any thoughts?

This is a tough one to deal with as a communicator as the last thing that such teams don't want is to listen to advice from a communicator!

The key here is to find the WIIFM - the What's In It For Me - of the individuals or parties involved.  There will be something in their scores, be they KPIs or the results of employee engagement surveys.  Find out who is running the surveys and and see if you can get any information about what staff or other stakeholders are saying about the unit in question.

Often it is the IT unit who present these problems and this is because in the past  they may not have been recruited for, and do not value, communication skills.  They can develop a 'bunker mentality' that makes their lives miserable and screw things up for the rest of the organisation.

If you go in saying that respect and communication are low, then you will make little headway.  If however, you say that you can help them with improving their Line Manager Index, or their turnround of cases, or reduce churn, then they are more likely to listen to you.  Particularly when you can point to similar successes in other departments or units.

Sometimes it can be helpful to get the endorsement of the senior person the unit reports into, but treat this with caution as you may tread on toes.  But if the rest of the organisation is getting fed up with their attitude, then you can use that - provided you present yourself as bringing solutions and not criticism.

Offer to do some one-on-one coaching with a the most reasonable member of the unit; or help them improve their intranet pages or a brochure.  Focus on improving a piece of communication and then gently give them advice to improve their own communicaiton skills.