How can you write internal memos and announcements that engage employees?

Be clear on the purpose and what you want recipients to know, feel and do. Importantly, write for your reader, use simple language and keep it short - 250 words or less or at less than a minute to read. Research shows that you start to lose a significant portion of your audience after that. And, beyond that, infuse genuine joy and care into writing the message. I personally believe that shines through and has a positive impact.

Get to the point - use the inverted pyramid in your memos and announcements so people aren't needlessly spending extra time getting the important information Make people's lives easier, not harder, and they'll love you for it

Make it all about them! Must connect with the audience on an emotional level or you’ve already lost them. Why should they care about your message - make it relevant to them. What do they care about right now - and how can you help. Keep it super short and to the point. No paragraphs or scrolling required. We’re all overloaded with content so anything that makes the audience feel good and is helpful wins every time.

As a leader or entrepreneur, clarity of purpose in your communication is crucial. Before drafting a memo, define your objective. Are you motivating, instructing, or informing? This clarity shapes your message's tone and structure, ensuring it resonates with your team. For crafting impactful messages, refer to Simon Sinek's principles in "Start with Why."

Know what matters to your audience so you can position the news in a way that makes it the most relevant. And (if humor is appropriate for the content) don't be afraid to have some fun with it! A fun meme or image can grab eyeballs and help the info stick.

Make the tech or the tools you're using do the work and not the reader. We've all seen (or maybe written) comms that say: "For those interested in..." or "If 'x' policy applies to you then..." which are wide of the mark. Effectively, these broadcasts are easily ignored when people are time-poor or unable to filter content in a channel. Working with a deeper understanding of our audiences (plural) and what connects with them on an emotional level, our channels need to be able to identify and categorise individuals; what they like and dislike, their areas of interest, their group memberships, etc. Using these groupings alongside demographics and locations, gives IC a better chance of achieving hyper-personalisation: an audience of one.

If you're in a position to re-vamp the way your organization does internal communication, think "hyper-personalized messages." This often means email won't be your best channel; rather, think about self-selected or at least narrowly targeted ones, compatible with asynchronous work across global/international teams. (Sorry, folks: Teams, Slack and the like aren't going anywhere.) Rather than re-hash their work I'll recommend communicators pick up a copy of "Smart Brevity" (written by the co-founders of Axios, but the material is totally apolitical). You'll find really practical, digestible and easily-actioned methods for saying more in fewer words.

Knowing your audience is crucial. You need to know when, where and how they work. Are they all office, remote, field based? Do they work shifts? How many work full or part time and will this impact on when and how you send your communication? What age demographic are they? How do they choose to engage with company internal communications and what channels are available for them to receive communications on? All of these factors will inform the best approach to take in communicating effectively with your internal audience.

To me, “knowing your audience” extends beyond merely understanding what type of content substantively interests them. For communications to large groups of people (all-staff audiences), it’s essential to also appreciate the diversity of ways people consume information. What can internal comms teams do to better reach and motivate our audience to action? Perhaps we should experiment with catering to the unique preferences of every employee, empowering them to choose their preferred delivery methods - email, text message, social media posts, audio/video recording, etc. - as well as their preferred time of consumption. Deploying subscription-based comms products for internal audiences might be one way to elevate our impact.

Start by putting the WIIFM at the top to clearly identify why they should care enough to read the message or watch the video. I’d also recommend measuring conversions (not only “opens”) to see if the requested action is taken. This informs whether you continue with the same approach or change it up for the next message.

Apparently Americans have shorter attention spans (at 8 seconds) than goldfish (who clock in at 9 seconds) - famous Canadian study. We often lose people within the first few lines. Signaling who should know and do what at the top is key. Examples of signaling: - FYI / Action needed - For U.S. people mangers / For employees who chose a Kaiser health plan - Deadline is this Friday / By December 31 - etc....

Yes, be clear and concise. Add a TLDR summary and format everything nicely, BUT: Clarity and conciseness do not necessarily mean everything needs to be short. Some complex changes, strategies or socio-political topics require longer forms to be addressed appropriately.

For big company-wide memos it would be best to approach it as a inverted pyramid, just like a news article, with a lead followed by the key message and finnishing off with additional information. But keeping in mind that it has to be relatively short since all recipients don't neccessarily have the time to read a memo the size of a full spread in the NY Times.

Always make sure you bring it back to What's In It For Me (WIIFM). Ultimately, you have very little time to capture and engage your audience with any internal communications (the IoIC IC Index 2023 stated that internal communicators have 15 minutes a day to engage employees). So be laser focused with your messages, WIIFM and any action needed.

Marketing emails to customers and prospects are beautiful experiences: branded templates, engaging graphics, clever content, and we’re being thoughtful about the way information is templated out. On the other hand, a lot of internal communications wind up being a text-based, long wall of stuff. Your eyes get blurry looking at it. I am VERY passionate about making internal communications into a branded, thoughtful, engaging, and strategic experience!

Don’t limit internal comms work to the “professionals.” Seek out opportunities to incorporate the faces and voices of colleagues in your products, inviting staff to serve as lead messengers. And, in my view, authenticity trumps production quality. Don’t over-script the talent! Let people speak naturally - what’s more human than that?

Write in your company tone of voice. Depending on how sophisticated your martech set up is, there are great hacks. For example, some AI text content generation tools allow you to load your company tone of voice into your system making it easier to quickly get content with a consistent tone of voice.

To write internal memos and announcements that engage employees, focus on clarity, relevance, and a conversational tone. Start with a concise and attention-grabbing headline, followed by a brief summary of the key message. Use accessible language, avoiding jargon, and provide context to help employees understand the significance of the information. Incorporate elements of storytelling to make the content relatable and memorable. Consider visual elements, such as images or infographics, to enhance understanding. Encourage feedback and questions, fostering a sense of participation. Finally, ensure the memo or announcement aligns with the company culture, reflecting authenticity and a genuine concern for employees' interests and well-being.

There are three types of verbs; action, linking and helping. So be explicit in the subject what you want the employees to do. Particularly crucial in a change management program. Start with: Heads-up. Action. Feedback…

I often see email subjects go to waste with phrases like "December 2023 update" or "Monthly newsletter". I've seen organisations use a categorisation / code to show if something is for info, or for action - and even better - with a due-date right there in the subject line, to give people context. And writing a brief summary of contents where possible is an art that can help users know what to expect.

Include a clear call to action. What do you expect from your team following the memo? Also, timing is crucial – neither too early nor too late. Resources on effective call-to-action strategies can be found at hubspot.com.

Target your messages Technology today can help you segment audiences and personalize messages. Bottom-line, one-size-fits-all messages ages tend to create noise that lacks relevance. Targeted messages help us ensure the right message, gets to the right people at the right time. If 95% of messages are not relevant, we will teach people to ignore us. They will be quicker to push delete or identify your messages in spam filters.

Where else does a version of this information exist? All employee-centric communications should have a multi-channel strategy. Timely and relevant information should never exist in just one format. Diversify the channels to account for different styles of working and information processing.

Be appropriate. Be considerate of how your message or memo in this case could be recieved. Also question if a memo is the right format for your message.

Serve your audience. It's not about what you need to communicate, it's about what your audience needs to know, how is it going to make them feel, and what action they need to take. If you focus on the needs of your audience, you will strike the right chords and engagement will follow.

There’s what you want them to know and what they care about. Recognize these are often not the same things. Lean into the latter.