A corporate email with important news goes out to the whole company, and only 12 out of 100 people open it. The other 88 never noticed it: some missed it, some set it aside and forgot, some deleted it without reading.
The problem isn't the employees. Most internal newsletters follow a "send it and check the box" mentality — nobody stops to think about why the person on the other end would want to open it.
Let's break down exactly what's going wrong and how to fix it.
Why internal newsletters matter more than you'd think
According to Unisender, the volume of email newsletters in Russia doubled in 2024. People choose email precisely because it doesn't demand an immediate reaction, unlike messaging apps. An employee can open an email whenever it's convenient, come back to it later, forward it to a colleague. A Telegram channel or a corporate chat doesn't work that way — a message quickly scrolls up out of view and gets lost.
In 2026, this matters more than ever for three reasons.
- The rise of hybrid and distributed teams. For some employees, the corporate newsletter is literally the only point of contact with the company as a whole: they don't share an office with leadership, don't overhear hallway conversations, don't see the bulletin board.
- The competition for attention. Telegram channels, corporate messengers, push notifications — they're all competing for the same seconds of an employee's attention. Email wins if the email is well made. It loses if it's slapped together.
- Data and analytics. Unlike a chat message, email gives you numbers: how many opened it, how many clicked, where people unsubscribed.
Mistakes that send emails straight to the trash
Mistake | What's wrong with it |
|---|---|
"They're required to read it" | Required doesn't mean they will. An employee with 80 unread emails isn't going to study a three-column digest |
One email for everyone | An email about time tracking goes out identically to an accountant, a courier, and a top executive. Each one decides it's "not for me" |
No clear reason to read it now | "April news" isn't a reason to open it. "New vacation policy starting May 1" is |
Boring design | A wall of text with no images and nothing highlighted is a document. People only read documents when they really have to |
The email falls apart in Outlook | Coding for the browser, while 70% of employees use Outlook, equals shifted columns and empty boxes where images should be |
Formats that work: 5 scenarios for corporate newsletters
1. Weekly news digest
The most common format, and when done right, the most effective. The key condition: a fixed structure that employees recognize at a glance.
How it works: once a week, on the same day and at the same time, an email goes out with 3–5 news blocks. Each block is a headline, one or two sentences, and a "read more" button. The email takes 2 minutes to read. Employees know a digest is coming Friday morning and look forward to it.
According to a case study on the Unisender blog, the company Trakt Soft built out regular digests and reached a 25% open rate, and one email with research results drove 15% of peak website traffic and a 32% CTR.
Tip: a digest should be short. If you're tempted to squeeze everything in, squeeze in less, and do it well.
2. Onboarding new employees
Instead of a folder of PDFs nobody reads, use a series of 4–6 emails over the first 30 days.
Day | Subject | Goal |
|---|---|---|
1 | Welcome — key contacts and first-day tasks | Reduce stress, provide direction |
3 | Company structure — who's responsible for what | Get oriented in the organization |
7 | Tools and processes — how we work | Get up to speed in the work environment |
14 | First feedback — how were the first two weeks? | A signal of care, plus data for HR |
30 | Probation period wrap-up — what's next | Retain the employee |
This reduces the load on HR, gives the newcomer a sense of structure, and gradually immerses them in the company culture.
3. Event announcements and registration collection
An announcement email works better than a chat message: it has one clear CTA — a "Register" button. Not a link buried in text, not "message the HR manager," but a big button that's impossible to miss.
Add a reminder the day before the event: reminders get higher open rates because the moment is already close.
4. Recognition and motivation
A monthly "Employee of the Month" or "Best Team Result" email works as a retention tool. People want to be noticed, and this way the whole team sees that a specific person accomplished something meaningful.
The format is simple: a photo of the employee, two or three lines about the achievement, a quote from a manager. It takes 20 minutes to put together and works for a whole month.
5. Urgent and operational notifications
A policy change, an office move, server maintenance, an important security notice — messages like these need a separate template: minimalist, no extras, with one clear block of information and, if needed, a single action button.
Emails like this shouldn't look like a promotional newsletter. They should look like an official notice — concise and serious.
Design, structure, personalization
One template — one recognizable face
A corporate newsletter should look like your brand. A logo, brand colors, fonts from your brand book — all of this creates the impression that the email came from the company, not some unknown sender.
Once the structure is in place, HR can put together the next digest not in three hours, but in twenty minutes — just swapping text and images in ready-made blocks.
The one-CTA rule
Every email should have one target action. Not three buttons, not five links, not "check this out, read that, register here." One button, one action. This works for marketing newsletters just as well as internal ones.
A subject line that explains "why"
The subject line is your one shot before the email gets deleted unopened. A good subject line answers the question: "Why do I need to read this right now?"
Bad | Good |
|---|---|
"April news" | "Important: new vacation policy starting May 1" |
"You're invited to the company party" | "Company party on June 15 — register by Friday" |
"Information for employees" | "The expense report process has changed — read by end of week" |
Segmentation instead of "one email for everyone"
The bare minimum is addressing people by name. It works even when it feels like "everyone already knows each other."
The next level is different emails for different audiences. News about a change in sales KPIs isn't relevant to accounting. An Excel training announcement isn't relevant to developers. Segmenting by department, role, or location sharply increases relevance and, as a result, open rates.
Frequency and sending time
Tuesday or Wednesday morning is the optimal choice. Employees are already in their work rhythm but not yet overloaded. It's better to avoid Thursday: most companies send their emails then, and the inbox gets overloaded.
Outlook: the main technical trap
Outlook is the standard at large Russian companies — banks, government agencies, industrial holdings. Your newsletter needs to look right there specifically, and that's a challenge all its own.
Problem | What happens | What to do |
|---|---|---|
Word rendering engine instead of a browser one | Modern CSS properties get ignored: flexible grids, rounded corners, background images on blocks | Table-based layout only |
Images blocked by default | Employees see empty boxes instead of banners | Captions on every image; the email needs to read fine with images off |
Animation shows only the first frame | Outlook 2007–2019 doesn't play animation | The first frame needs to carry the key message |
Custom fonts don't work | Your brand font won't load — employees will see Times New Roman | Use Arial, Georgia, Calibri, Verdana |
Corporate security | External links blocked, auto-loading disabled, and at some companies, graphics banned entirely | The email needs to work without external resources and have a text version |
Code with an "Outlook-first" mindset. If an email looks good there, it'll be fine in other clients. The reverse isn't true.
Letteros: how to build a corporate newsletter without a developer
An HR manager or internal communications specialist can put together a professional email on their own — no developer, no designer, no back-and-forth approving mockups. Instead of a week-long production cycle, it's a few hours from idea to finished HTML.
Built-in animation editor. Letteros includes a tool for creating animated elements right inside the email. According to Mailfit, animation consistently boosts click-through rates by 15–30%, depending on the niche.
A built-in sender — in development. Soon, companies will be able to send emails within a single product, without connecting third-party services. Fewer links in the chain means fewer points of risk, and it's easier to get sign-off from IT and security.
A step-by-step plan: how to launch a corporate newsletter from scratch
Step 1. Choose one format to start with
Don't try to launch a digest, onboarding, and event announcements all at once. Pick one format — say, a weekly digest — get it running smoothly, and only then add the rest.
Step 2. Build your list and assign someone responsible
The database is your list of employee addresses, broken down by department. The responsible person is a specific individual who sends out every email on schedule. Without someone responsible, the newsletter will stall out within a couple of months.
Step 3. Create a template
In the Letteros builder, choose your blocks, plug in your brand colors and logo, and lock in the structure. The template gets built once and used for every future issue.
Step 4. Check the email in Outlook
Before sending for the first time, open the email in Outlook and check three things: how it looks with images off, what the first frame of any animation shows, and whether the image captions are legible.
Step 5. Send the first issue to a small group
Send the email to a single department or 20–30 people. Gather feedback, make sure everything works correctly, and only then expand the audience.
Step 6. Lock in a schedule
An email that arrives every Tuesday at 9:00 gets read more readily than one that shows up "whenever it's ready." Regularity builds a habit.
Step 7. Watch the numbers
Open rate under 20%? Rethink the subject line or segmentation. Low click-through rate? A problem with the content or the CTA button. Rising unsubscribes? Sending too often or content that's not relevant.
Three pitfalls
"We already have Telegram." Telegram handles quick messages; email handles important, structured content. Both channels are needed — they don't compete. A chat message disappears within minutes, while an email stays in the inbox, and people come back to it.
The newsletter turns into spam. Frequency goes up, but quality doesn't keep pace. If employees start unsubscribing, cut back on frequency and rethink the content.
No one responsible means no newsletter. Assign one person, and give them the tool and the authority to run it.
Letteros is a builder for professional email newsletters. Put together corporate emails without a developer, using ready-made templates. A built-in sender is currently in testing.