Communication is key within any trade union branch, and the more informed members in a branch are, the more likely they are to engage with union activities, campaigns, news and more. Building a strong union branch doesn’t happen overnight, however it can only happen when we have effective communication.
In the modern working world, workers are often pressed for time, work different shifts, or even work in different locations, making it challenging for trade union reps to keep in touch with everyone, or disseminate workplace updates, union news or activities.
This is where digital tools come into play, and through these tools, reps can easily reach members across their branch with workplace updates, news, and information at the touch of a button, no matter where the members are located, or what shifts they are on. One of the most effective tools at reps disposal is the union newsletter.
Why are newsletters an effective communication tool?
For as long as unions have existed, newsletters have always been a highly effective method of communicating with trade union members as they stimulate interest, inform, promote transparency, and motivate engagement around union activity, news, and campaigns.
Typically, trade union reps will use newsletters as standard practice in their organising strategy as a way to communicate with their branch, leaving them in staffrooms, breakrooms or on noticeboards to share updates. Unfortunately, this means that members will have to seek the newsletters out, meaning they can be missed or misplaced. That is where the digital newsletter comes in!
There are many benefits to digital newsletters, including:
- Being sent directly to members’ inboxes, meaning they can be read wherever and whenever they want.
- Private information can be shared directly with members, without non-members or employers seeing it.
- They’re quick and easy to distribute
We would always recommend any Community Rep invest the time and resources to create and distribute a digital branch newsletter. The most important part? Optimisation! Here are some tips and tricks to help you effectively employ and optimise a powerful digital newsletter in your branch.
Deciding what content to add to your newsletter
Without content, you won’t have anything to talk about in your newsletter. It’s vital to deliver information to your branch that members are interested in reading about – this could include:
- Introducing yourself and other reps to new members
- Encouraging non-members to join Community
- Local issues
- Union news
- Campaigns
- Branch issues and finding out issues in your branch
- Setting dates for meetings
- Sharing useful links, surveys, and information
- Successes or good news stories in your branch
- Professional networking opportunities
- Openings within the reps team in your branch
Make sure to mix things up to appeal to members – the same old content over and over again can get stale, and easily be skimmed over.
It’s important to note that you shouldn’t overload your newsletters with tonnes of information – in a digital world dominated by reels and TikTok, people want information that they can digest quickly, so make sure anything you include in your newsletter is relevant, brief, and clearly laid out for easy consumption.
Keep your newsletter simple ands skimmable
Speaking of easy consumption, we would always recommend keeping the design and layout of your digital newsletter simple. Busy emails can overwhelm readers, causing them to move on and not read the newsletter. You should always simplify your newsletter design and layout to improve the user experience (known as UX) which can lead to members spending more time consuming the information in the newsletter, or clicking through to more information. Things you can consider include:
- Ensure copy is concise and to-the-point
- Use headers to break up different sections of your newsletter
- Use a font style and size which is easy-to-read
- Avoid including any large images as these can cause emails to load slowly
Consistency of union newsletters is key
Before distributing a branch newsletter, you should ask yourself “how often am I going to distribute this?” and “what time shall I distribute this?”
You want to ensure that you are regularly updating your branch, but at the same time, don’t want to inundate them with updates – no one likes being bombarded with emails.
We would suggest starting off either bi-weekly, or monthly, and reviewing engagement with your newsletter. This could include reviewing how often members engage with your newsletter, the open rate, and the click-through rate, and changing things up to see what works best. This is known as A/B testing.
Every workplace and branch is different, so you will need to test different delivery schedules and determine yourself what works best for you and your members to achieve maximum engagement and reach. Alternatively, you can ask your branch if they find the frequency of the newsletters too often, or too little. Once you think you’ve hit the sweet spot, you should stick to distributing to that schedule to ensure maximum engagement with your members.
Once you have achieved an optimal delivery frequency for your digital newsletter, it is important to maintain a consistent schedule as members will expect to receive news and updates at those times.
Consider how often you can write a newsletter
Being a trade union rep takes up a lot of your time – and you have to juggle it alongside your personal and professional life – we get it, so when thinking about writing a newsletter for your branch, you should ask yourself “how often can I write these,” or “do I have the time to frequently write these.”
Think about the tone of your newsletter
When presenting information in a newsletter, it’s vital to get the tone just right. We recommend using an unbiased and active tone in your writing and focus on not only reporting facts and information to your branch, but also explaining any news or updates and inviting members to get involved – known as a call-to-action, which invokes member engagement.
Inspire action with a call-to-action in each newsletter
Speaking of call-to-actions (known as a CTA), they are a great opportunity to get your members to take some form of action in a newsletter. Whether that’s getting them to register for an event, attend a meeting or get involved in our campaigns, digital newsletters enable reps.
We would recommend that every newsletter include at least one CTA, so make sure it’s easy for your members to do that, and make any call-to-actions easily identifiable through hyperlinks, or using text to encourage action such as “click here”, or “join today”.
Don’t send your newsletter as an email attachment
The longer it takes for a member to access your newsletter, the less likely they are to read it. By sending a newsletter as an attachment, you are relying on members to open the email, download the attachment, then open the file to read it. This is an added step which nowadays, a lot of people don’t have the time for, especially those who are reading digital newsletters via mobile devices.
We would always recommend sending your digital newsletter in the main email body to ensure the information lands directly in your member’s inboxes.
Download our branch newsletters guide today
Digital newsletters offer trade union reps a great opportunity to encourage action from members, so make sure to take full advantage of them to connect and network with members in your branch, as well as engage with them on vital branch and union issues.
To help you in your organising efforts, we’ve developed a guide which provides an overview of how to write your newsletter, what to include, as well as newsletter templates to help get you started.
If you are a member of Community and need advice or support, please contact our Service Centre at help@community-tu.org or on 0800 389 6332.
© Community Trade Union 2024