Employee newsletter names: best practices, ideas, and examples

Naming your employee newsletter isn’t necessary, but it can be a delightful and engaging way to elevate your internal brand and build more affinity with your team when done well. Don’t put too much pressure on it, though; a forced pun or irrelevant nickname can do more harm than good. But if you’re looking for a great nickname, here’s our approach to creating something memorable and injecting a little bit of added personality into your company newsletter!

(Looking for other creative ideas to spice up the month-to-month content? Here are 20 more ideas for creating an engaging employee newsletter.)

Why should you name your employee newsletter?

Unless your company’s brand says otherwise, naming your employee newsletter the “[COMPANY NAME] Newsletter” isn’t necessarily something that’ll get the team excited. Just like the idea of naming your corporate intranet, having an on-brand title for your monthly (or weekly) newsletter can be a way to create a more relevant and engaging piece of internal communication. A boring name won’t call attention to it or stand out in your employees’ email inboxes.

Best practices for naming your employee newsletter

Before we start brainstorming newsletter names, a few things to keep in mind:

1.) You should be able to easily say it out loud. It needs to naturally flow as part of an in-person conversation, because you want your team to casually reference it here and there. You don’t want it to be too wordy, difficult to pronounce, or really awkward to say. When you’ve narrowed down your list, try tossing the newsletter name in a few common sentences, like:

• Did you miss that announcement? It was in last week’s [newsletter name]!
• You should submit that to the comms team for next week’s [newsletter name].
• Proud to be featured in our all-company newsletter, [newsletter name]!

You can use different articles, too…you might find that the name works better or flows more naturally with “our” or “the” in front of it (Facebook, The Facebook, etc.)

2.) Don’t overthink it! Some of the most effective internal newsletter names are simple terms or two- to three-word phrases, or they’re just good twists on classic journalism. In many cases, clarity can actually beat creativity…but every now and then, we see a newsletter name that is extra clever, and it really does help bring the entire project to a new height.

How to come up with a name for your employee newsletter

Get the company involved

You don’t have to name the newsletter on your own! One of the best ways to get the entire organization involved and invested in your new all-company newsletter is to run a contest to name it. Your employees might have some super creative ideas you haven’t thought of…just remember to provide some of the above guidelines so you don’t get a long list of totally outlandish suggestions.

From there, we’d recommend curating a shortlist of your favorites, and then invite the team to vote on their top pick! 🙂

Name it yourself!

If you’re a smaller organization or want to curate a list of ideas for yourself, we’ll take you through a process that we use all the time in coming up with creative newsletter names.

There are essentially five main approaches:

1 | A meaningful term
2 | A journalism reference
3 | A rhyme or alliteration
4 | An industry expression
5 | A practical approach

We’ll take you through each of them, and you’ll have a great name (or five) by the end of this article!

1 | A meaningful term

This is such a great way to authentically incorporate your company’s unique culture, without going overboard. (This is where we often see the most creative names, or ones that play on particular words or puns.) Here are a few concepts to consider:

• Your company’s values and mission
• The dominant color of your brand
• Official or unofficial mascots
• Culturally relevant references
• Things that your employees absolutely love
• Your CEO’s name

2 | A journalism reference

When I’m stumped for an idea or inspiration for a name, I often like to remind myself that I’m not the first person to come across this particular problem. Your newsletter will likely incorporate the latest internal news and events, so borrowing terms from journalism is a totally reasonable place to start.  That alone can generate thousands of possible terms, like:

• Digest
• Bulletin
• Latest
• Journal
• Daily
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Report
• Inside
• Look
• Chronicle
• Memo
• Download
• Edit
• Snapshot
• Pages
• Clips
• Segments
• Insights
• Buzz
• Beat
• Scoop
• Pulse
• Forecast
• Notes
• Post
• Letter
• Sheet
• Bites
• Snippets
• Gazette
• Brief
• Dispatch
• Headlines

You’ll likely find a term that resonates with your company’s industry and values, and can use it to put together a short phrase, or just embrace it whole-heartedly!

3 | A rhyme or alliteration

We often love the idea of using rhymes or alliteration with some of these above terms; just pair your company name with your favorite word that starts with the same letter, and you’ll have a catchy employee newsletter title in no time. (For example: Beyond Blue Bites, Harvard Headlines, Workshop Wrap-Up).

Using words that start with the same letter or sound can make your newsletter name easier to remember; in fact, studies have shown that alliteration can serve to focus a reader’s attention on a specific section of text and create a natural rhythm…and even generate emotion. (For example: Monday Memo, Weekly Wrap-Up, Daily Dispatch)

4 | An industry expression

You can also take a look through common industry terms, related idioms, and even study your products/services…there’s likely something that will strike inspiration. Depending on your industry, the ideas could be absolutely endless!

Here are a few to riff off of:

• Healthcare: Heartbeat, Pulse, Checkup, Doctor’s Note
• Transportation: Fast Lane, Highway, Steering Wheel, Drive, Road, Cruise, Glove Box
• Retail: Counter, Fitting Room, Checkout
• Manufacturing/Construction: Front Line, Cutting Edge
• Legal: Verdict, Case, Point
• Food/Beverage: Plate, Dish, Front Burner, Menu
• Education: Benchmark, Recess, Playground, Honor Roll
• Music/Performance: Key Note, Limelight, Spotlight, Tune, Beat

5 | A practical approach

There’s nothing wrong with a clean, straightforward, easy-to-understand name for your internal employee newsletter! If you’re looking for something that just gets the message across, here’s a few ideas to start with:

• Roundup
• Happenings
• Wrap-up
• Summary
• Punchlist
• Updates
• List
• News
• ICYMI (In case you missed it)
• Top Five

Still completely stumped on what to name your newsletter? Reach out to me on LinkedIn with with a few details about your company, and I’ll brainstorm a list of at least 10 ideas for you. 

 

Next steps:

Sign up our for Newsletter Newsletter: Save time creating your next employee newsletter with innovative and engaging content ideas from our Newsletter Newsletter! Each month, we will send you key dates, specific content ideas, and actionable tips so you can inform and inspire your employees. Sign up here!

Design your employee newsletter: Your newsletter is a major part of your company’s brand, so there needs to be consistency in its elements each time you send it out. You can quickly design a beautiful, on-brand template using a drag-and-drop email builder like Workshop (or choose from our existing library of templates, and just make a few tweaks). Plus, we make it easy to keep your distribution lists up-to-date automatically, push notifications to SMS or your other internal comms channels, and review your newsletter’s analytics to gauge its success and inform your strategy. Schedule a demo to see it for yourself here!