How to create visually engaging internal newsletters that employees actually read

Internal newsletters have been a staple of employee communications for decades! But in today’s hybrid, distributed, and fast-moving workplaces, they matter more than ever. Done right, they can centralize key updates, align teams across time zones, and build a sense of connection and culture.

But many internal newsletters still fall flat. Dull formatting. Wall-of-text design. No mobile optimization. And little to no feedback on whether employees even read them (yikes)! Take the image below, for example, the image on the right is the way many companies communicate with prospects & customers, while the image on the left is the way they communicate with employees – but it doesn’t have to be like that!

If you’re ready to create internal newsletters that actually engage your employees, you’re in the right place! We’ll walk you through why internal newsletters still matter, what’s wrong with most of them, how to make them visually compelling, and how to measure their success. Plus, we’ll take a look at how tools like Workshop’s Canva integration can help you streamline the process, without relying on a designer every time. Let’s dive in!

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Why internal newsletters still matter

The modern workplace is more complex than ever. Teams are remote, hybrid, and global. Messages are scattered across email, Slack, Teams, intranets, and more.

Yet, despite the rise of various communication platforms, email remains a cornerstone of communication in the workplace! This year, 98% of respondents to our 2025 Internal Communications Trends Report confirmed email as a core part of their comms strategy, with 84% ranking it as the most effective channel, too. And it makes sense why! Email works across all generations and locations globally. It connects employees on a personal level, keeps them informed, and is the foundation of any great comms strategy.…so that everyone receives the same clear, well-crafted message at a time that works for them. 

Internal newsletters offer a consistent, centralized channel to cut through the noise and keep everyone aligned. Here’s why they still matter:

• Central source of truth: With email, everyone receives the same updates, regardless of location or time zone.
• Boost alignment: Highlight goals, wins, and updates that keep teams focused on shared priorities.
• Drive engagement: Showcase stories, spotlight employees, and invite feedback to build a stronger culture.

In fact, organizations with strong internal communications are 3.5x more likely to outperform their peers, according to Gallup.

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The problem with most internal newsletters

Despite their potential, many internal newsletters wind up missing the mark…and here are a few reasons for that:

Many newsletters are built in Outlook or Gmail using plain-text layouts, clunky tables, or outdated HTML templates. They’re not responsive, visually engaging, or aligned with your brand!

PS – Here’s a deep dive into our thoughts on whether it’s a good idea to use an Outlook plugin for internal communications!

Information overload

Trying to cram everything into one email send leads to long blocks of text and mixed messages (re: see image at the top of this post 😉). Employees skim or delete them entirely. If it’s not super relevant and targeted to individual employees, your messages may go unnoticed! 

With a tool like Workshop, you can personalize your emails effortlessly. Workshop makes it easy to create personalized, relevant, and engaging internal newsletters tailored to your employees. Whether it’s customizing content by location, translating emails into multiple languages, or managing segmented lists, Workshop’s personalization features are built to help you connect with your team in meaningful ways.

Lack of metrics

If you’re sending from a standard email client (like Outlook or Gmail), you likely don’t have a good grasp on what’s working or not working with your messages. You can’t track open rates, clicks, or whether anyone is engaging with the content you’ve carefully curated! 

Using an internal email tool, like Workshop, gives you all the info you need in one place to really see if your messages are hitting the mark with your employees!

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What makes an internal newsletter visually engaging?

A great internal newsletter grabs attention, makes info easy to digest, and reflects your brand. Here’s what we like to aim for:

Consistent branding

Use your company’s logo, fonts, and color palette to build recognition and trust (remember, it should feel like it’s coming from your company, even if it’s for internal eyes only)! This reinforces your identity across every touchpoint. 

Use images of your own employees

Using photos of your own employees is always going to perform better than using stock imagery. Try it for yourself on your next email! We promise you it will be a far better and much more engaging email. And the photos do not have to be professional. They can just be candids, but no matter what, they’ll be unique to your company.

Clear layout and hierarchy

Design your internal newsletter for skimming! Remember, your employees are busy and on the go! An easily skimmable email will outperform a wall of text. We recommend:

• Using headers and subheads to organize content
• Sticking to short paragraphs and bullet points
• Including clear calls to action (CTAs)

Mobile-friendly design

Employees read internal newsletters on phones, tablets, and laptops. Your design must look great everywhere.

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A few other design tips

Whether you’re a team of one or part of a full comms department, these tips will help you level up the design of your internal email:

Use templates to save time

The very best way to design an internal newsletter with consistent branding is with a drag-and-drop email template! We offer a bunch of ready-made newsletter templates as a part of Workshop, and we often consult with new customers on ways to improve or recreate a template they’ve liked in the past. A drag-and-drop newsletter template makes it really easy to add or subtract sections as you see fit, and will save you a TON of time each month since you won’t ever have to start from scratch.

Embrace whitespace

Let your content breathe! Too much clutter leads to cognitive overload. Whitespace helps employees focus on what matters most.

Keep copy short and scannable

Think “news, not novel.” Use bold headlines, one-sentence intros, and bullet points. Link out to longer content if needed.

Add interactive elements

Including GIFs, videos, or quick pulse surveys can make your internal newsletter more dynamic and fun. Employees are more likely to engage and share feedback if there is some sort of interactive element.

Bonus tip: Pulse surveys are a great way to get real-time feedback from employees without the need to deploy a full-blown employee engagement survey! With a tool like Workshop, you can embed these surveys directly into your employee newsletter and gather meaningful insights. You can even ​​get honest, unfiltered feedback and gauge reactions on a sensitive topic with anonymous feedback collection.

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How to design your internal newsletters with Canva (directly in Workshop!)

Designing a visually engaging internal newsletter doesn’t have to mean hours of formatting or roping in your creative team every time.

Psst, Workshop has a Canva integration!

Workshop is the very first internal email platform to integrate directly with Canva! With Workshop, you can easily access and edit all of your Canva assets while crafting your internal newsletters. No need to download and upload and upload and download; you’ll be able to bring in all of your favorite templates and
latest designs directly into your emails!

Here’s what makes it a game-changer:

• Less design requests: Whether your marketing team knows it or not (we won’t tell!), we know how many communicators are relying on Canva to create the graphics they want/need.
• Better design capabilities to help you stay on brand: Make your emails stand out with Canva’s rich design features. With Canva’s Brand Kits and locked
elements, you can make sure that all your communications stay within the visual guidelines set by your design team.
• No switching platforms: No more back-and-forth between platforms. Access, edit, and insert your Canva assets directly from within Workshop. Whether it’s a template, a graphic, or a design, it’s right at your fingertips.

Try designing your next newsletter with our Canva integration! You’ll save time, elevate your design, and connect better with employees.

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Getting your internal newsletters seen

Alright, now that you’ve designed a beautifully engaging internal newsletter. Now let’s make sure it gets seen (and read)! Here are a few of our favorite tips to reach employees where they’re at:

Segment your audience

Don’t blast everyone with the same update. Tailor your content based on employees’ specific needs. When employees see content that feels super relevant to them, they are more likely to read and engage with it. We most often see this segmentation done for different offices or departments. You don’t have to make the entire newsletter different; you can reserve a certain section and just swap it out for the relevant content. (An easy example would be an events calendar section for different office locations, or an employee birthday section for different departments.) Work with your marketing or IT department to help you pull lists for:

• Department
• Role
• Location
• Tenure or interests

Of course, segmentation is a lot easier when you are using an internal communications software. Workshop’s email platform syncs with your HRIS/payroll provider, so our customers always have an accurate all-company list! So, instead of duplicating multiple versions of your internal newsletter to send to different audiences, you can now display specific content to different groups of employees based on list membership – directly in one email! Here are a few other personalization features Workshop offers!

Resend to non-openers

Give employees a second chance to engage by resending to those who missed it the first time. Just tweak the subject line to improve open rates.

Cross-channel distribution

We are big believers of meeting your employees where they’re at, and also, you’re not going to reach 100% of your employee base through just one channel. Use multiple internal communication channels to reach more employees:

• Post to Slack or Teams
• Share via SMS or mobile push
• Embed in your intranet or internal social feed

PS — Here are the 4 internal communications tools we recommend every internal communications department has in their toolbox!

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How to measure the success of your internal newsletters

Don’t let your efforts go unmeasured. With the right internal newsletter tool, you can track:

• Open rates: Are employees curious enough to click?
• Click-through rates: Are they engaging with your links or CTAs?
• Read time: Are they reading to the end?
• Engagement over time – Are your newsletters improving or losing steam?

With an internal email tool, you can even filter all this data by department, location, and more to drill into your email data and figure out what’s working across different sections of your company.

Feedback Loops

Your email is a chance to create space for that two-way communication and feedback. We recommend including:

• Quick polls
• Emoji reactions
• Comment sections or surveys

This turns one-way emails into two-way conversations and gives you real-time insight into what’s resonating.

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Tools you need to do it right

If you’re still sending your internal newsletters through Gmail or Outlook, or an external tool like Mailchimp, you could be missing out on truly engaging your team. The problem with these platforms is that they weren’t built with internal communications in mind! 

Why traditional tools like Outlook or Gmail fall short:

 

• Templates or brand controls: Sending from Outlook or Gmail means starting from scratch every. single. time. There’s no way to lock in branded fonts, colors, or layouts, which makes consistency nearly impossible across teams or senders.
• Analytics: One of the biggest downsides of sending internal newsletters through a traditional tool like Outlook or Gmail? You get zero insight into how they’re performing! No open rates, no click-throughs, and no engagement data. You can’t see if your messages are being opened, or what your employees are engaging with within the email.
• Mobile rendering: Let’s face it, employees are busy and on the go! A lot of them will be opening internal newsletters on their phones, but platforms like Outlook and Gmail don’t prioritize mobile optimization, which could lead to a less-than-ideal experience when viewing on mobile.
• Audience segmentation: With traditional email tools, you’re stuck manually creating lists and duplicating content (or worse, sending generic messages to everyone and hoping it lands).
• Collaboration and scheduling: You can’t really have multiple people working within or across Outlook in a great way. With a web app like Workshop, multiple people can work in the platform at the same time, edit drafts, send emails, etc.

Why external tools like Mailchimp fall short for internal communications:

• Distribution lists: A tool like Workshop actively syncs with your employee data sources (whether that’s in AD or your HR/payroll system) so your lists are always up-to-date and you don’t have to manually add or remove employees.
• Security: These platforms automatically create links to every email that are viewable by anyone, anywhere.
• Deliverability: Often, emails sent from these providers wind up in employees’ spam or promotional folders in their inboxes. Plus, they can even unsubscribe….yikes!
• Analytics: With Workshop, you can segment your data by department, location…even drill down and see exactly which employees are engaging with the email.
• Integrations: We connect to the tools and channels that internal communicators use (Slack, Sharepoint, Teams, etc.), rather than the ones that external marketers use (Hubspot, Facebook, Instagram, etc.).
• Usability: You don’t need to have expert-level HTML knowledge to create a really beautiful, branded email template. Workshop’s drag-and-drop email editor is incredibly easy to use (our customers tell us it literally saves them hours each week).

What to look for in an internal newsletter tool:

• A drag-and-drop email editor
• Canva integration ( 😉)
• Advanced metrics and reporting
• Email personalization (through audience segmentation, merge tags, and more)
• Multi-channel distribution (push to the channels your employees use the most)
  

Why Workshop leads the way

Workshop was built from the ground up specifically for internal communications teams, giving you everything you need to send engaging, effective internal newsletters that employees love.

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Wrapping it all up!

Phew! We’ve covered a lot! So to sum things up: internal newsletters aren’t just another item on your to-do list. When they’re thoughtfully designed and strategically sent, they become one of the most impactful tools in your internal communications strategy.

Here’s a quick recap:

• They matter more than ever in today’s hybrid, distributed, and fast-moving workplaces
• Strong visual design + relevant content = higher engagement (and happier employees)
• The right tools make all the difference—saving you time, boosting consistency, and helping you scale

Next steps:

Schedule a demo of Workshop to see how we can help you level up your internal communications.

Check out our internal newsletter template gallery to get a head start on design.

Learn more about our Canva integration to see how it can help make your internal comms workflow easier than ever!