By: Robert Soares | The company newsletter went out Tuesday. 2,400 employees. 12% open rate.
That's 288 people who clicked. Most of them probably skimmed and closed. The CEO's quarterly update? Buried below the fold. The new benefits enrollment deadline? Maybe 50 people saw it.
Three weeks later, employees complain they "never got the memo."
They got it. They just didn't read it.
Why Does Nobody Read Internal Communications?
Because email is broken for this purpose.
Your employees get dozens of emails per day. External emails. Meeting invites. Slack overflow. Task notifications. And somewhere in that noise, your monthly newsletter. According to Staffbase research, even well-performing internal communications only achieve around 80% open rates at smaller companies, and it drops significantly as company size increases.
The subject line says "Company Update - March 2026." Their brain registers "not urgent, ignore."
It's not that employees don't care about company news. They do. They just don't have time to care about it right now. And "right now" is always when you're sending.
So the newsletter sits unopened. Or it gets opened, glanced at, and closed. Same difference.
The problem isn't your content. It's the channel. Email trains people to triage ruthlessly. Internal comms always loses that triage.
What Actually Works for Internal Communications?
Three things: format, accessibility, and measurement.
Format That Stands Out
Your newsletter needs to feel different from email.
When someone opens a wall of text that looks like every other email they received today, they treat it like every other email. Skim and delete.
But when something looks visually different, they engage differently. An interactive flipbook with pages to turn feels more like browsing a magazine than reading email. The animation catches attention. The format suggests "this is worth exploring."
This isn't gimmicky. It's psychology. Interactive content generates 52.6% more engagement than static content, with users spending 13 minutes on interactive formats versus 8.5 minutes on static ones. The same information, delivered differently, gets read more.
Does it sound like extra work to make a flipbook instead of an email? It's not. Upload your content. The tool creates the flipbook. Same amount of work for you, more engagement from them.
Accessibility That Removes Friction
Every click you require loses readers.
Email with PDF attachment? Click to download, wait for it to open, find the file, click again. Too many steps.
Link to SharePoint document? Click, authenticate (because SSO always forgets you), navigate to folder, find file, click to open, wait for it to load. Way too many steps.
Link to interactive flipbook? Click. It opens instantly in the browser. That's it. One click, already reading.
The difference seems small. It's not. According to funnel analysis research, users drop off at every friction point, with up to 79% abandoning at the top of the funnel. Each additional step—logging in, downloading, navigating—gives people another reason to give up.
Make it one click to read. No logins. No downloads. No SharePoint hunting.
Measurement That Shows Reality
You need to know what's actually happening.
Email open rates are unreliable. Someone's email client might auto-load images (counts as open). Someone might glance at preview text without clicking (doesn't count). The data is fuzzy.
And email opens tell you nothing about engagement. They clicked. Did they read? Did they make it past the first paragraph? Did they see the important announcement on page 3?
Better measurement looks like this:
- Unique readers (not just opens)
- Time spent reading
- Pages viewed (for longer content)
- Which sections got attention
- Who read vs. who didn't (yes, by person)
When you know that 400 people read your newsletter but only 50 made it to the benefits announcement, you've learned something important. Either the benefits info needs to move up, or people need a separate communication for it.
Data turns guessing into knowing.
What Do Internal Comms Teams Need From Tools?
Let's get specific about features.
Easy Content Creation
Nobody has time for complicated design work.
Your tool should let you:
- Upload existing content (Word, PDF, whatever you have)
- Add images and video easily
- Customize branding (company colors, logo)
- Preview how it looks on mobile
- Make updates without starting over
Most internal comms teams aren't designers. The tool should make them look like designers without the learning curve.
Templates help. Pre-built layouts for newsletters, announcements, CEO messages. Drop your content in, adjust as needed, done.
Distribution Flexibility
Your audience is scattered across platforms.
Some people live in email. Some live in Slack. Some live in Teams. Some check the intranet. Some do none of these things reliably.
You need to distribute across all of them:
- Direct email with embedded preview
- Slack channel posting
- Teams integration
- Intranet embed
- QR code for physical locations
- Direct link for any other channel
One piece of content, multiple distribution points. Meet employees where they already are.
Reader-Level Analytics
Not just aggregate stats. Individual tracking.
Why? Because when the CEO asks "did the New York office get the message about the policy change?" you need a real answer.
Reader-level tracking tells you:
- Who has read (and who hasn't)
- When they read
- How much they read
- Which sections they engaged with
This isn't surveillance. It's basic accountability. If you're sending important information, you should know if it arrived.
Some organizations use this for compliance. "All employees must read the updated code of conduct." With reader-level tracking, you know exactly who hasn't complied.
Segmentation and Targeting
Not every message is for everyone.
Some announcements are company-wide. Some are department-specific. Some are region-specific. Some are for managers only.
Your tool should let you:
- Define audience segments
- Target content to specific groups
- Track engagement by segment
- Send follow-ups only to non-readers
Relevance drives engagement. If someone consistently gets messages that don't apply to them, they learn to ignore everything you send.
Mobile Experience
More than half your employees will first see your content on their phone.
If your newsletter requires pinch-and-zoom, you've lost them. If it doesn't load well on mobile data, you've lost them. If it takes more than 3 seconds to open, you've lost them.
Mobile-first isn't optional. Test everything on a phone before you send it.
No Login Required
This one is critical.
If someone needs to authenticate, create an account, or remember a password to read your newsletter, most people won't bother.
Click a link. It opens. They're reading. Zero friction.
Some content might need protection (confidential materials, sensitive announcements). But for most internal comms, open access beats security theater.
What Does Effective Internal Comms Look Like?
Let's walk through a real example.
Scenario: Monthly Company Newsletter
You have 1,500 employees across 4 offices. Monthly newsletter covers:
- CEO message
- Department highlights
- Benefits reminder
- Upcoming events
- Employee spotlight
Old Way:
Create a 2,000-word email. Add some images. Send to [email protected].
Results: 15% open rate (225 people). No idea how many actually read it. CEO asks why nobody knew about the Q2 priorities. You show the open rate and shrug.
New Way:
Create an interactive flipbook. 8 pages. CEO message on page 1. Department highlights pages 2-4. Benefits reminder page 5 (important stuff). Events page 6. Employee spotlight pages 7-8.
Upload to your document platform. Send via email AND post to Slack AND embed on the intranet.
Results: 45% engagement rate (675 people). You see that 500+ people made it to page 5 (benefits reminder). The employee spotlight got the most time-per-page. Page 3 (operations department highlight) had 40% drop-off.
Now you know things:
- More people engaged overall (45% vs 15%)
- The benefits message reached 500+ people
- Employee spotlights are popular (do more of them)
- Page 3 is boring (fix it or cut it)
- 825 people haven't engaged yet (maybe send a reminder)
The second approach isn't harder. It's just smarter.
Scenario: Urgent Policy Update
New harassment policy takes effect in 30 days. All employees must read and acknowledge.
Old Way:
Email the PDF. Ask people to reply confirming they read it. Chase non-responders manually. Hope your spreadsheet is accurate.
Results: 60% response rate after two weeks of chasing. You have no idea if the 60% actually read it or just replied to make you go away.
New Way:
Create an interactive document. Require acknowledgment at the end. Enable tracking. Set up automated reminders at day 7, 14, and 21.
Results: 85% completion in week one (automated reminders doing the work). 97% by deadline. The 3% remaining are on leave, and you have documentation. You have timestamped proof for every completion.
When someone claims they "didn't know about the new policy" six months later, you pull up their completion record. Case closed.
How Do You Measure Internal Comms Effectiveness?
Let's talk metrics that matter.
Reach Metrics
Unique readers: How many people accessed your content?
Reach rate: Readers / total audience. If you have 1,500 employees and 600 read, that's 40% reach.
Platform breakdown: How many came from email vs. Slack vs. intranet? Now you know which channels work.
Engagement Metrics
Average time spent: If people spend 30 seconds on a 3-minute read, they're skimming.
Completion rate: What percentage finished the whole thing?
Page-level engagement: Which sections held attention? Which ones lost people?
Return visits: Did anyone come back to read again? (Usually indicates reference value)
Trend Metrics
Month-over-month comparison: Is engagement improving or declining?
Topic performance: Do CEO messages outperform HR updates? Do events get more engagement than policy announcements?
Segment differences: Does the sales team engage more than engineering? Does the London office read more than New York?
Action Metrics
Click-throughs: If you included a link (to sign up for something, read more, etc.), did people click?
Acknowledgments: For required reading, what's the completion rate?
Follow-up inquiries: Did the communication generate questions or action?
Track these over time. Set baselines. Watch for trends. If engagement drops suddenly, something changed. Figure out what.
Common Internal Comms Challenges
"People say they never see our messages"
They're not lying. They're overwhelmed.
Fix it: Multiple distribution channels. Don't rely on email alone. Post in Slack. Embed on the intranet. Put a link in the all-hands meeting chat. Redundancy isn't annoying for important messages. It's necessary.
"Open rates are terrible"
Open rates are a limited metric anyway. According to PoliteMail's 2025 benchmark research, the average internal email open rate is around 64%—meaning one in three employees don't even open corporate messages. But if you want to improve them:
- Better subject lines (specific > generic)
- Send timing (Tuesday-Thursday, 10am or 2pm)
- Sender name (person > department)
- Preview text that hooks (don't waste it on boilerplate)
But really, focus on engagement metrics. Someone who opens and reads is worth 10 people who open and skim.
"Leadership wants to know if people read the CEO message"
Now you need reader-level tracking.
Without it, you're guessing. With it, you have a list. "342 people read the CEO message in the first week. Here's the breakdown by department."
If leadership wants accountability, give them accountability.
"We send too many communications"
Probably true. Consolidate.
Can the HR update and the IT update and the Facilities update all go in one monthly newsletter? Yes. Should they? Probably.
Every separate communication competes with the others. Fewer, better communications beat frequent, forgettable ones.
"Different departments want to send their own stuff"
Create a governance model.
- Company-wide communications: Internal comms team only
- Department communications: Department leads, approved templates
- Urgent/time-sensitive: Defined criteria for what qualifies
Without governance, employees get buried in competing messages and tune out everything.
What Should You Look For in a Tool?
Here's the checklist for internal comms:
Must have:
- Interactive format (not just static PDF)
- One-click access (no login)
- Reader-level tracking
- Mobile-friendly viewing
- Easy content creation
Nice to have:
- Slack/Teams integration
- Intranet embedding
- Automated reminders
- Segmentation capabilities
- Acknowledgment collection
Analytics:
- Unique reader counts
- Time spent reading
- Page-level engagement
- Completion tracking
- Exportable reports
Branding:
- Custom colors and logo
- Template library
- Consistent look across all communications
The right tool makes the job easier. The wrong tool makes it another chore.
What's the Real Cost of Unread Communications?
Let's think about this differently.
You spend 5 hours creating a monthly newsletter. If 15% of employees read it, you're spending 5 hours to reach 15%.
Same 5 hours with a 45% engagement rate? Now your effort goes 3x further.
But the real cost isn't your time. It's the consequences of people not knowing things.
- Benefits enrollment deadline missed because nobody read the reminder
- Policy violations because employees "didn't know"
- Initiatives failing because nobody understood them
- Employee frustration because they feel out of the loop
- Leadership thinking nobody cares
Bad internal communications create problems that cost far more than any tool subscription.
Good internal communications build culture, alignment, and engagement. That's hard to put a number on, but it's real.
Getting Started
If you're ready to improve:
- Take your next newsletter and convert it to interactive format
- Track engagement at the reader and page level
- Compare to your email-only baseline
- Iterate based on what you learn
Most internal comms teams see 2-3x improvement in engagement just from format change. Add better distribution and tracking, and the numbers get even better.
See how internal comms teams boost engagement with Flipbooker
Your employees aren't ignoring your messages because they don't care. They're ignoring them because the messages don't cut through the noise.
Give them something different. Then track what happens. The data will show you the way forward.