7 reasons why email remains the top-performing channel for internal communications

According to data from more than 200 interviews with internal communicators, the top three most effective internal communication channels are internal email (72%), company and team meetings (49%), and meetings with direct managers (48%). While some people may be surprised that email and meetings outperform intranets and apps, here’s what the research shows.

1. Internal email combats information overload. 43% of research respondents want to solve employee information overload. Information overload occurs when an employee receives more information than they can process. While it may seem like internal email would exacerbate this problem, the opposite happens when an organization uses email correctly.

Employees want to receive information; they just don’t want irrelevant information, and they definitely don’t want too much at once. Sitting through an hour-long meeting is not productive if someone could have covered the key points in three minutes. Likewise, few people have the patience to read a 10-page email.  Saving it to read later often means never reading it.

Interestingly, research shows that employees can more easily process twenty half-page emails without feeling overwhelmed. When email is kept concise — and the content is targeted to smaller, more specific audiences — employees remain engaged. This type of strategic internal email communication minimizes information overload.

2. Internal email enables both synchronous and asynchronous communication. Unlike Teams or Slack, which are well-suited for synchronous, real-time communication (where everyone is logged on and can respond before the message gets buried), email supports real-time and delayed communication more equally. So, while an email may still get buried, missed messages are easier to identify, find, and process. Using internal email for asynchronous communication is particularly helpful for organizations that work across time zones and for roles that require focus time or work away from the computer.

3. Internal email excels in a hybrid workforce. Whether an employee works in the office, at home, or outside the traditional office environment, every employee has (or should have) an email address, and the email goes with them and reaches them wherever they are.

Important messages will reach all employees on the distribution list, regardless of location, department, role or technology stack. For geographically dispersed teams, it’s easy to account for different time zones and working hours by scheduling email messages to be delivered at a specific date and time during the recipient’s working hours.

4. Internal email is universally accessible. Email is a dominant communication channel because of its widespread usage and accessibility, with little to no training required. Plus, it works across devices and tech stacks. Unlike chat tools, intranets, or apps that limit access to internal stakeholders, email is the only tool organizations can easily use to communicate with employees, customers, vendors, investors and partners without switching platforms.

5. Internal email is scalable and agile. Internal email allows for mass email broadcast messages for small, targeted audiences. Whether sending an email to ten or 100,000 employees, recipients can read each message as one-to-one communication (without requiring new channels or platforms). Platforms that require separate channels for different groups tend to be cluttered, challenging to manage and complex for employees to navigate successfully.

As employees move between roles, groups, or even locations, the email will still reach them, and the email distribution lists are more easily maintained, sometimes automatically based on HR databases.

6. Internal email is a centralized hub. Since email supports group management, calendar functions, task management, access to SharePoint digests, application messaging and more, it serves as a hub for employees’ daily work communications. Email seamlessly integrates with other applications, including project management, customer relationship management, HR systems, file management and collaboration platforms. This interconnectedness allows for automated workflows, reduces manual reentry work, and helps employees boost their productivity and efficiency.

7. Internal email is measurable. As a digital communications platform, email is easy to measure. Valuable email metrics such as Attention Rates, Readership and Engagement are critical to helping internal comms teams manage the effectiveness of their work. According to our research, internal communicators say the five most valuable KPIs and metrics are email open rates (46%), survey responses (45%), feedback responses and reactions (43%), click rates (34%) and intranet page views (33%).

We’re biased, but we prefer readership metrics such as read rate and percentage read over open rates, but you have to start somewhere. Email metrics help communicators make data-driven decisions regarding how to improve communications performance and increase employee engagement.

The benefits of using email

Tools like PoliteMail help measure reach, readership and engagement across different audiences for various types of internal communications, including news and newsletters, event announcements, change management programs, policy changes, benefits programs, strategic directives and general announcements. Email metrics give internal communications teams the data and analytics to make better, data-driven decisions to improve their communications programs and better inform, educate and inspire employees without information overload.