Despite the wolf crying, email remains the top channel for enterprise internal communicators
Despite an ongoing conversation around email’s demise — and a plethora of new messaging platforms and collaboration tools — email continues to demonstrate its unmatched effectiveness and versatility in the workplace.
A recent Ragan survey of enterprise communications professionals identified email as the most used and effective communications channel, with 74% of respondents marking email as their go-to channel. Similarly, Forbes’ 2023 State of the Workplace report found that email remains the most popular comms tool, with 25 percent of remote workers selecting it as their most preferred method of communication.
Let’s explore some of the main reasons email remains the top channel for internal communicators.
- Widespread usage and accessibility
Email is dominant for its widespread usage and accessibility (with little to no training). Typically, every employee in an organization has an email address. Even non-desk workers can quickly receive corporate email in today’s world. Important messages reach all employees on the distribution list, regardless of location, department, role, or technology stack. And 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 in the recipient’s time zone.
Additionally, unlike chat platforms — where important messages can quickly get buried in an active discussion — emails remain unread until opened. While they still may get buried, missed messages are easier to identify, find, and process. From multinational corporations to small businesses, email provides a level playing field for employees to receive and exchange information across generations and roles, with no specialized training or technology required.
- Formality and professionalism
As a more formal means of communication, email allows internal communicators to convey information in a structured and professional manner. Unlike traditional documents and informal chat channels, email conveys a serious and respectful tone crucial for important announcements, updates, and policies. The formality of email can also help employees comprehend the seriousness of information which can improve responsiveness and adherence to protocols.
- Personalization and branding
Email offers extensive customization, formatting, and personalization options for internal communicators compared to chat and app platforms. Email often contains company branding elements that reflect the organization’s visual identity and comply with brand standards. Senders can use different layouts and designs to signal and differentiate communications. This consistent branding helps build trust and organizational credibility when emailing customers.
- Integration capabilities
Email is hard to beat when it comes to its integration and multi-functionality. Since email supports calendar functions, task management, and contact lists, it typically serves as a hub for employees’ daily communication activities. Email seamlessly integrates with other applications, including project management, customer relationship management, and collaboration platforms. This centralized common access point enhances internal comms.
- Measurement and analytics
As a digital communications platform, email is easy to measure. We’re biased, but we know how valuable email metrics are to internal comms teams. Tools like PoliteMail help measure reach, readership, and engagement across different audiences for various publications, programs, and announcements. Email metrics help communicators make data-driven decisions to improve communications’ performance and increase employee engagement.
- Employee experience
You can also leverage email to improve the employee experience, from onboarding to career development. By analyzing patterns of employee engagement over time, a company can use email analytics data — along with employee tenure and turnover data — to improve retention, reduce the cost of turnover, and showcase a quantifiable ROI that executives understand.
While new communication channels come and go, email is firmly established as the preferred choice for enterprise internal communicators. Its widespread usage, formality, personalization, integration capabilities, analytics, and impact on the employee experience make it the most versatile and effective corporate communications tool. While new tools are worth exploring, email remains the most relevant, easy-to-use, highly adopted, and powerful platform across all industries.
