PoliteMail Survey says Email Rules the Roost

While digital tools such as instant messaging, mobile apps and social networking continue to flood the market, email remains most effective tool for internal commination, according to PoliteMail Software.

The Portsmouth firm released the results of a survey of more than 340 internal communications professionals, which placed email as the dominate employee communications channel, valued by 96% of enterprises with more than 1,000 employees.

The survey indicates that 84% of communicators want to implement some form of measurement to determine employee engagement but often lack the budget and technological resources to do so; 45 percent of respondents were not even sure where to start or what to measure.

Commissioned by PoliteMail and conducted by Ragan Communications, the survey polled professionals in such sectors as healthcare, technology, government, education and nonprofit. Across all industries and company sizes, the survey found several commonalities, including:

• 94% of survey respondents said that email was their “most important” employee communications channel at helping them achieve their objectives.
• 67 percent of communicators are measuring any of their communications, with 71% of those measuring internet activity, only 55% measuring email and 42% measuring leadership/town hall meetings, leaving one-third of respondents with no measurement at all of their communication results.
• Internal communicators cite information overload (53%), lack of manpower (51%) and antiquated technology and tools (45%) as top challenges to effectively measuring employee communications campaigns.
• Of the 22% of communicators who are satisfied with their ability to measure their campaigns, they use these metrics to make decisions (78%) and improve effectiveness (68%).
• Only 16% of communicators use mobile tools to reach their workforce, and among those using a mobile app, 42% are indifferent to its effectiveness, while 16% consider it ineffective.

“The research shows that proving the effectiveness of employee communications continues to be a challenge for most enterprises,” says Michael DesRochers, managing partner at PoliteMail. “While digital tools such as instant messaging, mobile apps and social networking continue to flood the market, email remains most effective and companies continue to rely on email. The ability to improve email content and use inside corporations is dependent on accurate measurement to help communications teams make decisions informed by objective data.”

To download a free copy of 2019 Internal Communications Measurement Survey Results, visit https://politemail.com/2019-internal-comms-survey-results/.

About the research:PoliteMail commissioned Ragan to conduct a survey targeting internal communications professionals. The survey was administered to 340 qualified individuals in the spring of 2019. Data points were compiled and analyzed by Ragan’s team, then compared with the 2017 study.