Fueling Global Engagement of
Automotive Industry Employees
with a Daily Internal Email Newsletter
- Client
- Dana Incorporated
- Industry
- Automotive / Trucking / Mobil Off-Highway / Industrial
- Solution
- Internal Email Communications
- Deliverables
- Internal Email Newsletters, Executive Email Communications, Graphic Email Templates, Redesigned Email Template, RSS Feed for External Content
Dana Incorporated powers the world's cars, commercial trucks, and off-highway vehicles from behind the scenes.
The company provides highly engineered drivetrain, sealing, and thermal-management technologies that increase vehicles' efficiency and performance, regardless of whether they use conventional or alternative-energy powertrains.
A Century-Old Company with a Mission of Innovation
"Dana is focused on keeping the auto industry moving forward," says Mo Sheahan, a corporate communications consultant to Dana Incorporated. The company has been around since 1904, which was also the year the Ford Motor Company was founded. She adds: "We have a very good reputation in the industry, and there are only a few dozen companies that have been listed on the New York Stock Exchange longer than Dana."
After helping Dana communicate the rollout of its email communication system and refresh the face of its intranet, Mo moved on to assist Dana in further rebuilding its internal email communications function. The company wanted to increase employee engagement and share stories from the company's many global locations with employees who are based in more than 30 countries and on six continents. Mo began by creating an employee spotlight email that was distributed each week. "Our employees love reading about their colleagues. This gives a voice and identity to Dana employees around the globe and has helped unify our workforce," she says.
Evolving a Tried-and-True Email Communications Tool
The company also produced an internal communications email newsletter called Headline News, which shared media coverage and industry articles about Dana. Previously, the email was produced by reviewing a Factiva feed, selecting articles, and cutting and pasting them into an email template before issuing to Dana employees. "We realized that the email newsletter was a golden opportunity to connect with our employees, but that it was time to give it a new look and feel and make the tool more dynamic," says Mo. In addition, the team wasn't able to measure the email newsletter's success with metrics, such as open rates, because it was distributed via email.
Mo did what prospective customers do the world over when they're looking for a new business partner or solution: she performed a Google search. "I found EmailOpen and I was really impressed with their client list, which had a lot of familiar names. I contacted the company and asked for a demo. I could tell quickly that the internal marketing and communications solution was very flexible, and that the team would work with us to customize it for our needs," stated Mo. She explains that Dana had invested significant time and money enhancing its corporate intranet. Consequently, the team decided not to use landing pages, a standard feature of EmailOpen's solution, choosing to link article teasers to the intranet instead.
Creating a New Brand for a Daily Email Communique
EmailOpen also created a new look for Headline News that matched Dana's brand. "We knew what we had wasn't working. We had a lot of ideas, but EmailOpen was instrumental in creating a graphic email template that was effective. We wanted one that could be enhanced by story imagery but would also be visually appealing if we sent out text-heavy content," says Mo.
Mo creates multiple issues of Headline News at a time, using auto-scheduling to ensure that it is always sent daily. The corporate communications email newsletter is sent to 10,000 of the company's 27,000 global workforce, as many employees work in manufacturing facilities and don't have access to computers. The email provides industry and corporate news, best practices, a weekly employee feature, events, and awards. The employee spotlight email is always run on Mondays. EmailOpen has helped streamline the process of preparing content: creating an RSS feed that the team can use to select and import Factiva articles right into the email template.
"We used to work hard to get email newsletter ideas. Now the stories come to us because employees want to be featured and share their successes," says Mo. "If the ideas aren't appropriate for news stories, we'll suggest the employees to post their ideas on Yammer," which is an internal social media service provided by Microsoft. Mo will then select these ideas for inclusion in the Yammer feed included on Dana's daily internal email.
Connecting Employees with Corporate Email Strategy-Setting
The Dana communications team utilizes EmailOpen for executive email communications via a separate email template, Of Note, which features important announcements from the company's senior leaders, including the CEO and CFO. One recent CEO update covered a strategic acquisition that will enhance Dana's market position, for example.
Both Headlines News and Of Note email newsletters are well-received, with each issue achieving more than 50% open rates.
"The EmailOpen team is very responsive, very helpful. They are very good at listening to our pain points and coming up with suggestions on how we can improve our internal email communications. We have never had to wait for service," says Mo. She anticipates evolving her use of the email marketing solution to facilitate event-based email communications. EmailOpen can be used to create event landing pages and do targeted email communications based on RSVPs to drive attendance and engagement of large corporate events.
"EmailOpen is very simple to set up and we found it was a quick and easy way to add a lot of value to Dana's internal email communications," concludes Mo.
Meet Mo Sheahan
Mo Sheahan serves as a communications consultant to Dana Incorporated. She is skilled at corporate and internal communications strategy-setting and program design. She has managed functions and teams for companies in the automotive, healthcare, real estate, and technology industries.