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The study and internship abroad provider united more than 500 staff across 30+ locations with an innovative newsletter strategy
The challenge: Between 2020 and 2022, IES Abroad navigated a whirlwind of change. A global pandemic brought travel and study abroad to a standstill, their CEO of 25 years retired, and a new leader stepped in. As travel returned, they faced the challenge of rebuilding community and connection while welcoming a surge of students with a team split between seasoned staff and fresh faces — all in a transformed world.
They needed something that could:
- Reduce email overload, consolidating key information in one place, respecting readers' time and minimizing scattered communications.
- Foster global connection, strengthening cross-departmental communication and building a sense of community given the organization’s international reach across 34 locations and four separate business lines.
- Promote transparency, aligning staff at all levels with IES Abroad’s internal-to-external communication philosophy.
- Build recognition and inclusions, celebrating its people, mission, and achievements, while also highlighting diverse voices across teams.
- Ensure consistency: Deliver reliable, anticipated content employees can engage with regularly.
The solution: The communications team was familiar with Smart Brevity and knew they wanted to launch a newsletter. “Axios HQ made the most sense. They have data and numbers to show you that this system and style is going to be successful,” said Abby Barić, Chief Communications Officer.
- "In the Loop" is a bi-weekly newsletter to staff that provides important updates at IES Abroad and in the International Education space at large, highlights org-wide achievements, features its people and culture, captures what students and staff are up to across the globe.
- “System Rebuild” is a monthly newsletter that highlights key updates around an internal systems overhaul project that will take place over the next few years.
- “What’s New” is a monthly newsletter serving their external-facing communications to partner universities that they work with.
- “Correspondent” is a newsletter sent from their Madrid Center for the students on programs there. The vision: In the near future, even more of their Centers will be able to use it for on-site student newsletter communications.
How it worked: The team gathers content through its Global Liaisons, who are representatives from each of the organization’s departments and Centers across the globe. Each newsletter goes through a review process before the main curators sharing a test with the Chief Communications Officer and Vice President of Global Marketing & Institutional Relations for copy editing, feedback, and approval. From start to send, the process takes no more than a couple of days and is able to quickly deliver important news — but also culture-building elements — like:
- Key updates and achievements, consolidated into digestible, Smart Brevity-style writing
- Photo collages of students and staff at their Centers across the globe
- Interactive polls to engage readers
- Colorful text with branded fonts that follows a consistent color hierarchy
- “Day in the Life” features to highlight diverse colleagues across unique departments
- Punchy subject lines, interesting visuals, and succinct content
“IES Abroad has received extensive support from Axios HQ, including a great account management relationship with regular communication about new features, updates to the platform, and our overall satisfaction. The team meets with our Account Manager on a quarterly basis to provide feedback — or as often as needed — and gets tutorials around new features. In addition to an excellent Account Manager, Axios HQ hosts virtual events with communication experts who are top executives from esteemed brands, allowing viewers to ask questions and gain valuable insight on effective communications strategies in the field.”
📊 Key comms and business results:
- Record enrollment. “We saw two of the most record-breaking spring semesters we've ever had in our 75 years the last two years. There are a lot of variables going into that, but I do think communication and connectedness helped with morale and critical information-sharing during that time.”
- Fewer — but more effective — comms. “Our colleagues get a ton of emails every day, and the scannable style of Smart Brevity helped colleagues retain a lot more information than before.”
- Higher staff engagement. “More than 80% of our U.S. remote staff are opening every single issue and clicking nearly every link. We have a larger population of international colleagues, and 61% of those folks are opening consistently. They're clearly wanting this connection.”
- Greater transparency and morale. “Rather than being siloed in our departments, we're now sharing information because we see the benefit of transparency. There’s newfound joy, pride, and excitement in what we do. People are excited and motivated by seeing their work highlighted in ‘In the Loop.’”
💭 Abby Barić, Chief Communications Officer: “This communication has truly helped unify our organization and make us more globally connected than ever before. We have four business lines, all serving different types of stakeholders, and this has brought everyone together in a way we never have before.”
- “We also have clearer and more direct communication across departments because they understand how information flows and that their work matters. People feel a huge sense of pride about the newsletter and when their work, their team, or their colleague is featured.”
- "Our CEO called it 'an incredible dollop of sunshine.' People are excited to see themselves and their colleagues celebrated. This has humanized our organization in an unprecedented way – especially across teams and borders since we have remote staff throughout the U.S. and all our colleagues around the world. We finally see who makes us who we are and all the work that goes into these successful programs."
IES Abroad earned Axios HQ's 2025 Best-in-Class Award for Culture Creator. See our other award winners:
