Are you neglecting a key audience? The business case for strong internal marketing
At first glance, the concept of “Internal Marketing” may seem counter-intuitive. After all, who knows the company better than the people working below deck, keeping everything running? But even the most experienced crew can’t steer the ship without a clear course – and if the captain and crew aren’t aligned, they might find themselves lost at sea.
We recently wrote an article about the conflict between the Sales and Marketing teams – two departments that should be working in harmony but frequently suffer from miscommunication and under-appreciation of the others’ role. There will also be senior leaders who don’t understand the ground level work being performed – and vice versa. When internal comms are sent around to try and educate employees on what’s going on in other areas of the business, they can be ineffective if not handled by a specialist team.
As we begin the year, people can often enter that post-Christmas, ‘what’s it all for?!’ malaise. It’s therefore vital that companies exhibit a strong sense of direction and purpose for the year ahead. Inspiring and informative internal comms are essential in keeping employees engaged.
Our latest article examines the business case for strong internal marketing and how to ensure your communications measure up:
Why are internal communications important?
Just as you’re aiming to achieve credibility and respect from prospective clients, so you should from your employees. A disjointed, poorly edited piece of external communications would never pass the required control checks and internal messaging should not be any different. After all, why should employees trust you with their stocks and shares if they can’t trust you with an apostrophe?
Some organisations are highly experienced at making internal communications a key focus. We spoke to Tor Goldfield, Senior Director, Internal Communications at Expedia Group about why internal communications is so vital to a company’s success.
“Put simply, strong internal comms help people understand what the organisation stands for, where it’s headed and why, how things are going and how they contribute on a daily basis to the business’s success. This helps to enhance the sense of belonging, which boosts engagement and is shown to have a positive impact on business performance.”
Effectively, in addition to keeping your employees informed and supported, which is critical in itself, strong internal communications should be a business priority. In conversation with HR magazine, interim head of internal communications at British Airways, Peter Lyons, commented, “Internal communication is often seen as a ‘can you just-‘ function. But really it needs to be harmonised with business strategy and seen as a strategic function.”
So how can you ensure your internal communications perform the job you need? We always find it’s best to work with companies to create a bespoke plan for internal comms needs, however here are four key elements to consider:
Ensure your employees are engaged with your communications
We’ve written extensively about the importance of personality in B2B marketing and the misconception that writing with creativity and humour belongs solely in the B2C domain. Just as B2B marketing teams would do well to remember that their target demographic are also human beings, companies should also consider the same of their personnel. No-one, no matter what rung of the corporate ladder they inhabit, prefers their communication “dry and mind-numbingly repetitive.” Don’t risk people missing out on important information because it’s buried in paragraph 38 of “A day in the life of Alan from Accounts”.
Goldfield emphasises the fallacy of assuming that anyone can do internal comms because all it involves is writing emails, creating slides or running internal events. Comms experts need to have a granular understanding of the organisation and what is important to its employees (in addition to internal comms best practice and execution) in order to achieve maximum engagement and benefit. They can then both guide business leaders on which topics should be amplified and how (or avoided and why) and help them deliver this in captivating and memorable ways.
In case it wasn’t obvious, this requires a specific set of skills and isn’t a job to be palmed off on the nearest employee who has a spare ten minutes.
Focus on your key messages and their channels
Firstly, work out what the key messages are and check that they’re being shared to the right people. Too often, companies seem to assume a unified consciousness exists where teams magically know what’s happening in other areas of the business simply because they inhabit the same building.
Carefully consider the information your employees actually need to know and how it will help them. Messages from leadership should serve a clear purpose rather than a perfunctory gesture to keep in touch. A CEO sending out thought-pieces on boosting productivity from his sun-kissed villa in Tuscany will likely not be well received.
Goldfield discusses the importance of reciprocal channels: “Communication should allow leaders to connect meaningfully and authentically with employees including opportunities for two-way conversation and asking tough questions.”
Rather than messaging appearing from a faceless source, internal communications should facilitate all members of the community being able to interact with each other thereby strengthening the company’s bonds. Goldfield also mentions the importance of multi-format communications – for example, using text and video, instant messaging and email or live event and recordings. There are numerous ways to distribute messages in dynamic and creative ways and it’s vital to offer the employee a range of suitable options.
Avoid getting internal and external comms mixed up
In a recent B2B marketing article, content strategist Serai Schueller discussed the fact that “Organisations do not leverage personas to their fullest potential. Of those that even use them, the majority (66%) only use customer personas.”
Put simply: know your audience. While we mentioned earlier that it’s important to take as much care in external marketing as internal, the two still serve fundamentally different purposes. Your employees are a markedly different audience to your clients. Goldfield comments:
“Employees are much closer to the daily mechanics of the business than external audiences, so they expect more detail and transparency, which requires a highly nuanced approach and constant adaption.”
Of course, this does not mean bombarding recipients with daily emails on the minutiae behind the company’s finances – rather that comms teams need to consider the pertinent information which will benefit employees, allowing them to do their job more effectively and feel engaged with their workplace. Depending on the company, Goldfield also highlights that the tone can also be very different – potentially more conversational and less formal. Avoid sounding disingenuously pally – no-one’s looking for a new best friend – but don’t assume you need to be overly formal to sound professional.
Measure impact
Goldfield highlights the importance of implementing measures to assess the impact of internal communications. She highlights that many times communications are sent out with no sort of formal plan and their effectiveness or business value is never measured. One way to address that is to track simple engagement with the comms, such as metrics like views or event attendees, and sentiment which can be identified through regular polls and surveys.
At an informal level, she adds that it’s easier to get a sense of the impact of internal communications as colleagues can offer immediate feedback that allows you to understand if the intended message has been conveyed.
In essence, Goldfield highlights that “A high-functioning internal comms team acts as the glue in an organisation, helping to direct information, make connections and create predictable rhythms and moments for employees.”
Avoid falling into a trap of thinking anyone can handle internal communications or a “that’ll do” approach to the messages that go out – it’s disrespectful to employees and ultimately harmful to a business to have employees who don’t feel connected to their company. By ensuring your communications are strong, engaging and consistent, this will inevitably filter out into your external messaging and champion your company as a desirable fit for clients and future employees alike.
About Us
At Tech Partnership, we have extensive global experience in helping technology companies to stay relevant in an ever-evolving marketplace. We help our business partners to create a strong brand, intelligently position their offering in the marketplace and expand their client base. If you’d like to chat to our Managing Director, Chris Hopwood, about our previous work or your own specific requirements, please do get in touch for a chat on 07766 824209.
Sources
https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/content/news/internal-communications-is-fast-evolving-conference-speakers-explain
https://www.b2bmarketing.net/5-step-plan-to-build-personas-for-internal-audiences/
