For the majority of companies, marketing is all about positioning a brand in clients’ or customers’ minds. This has often resulted in a very singular focus on external marketing activities while only opportunistically exploiting (or even totally ignoring) the strongest marketing weapon there is – your own employees.
The rising cost of customer contact, driven by the variety in the B2B media landscape and the decreasing attention span of customers to traditional communication strategies, continues to apply pressure on your marketing ROI.
While it is possible to focus on applying new technology or further segmenting customers, focusing internally on employees – who actually deliver end-products or services – can make the difference between an ordinary brand and a great brand, and increase your competitive edge.
People make the difference
Engaging your employees is not as easy as it sounds. In precisely the same manner as with external target groups, you are faced with information asymmetries, biased experiences, diverging attention spans and, of course, cultural and political differences. Selecting suitable tools, methods and timings are thus crucial to successfully getting to the very heart of the organisation to bring about change.
Depending on budget constraints and the size of the organisation, the tools and technology available to engage with employees will vastly differ. Traditional communication tools, such as email, newsletters, inhouse magazines and the intranet, all represent fantastic ways of distributing your core message. However, the emotional relations resulting from such methods with your target group are relatively weak.
Live communication, on the other hand, such as internal roadshows, represents a great way of engaging your employees, enabling instant feedback and high-impact dual communication. Internal roadshows allow you to deeply engrain your marketing message into the organisation while disengaging information filters within your management ranks.
To successfully apply live communication campaigns, leading to a change in employee’s brand perception and thus behavior, follow four crucial rules.
1: Choose the right moment
Whether you aim to rebrand a product or align your employees behind your brand; you are beginning a change process in which timing is a key factor. A change in management, a large takeover, the introduction of a new core product or even a dip in sales are a few examples of change-enabling moments.
When an organisation is in an uncertain position, this can psychologically open the eyes and ears of employees to new game-changing rules. Don’t lie back and wait for such a moment to arise; plan your internal campaign rigorously and leave enough flexibility to exploit the right moment when it occurs.
2: Align your marketing
Great branding does not happen by chance; core messages need to be aligned and matched with the perceived reality. As the saying goes ‘Do not overpromise and underdeliver’, this also applies to your internal audience. Align your internal and external marketing strategy; amend your segmentation to also include employees. Congruency in communication is as vital as ensuring that performance measures are in line with your marketing strategy.
3: Involve everyone
Every instance of customer interaction with your organisation defines your brand image. A roadshow is a great vehicle for mobilising your entire organisation to inflict a sense of urgency through human interaction. One of the contradicting tasks of live communication is, however, spreading a message general enough to apply to the entire organisation, while sufficiently engaging individuals/groups.
One way of overcoming this contradiction is by not only sending your brand spokesperson to your roadshow sites, but also by involving your second and third-tier management layer such as regional, country or local managers. These managers need to break your message down to relate this to their respective organisational units; which not only personalises the message for targeted employees but also leads your management to publicly committing to the roadshow’s core message.
Don’t forget to involve your CEO as your spokesperson; commitment from the highest ranks of an organisation spreads much more easily.
4: Integrate and think long-term
Integrate your live communication with other available communication channels prominent in your organisation. Plan follow-up activities and involve people. Why not ask each site to provide pictures or videos that highlight their brand alignment as a success story?
Don’t expect overnight results, but plan strategically. Repeating a roadshow every two to three years is necessary to institutionalise the event in the minds of your employees. Each cycle will further tighten the gap between brand identity and brand image.
