With so many communication channels these days, it can be tough for marketers and public relations professionals to ensure they are in the right place, at the right time, to connect with consumers. Navigating this elaborate and ever-changing dance also makes it easy to overlook our internal audience. But there are many good reasons not to overlook employees when it comes to sharing news and information.
Perhaps most importantly, our team members are crucial to the success of our organizations. Their buy-in can make or break us when it comes to providing great service, achieving high-level goals and hitting growth targets.
Also, with so many people now working remotely, communication is more important than ever to fill in gaps. Not being aware of important changes and initiatives can fuel a sense disconnection that can have toxic results — both for individual teams and for organizations as a whole — over time.
Here are a few tips to ensure that your employee audience is always front and center:
- Adopt an internal-first policy. Notify employees ahead of the public when there are significant changes and initiatives. Partner with your internal communications lead to determine the best way to get the message out. Ingrain this as a habit by adding it to your communications and marketing plans.
- Consider providing additional resources for the internal audience when necessary. Resources could include FAQs and infographics. The intranet is a great place to house this type of information to make it widely accessible. Taking these steps requires extra time, but it’s worth it. Openly sharing information helps ensure your internal audience feels informed. Often this can head off people making and speading false assumptions.
- Don’t forget to focus on why things are happening. This gives you an opportunity to connect events to your organization’s mission, vision and core values, which boosts alignment and trust with your internal team.
- Depend on leaders at all levels, including supervisors, as a resource to cascade information. This tactic is especially effective with sensitive topics, or any news that could be perceived in a negative light.
- Don’t forget to spend some of your creative energy promoting the good things that are happening, even if they don’t seem especially newsworthy. This can help shine a light on your services to keep the great work your organization is doing front and center. This practice helps spead the word for those who may not be fully informed — and it can be great reminder for everyone else. Ideas for telling these stories in a fresh way include outlining a new success or sharing a customer testimonial. Often this same content can be tweaked for use with external audiences.
- Measure open and click rates, page views and video plays to determine what works well with your internal audience. Report these statistics up the chain to senior leaders. Be sure to tell the story of how you are using this data to refine and align your messaging over time.
Don’t neglect your team when it comes to communications and marketing. Attention to our internal audience will pay off over time as team members become loyal brand advocates!
Explore my blog for more insight into communication-related topics.
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