Earlier this year our consultancy Maverick commissioned a survey to discover how familiar 2,000 UK employees were with the external messaging of the brands they worked for. The headline results revealed that only 31% of employees were confident about the premise and/or strap-line of their company’s latest advertising campaigns, and 45% were aware of it but not in any detail. Worryingly, 24% had no idea about the premise of the campaign.
While this lack of awareness may appear trivial to some, the level to which employees understand advertising campaigns is fundamental to aligning customer expectations with what employees can deliver. Alignment of expectations and delivery ensures that there is no say-do gap. This has a major effect on a brand’s bottom line – the bigger the gap, the less loyalty we can expect from our customers. The old model of focusing primarily on the external message and media at best leaves the team disconnected, and at worst dismissive or cynical.
In light of these findings, it’s important to explore the premise that marketing is, or at least should be, a company’s chance to convey to its audiences (both internal and external) what it stands for, what it offers and why it is different from the competition.
A disengaged retail industry
Employee awareness of their company’s advertising campaigns is particularly pertinent to the retail sector, especially when taking into account the link between internal and external brand promotion. One fifth of retail workers surveyed didn’t know what their company’s latest advertising campaign was. Furthermore, nearly half (44%) of all retail workers who took part in the study had never been given any training on how they can help to promote or support their company’s campaigns. Retail brands offer some of the most prevalent and well-known advertising that we are exposed to, and the fact that 20% of retail employees are completely unaware of their firm’s campaigns is a damning indictment of retailers’ commitment to brand engagement.
It’s clear that there’s a lack of awareness about how marketing campaigns and messaging can be used to engage staff internally, providing a vital link between them and the customers. While we’re not suggesting that retail employees should be having open conversations with customers about their company’s latest ad campaign, what’s important is that every campaign has been planned, built and executed on a foundation of brand values that have been communicated to employees.
The level of personal investment in the messaging and values of an organisation has a direct correlation on the employees’ levels of above-and-beyond emotional commitment. Engagement is about creating the right environment to foster a deep emotional connection with what the company stands for and a thorough understanding of how that filters into everything it does. If employees are not aware of, don’t understand or, worse, still don’t care about these things, then the organisation faces a serious problem: If employees don’t understand or buy into their company’s philosophy and business strategy, then how can they act as brand ambassadors?
Engage employees from the inside out
Engaging employees with key marketing messages needs to happen from the inside out and, although it may sound truistic, having a clear, engaging and inspirational brand message will work most effectively. While many advertising campaigns carry emotional punch, a large portion of them are difficult to translate and are challenging for the average employee to relate to. Marketers have a tendency to use nuanced language and clever messaging, but the average employee will require memorable and actionable messages and guidelines, linked to the external campaign, which is why a plugged-in approach between marketing and internal communications is crucial.
Empower employees to share
In this digital age of social media, it’s easier than ever before to directly connect with employees. A huge portion of the UK workforce now tweet, post, comment and share thoughts online, and it’s important for brands to embrace this activity. Brand communications no longer lie solely in the domain of marketers. The most effective approach is to actually sign employees up to a social channel. Give them an interactive preview of the company’s ads and messages and provide them with the social media tools to share. Create unique content that they can distribute on their own terms. Free up some of your employees’ time to blog and don’t just allow them – prepare and encourage them.
The key to engaging your employees is to give them something to engage with. Inviting their involvement with your key marketing communications will help them embrace and embody the underlying values you’re seeking to inculcate. They then feel like a valued part of the process and, therefore, feel a sense of ownership and a duty to remain on brand.
This approach is driving success for more and more brands. Well-executed marketing and communications campaigns can act as huge internal motivators that reframe the views employees have of the company, energise them on a new mission and deeply engage them with the business.
Photo credit: Office Space by Duane Hess