Internal Comms is a Business Driver.

Edu Lauton for Unsplash

I’ve told this story twice in the last week so I thought I’d share it with you too.

Once upon a time there was a lass working in Internal comms for a big multinational company.

The commercial team had been given some punchy targets for the summer quarter, a traditionally slow time. They needed help. They spoke to the Marketing team to ask them to pull the usual external-facing levers. But it was too late, they had missed the deadlines to get that work done in time.

What to do?

Marketing shared with the Internal Comms team. Can we help? What options do we have that could support?

We had some ideas.

Here’s what we did:

1. ANALYSE: We reviewed the Brief and reworked it for an internal audience. We partnered closely with the commercial team to be clear on the commercial levers they wanted to pull. We listened. We put ourselves in the employees shoes and asked the questions they would. We made sure we understood the problem.
2. REVIEW: We reviewed the plan for the quarter to see how we could create something more connected and joined up with the content already planned. Or could we pause something and make space? We wanted to avoid dropping “more random noise” on our people.
3. CREATE: We brainstormed solutions as a team (we were a small but mighty team of 6 — yes, even at a huge multinational). We didn’t want to break ourselves by biting off more than we could chew; but we wanted to help.
4. CRAFT: We crafted a campaign for the quarter that would encourage our regional audience to talk to the levers the commercial team had identified but in a new and fresh way. Something employees could take into their day-to-day conversations to elevate the customer experience.
5. RESOURCE: We made sure we had the resources ready to craft, design and produce our campaign (we did everything in-house).
6. AGREE: We got agreement from the commercial team and from the global team on the plan. We got cracking.
7. GO: Our regional campaign was a huge success. YAY!

Let’s break down why:

• Encouraging teams to focus, gifted them the space to have detailed discussions with their teammates and create peer-to-peer learning opportunities from what we shared.
• This increased knowledge was woven through the customer experience enthusiastically (as a lot of the information we shared was “Easter egg’ like or simply hadn’t surfaced as it wasn’t considered sexy. BUT it was the kind of information customers care about; privacy, for example.
• The commercial team were thrilled. They had made their punchy target. By partnering together, we had shared regionally relevant content at a time that would make the biggest difference to the business. Right content. Right audience. Right time.
• The rest of the world saw our campaign and asked if they could use it too. Of course! We were thrilled. Some used the same content where relevant, others used the concept to spin up locally relevant versions. Awesome.
• The feedback from teams was exceptional. We had given them new stories to share and get excited about. We had sparked new conversations for them to share their own experiences internally and learn from each other. We had created the possibility for new and interesting customer conversations to be explored. We had created a buzz at a time which was usually very slow.

And if you’re wondering what measurements we used:

QUANTS: the sales figures across the countries we were targeting. The commercial team could see where the message was landing and where needed more help.

QUALS: listening opportunities — calls with leaders, visits out in the field talking to the teams but also listening to the customer conversations being had, reviewing customer feedback data.

We didn’t use clicks or views as that wouldn’t tell us anything useful to support the outcomes that we had identified or allow us to know if we needed to tweak the campaign in flight.

Internal communication done well makes a real difference and delivers for the business. We were the only team who were able to solve this particular problem for the business at this time.

It shifted how we were seen as a team. The commercial team saw how we could drive business outcomes when no-one else could. The Marketing team considered our ability to influence and encourage internally and how they could leverage that going forward.

It worked for our people. It worked for the business. And it worked for us as a team.

I’m Janet. I’ve been working for almost 20 years an Internal Communication Leader with experience working globally in Tech, Finance, Insurance, FMCG and Retail.

I’ve worked in complex global organisations, start ups and scale ups and, for the world’s most admired brand.

In January 2020, I founded my Internal Communication consultancy Janco Ltd to help companies create and/or reimagine their internal communication function.

I now have a special interest in Sustainability and ESG communication following my recent studies at Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).

Get in touch Janet@janco.uk