I’m often surprised that the most overlooked audience when it comes to communicating with key constituents is the internal or employee audience. Companies are generally pretty good about recognizing that they need to communicate with customers and prospects, but employees tend to be an afterthought. This may be because of the assumption that since employees are part of the organization they somehow “know” what’s going on. After all, it was in the newsletter or on Slack wasn’t it?
The fact of the matter, though, is that companies can’t leave it to chance that employees are paying attention to the messages they’re sending, or that they understand which are the key messages that they should be paying attention to.
Getting employees on board with the right messages is important. They can serve as valuable—and very cost-effective—communication ambassadors. And, because of their relationship with the organization as “insiders,” their comments and viewpoints have a significant amount of credibility with the “outside world.”
In addition to the impact employees can have on external audiences, ensuring that employees know the goals, direction and performance of the company they work for will help them focus their efforts in alignment with those goals and objectives. Employees who feel uninformed spend a lot of time worrying, gossiping and, often, jumping to inaccurate conclusions. Informed employees are productive employees.
Some communication is better than none. But to be most effective, companies should take a strategic approach to employee communication which includes the following steps:
The process is obviously much simplified here, but these are basically the steps: What do your employees need to know to help further the objectives of the organization? What do they currently know? How can you get them from where they are now to where you’d like them to be?
Strategic Communications, LLC, works with B2B clients to help them achieve their goals through effective content marketing and management with both internal and external audiences. We work with clients to plan, create and publish high-quality, unique content. Whether on- or offline, or both, we’ll help you achieve desired results.
(Strategic Communications is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise through the Wisconsin Department of Administration.)
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Recommended Reading:
21st Century Secrets to Effective PR
Direct Mail in the Digital Age
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Strategic Planning
The Everything Guide to Customer Engagement
Best Practices in Influencer Marketing
The original version of this page was published at: http://blog.stratcommunications.com/employeebrandambassadors/
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