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Campaigns aren't just for advertisers. To get messages heard, there's a lot we can learn from successful marketing strategies and can apply in a similar way to internal communication. Here are six practical steps for creating compelling campaigns within your organisation.
What does selling a sausage roll have in common with persuading people to sign up for a training course? (Or anything else you need to get them to pay attention to at work!)
Well, perhaps more than you’d think.
In both cases, as communicators we’re trying to grab a tiny window of people’s attention in a busy, noisy world. And in that tiny window we have to influence them not only to listen, but also to take the action we want them to take... whether that’s buying a snack or enrolling on a course.
We’re all bombarded with upwards of 10,000 adverts each day. It can feel overwhelming. So in this context, communicators need to be smart about how we get through to our intended audience and prompt them to take action.
And the successful way to do this often lies in an effective campaign – as much for your internal comms, L&D or employee engagement objective as for retailers who need to sell more snacks.
Why use a campaign approach?
Put simply, a campaign involves creating a consistent message and using it across different channels over a period of time.
Repetition works. If people see a message several times, it becomes familiar. And if it is relevant and helpful to them in some way, the idea will start to stick. Then if it is repeated at just the right time, when they are ready to do something in response, it can prompt the desired action.
Campaigns are typically associated with advertising and marketing. But using similar principles can also lead to much greater impact for communicating with your messages to internal audiences.
What was that about a sausage roll?
A brilliant example of a successful consumer campaign comes from Greggs in ‘Veganuary’ 2019, when the food retailer went all out to unveil its vegan sausage roll.
The new snack was launched with clever use of humour and resulting viral social media. Parodying an Apple product launch, it pitched the new snack as the ‘next-generation sausage roll technology’, with this slick video:
The YouTube ad attracted eight million views. To underline the i-spoof, Greggs sent out iPhone-style boxes containing the snack to the media. The campaign struck a chord with the public, kicking off a social media debate over whether the product could really be called a sausage roll at all.
Greggs’ creative, tongue-in-cheek approach and willingness to take a risk paid off handsomely. The PR coverage is estimated to have reached 69% of UK adults more than 11 times, with organic Twitter reach at 24 million. Gregg’s share of voice compared to competitors including McDonald’s, KFC, Costa and Subway, reached a high of 71% up from a previous 17%. And the vegan roll became Gregg’s fastest-selling new product over five years, also bumping total sales up by 14.1% in seven weeks.
Internal campaigns in six steps
So what are the ingredients for really effective campaigns? And how can you apply those within your organisation?
Below are six key elements for developing a successful campaign for internal audiences…
1. A meaningful objective
First, the objective needs to be clearly defined and SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound).
Define what action you want people to take, how many people (and maybe what roles) you want to take that action, and with what purpose. So it may be ‘we want 500 managers to enrol in the new training programme so they can learn how to become mentors.’
This way you can evaluate and tweak the campaign while it’s running, and target your budget effectively by using the right channels.
2. Knowing your audience
Who is in your audience? And what are they most likely to respond to? This is crucial for shaping a message that will resonate with the people you need to reach, as well as understanding how you’ll get that message noticed.
Using personas can be helpful – thinking of your audience as a specific person, or small number of people, and working out how you will appeal to them.
What part of the business do they come from, what’s their level of experience, what does their day looks like?
What motivates them, what annoys them, how you might appeal to them?
What do they already know about your subject?
Then ask: how do they consume content?
• What channels do they have access to, what are the constraints?
• What’s been done to communicate to this audience before? What worked and what didn’t?
3. A strong message and call to action
A successful campaign message has certain characteristics. It needs to be:
Relevant – if it’s easier for the audience to make connections and understand why it matters, they are more likely to be responsive.
Straightforward – don’t ask people to decode what the message is about. You’re more likely to lose people’s attention if the message isn’t clear.
Beneficial – always let people know what’s in it for them in some way. Go back to your audience insights to tap into what’s meaningful for them.
Action-oriented – make sure there’s a clear call to action – you don’t want to leave people thinking ‘that was nice’, then forget it happened.
4. Memorable creative
At the heart of the campaign needs to be an attention-grabbing creative ‘splash’.
Tapping into human emotions is the most effective way to gain attention. The emotion could be humour, surprise, curiosity, excitement, pride, admiration or desire. Or it could even be a ‘negative’ emotion such as sadness, fear or even irritation.
5. Maximise your channels
Try to think broadly when it comes to selecting your channels.
Make use of your audience profiling (point 2), thinking about how people consume content and what their day looks like. Where can you put messages in their environment, where they’re most likely to be seen and responded to? Don’t expect people to find you! Put your message in the places where your audience is already hanging out.
6. Evaluate and learn
Set up evaluative measures against your objectives, and monitor those while the campaign is running – for example, look at the performance of different channels – which ones are working best for you?
Try running some experiments and A/B tests, such as running two different messages through the same channel so you can see which one gets a better response then focus more effort on that channel.
Kicking it off
So getting your internal messaging heard does have a lot in common with selling sausage rolls! Start with a clear objective and by gaining some valuable insights into your audience and their behaviour. Next create a strong message and memorable creative that taps into human emotions, and then push this out through different channels making use of the audience insights. As the campaign runs, measure and evaluate what is working and make improvements as you go.
Then go and reward yourself with a tasty vegan sausage roll for lunch.
