Companies often focus on the external elements of their marketing plan, such as lead generation, conversion to sales, and revenue. Consider having an internal communication component in your plan.

Internal communication indirectly impacts your targets in two major ways. First, if your internal process doesn’t provide the right (or promised) customer experience, then any marketing you do externally will get trumped. You can spend anything you want on marketing and if the experience is not what it should be, the negative word-of-mouth will nullify your efforts. Internal communication should be used to refine the customer experience.

The second way it impacts your targets is through your employees. Your employees have a direct impact on customer loyalty and your business’s growth, especially if it is based on building off of your existing customers. We all know that selling to existing clients is more profitable in the long run. Internal communication helps you develop your employees into loyalty development officers.

A good internal communication strategy can be broken out into two areas of focus: environment and behaviours.

Your company environment should be set up for your employees to succeed. Do they have the right tools? Do they have pride in their workspace? Have a third-party organization conduct some research on your behalf to gauge this. Theme the responses and change one or two things that you think will have the biggest impact.

Behaviour is more complex. If there are internal behaviours that you need to change or tweak, consider an approach that uses three ingredients (as recommended by Dan and Chip Heath in their book titled “Switch”):

1. Appeal to your team’s left brain by giving them concrete direction that is attainable. There is a big difference between saying “we need to provide better service” and “return each call within two to four hours.” Build a list of three to six tangible action items that your team needs to do in the next year.
2. Appeal to your team’s right brain by giving them an emotional outcome. For example, “by providing better customer service, you’re positioning yourself as a caregiver, someone who can solve problems for people…”
3. Give them a process to follow. If you give them all the steps and processes to follow, then they’re less likely to spin their wheels and get stuck. Think of forms, guidelines, checklists—any documentation or flow charts that will help them see how to get to the outcome.

Don’t forget to measure the success of your initiatives through an internal survey. The survey can help you track your employees’ satisfaction of the work environment and tools you’ve provided them.

Internal communication is an important component of loyalty. Which organizations do you know of that have the perfect balance between internal and external communications?

Companies spend a lot of time and money developing their brand and defining their brand values. After branding, there will be moments when you feel the need to sacrifice those brand values for short-term gain. The costs of doing so may be greater than you think.

Take my friend for example. He just got a new job as a driver. As a new employee, he spent a lot of time in safety training and was exposed to internal messaging indicating that safety is number one. Expectation set. His safety will never be compromised, right?

Last week, he had problems with his truck and asked that the truck be repaired so that he can do his job properly and safely. His manager decided that the downtime would cost too much and opted to have him continue his route without the repair for another two weeks!

Consider the call that manager made. He’s just wasted a lot MORE money than what he thought he saved. First, the company spends thousands of dollars on safety seminars, internal communication on safety, and marketing that promotes “safety” to new prospective employees. Instances like this one communicate that safety is not important after all. For the company, it’s money down the toilet.

Second, now that expectations have not been met, a new counter-culture of safety develops, one of “only when we feel like it.” This could lead to more careless behaviour from employees and more on-the-job accidents.

Third, the negative word-of-mouth spreads. My friend told three people, who then told three other people. You know how it is. Now, the organization needs to work harder to communicate that it is a safe company; it’s fighting an uphill battle against the negative perception which has developed.

Before you make a concession to sacrifice one of your brand values for a short-term, tactical gain, consider what it will do to your company and brand. In the end, you could be losing much more than what you’ll gain.

Have you ever bought something and, after using it for a few months, realized just how glad you were that you made the decision to buy it? Some things you just have to use for a while before you realize that you can’t live without it.

My friend was shopping for a car last year, and he invited me along. Now, he’s a busy guy; he’s work busy and home busy (with the kid’s soccer practices and dance classes). We went to a few dealerships together and, after a little while, we got distracted by the flashier models. Sports cars were making a comeback, and he was dazzled by the ones we saw on the lots. “Maybe I should get one of these? I think I can make it work,” he’d say. We weren’t looking for something that fit his lifestyle anymore and, after a little while, we snapped out of it, finally realizing that his fantasy dream did not fit his goal. What he was looking for was not a sports car, but a minivan. You can’t fit a family of five in a sports car no matter how hard you try! Almost grudgingly, he bought a top-of-the-line minivan. Now, after having only driven it for six months, he admitted to me that it was one of the best decisions he ever made.

Adopting a new company name or logo is like buying a car. Once you find a new identity that potentially matches with your organization’s needs, you need to “break-in” that new brand for a little while. You need to work it into your company’s everyday business, from how you answer the phones to the signage in your office, to the way your business card is designed. Giving yourself time to break in a new identity is the only way to eventually feel comfortable with it. It’s only after you start seeing all the different elements come together and letting it settle, will you feel that it’s the right way to go.

Thinking about connecting to your target audience is a lot like getting ready to meet that dream girl (or guy) for that first date. What do you say? What should you say?

One of most important processes in creating a marketing plan is clearly defining your target audience. Deciding what to say to a target audience is where most organizations get stuck and spin their wheels. There’s a limited window of time for marketing to make an impact, and unfortunately, this pressure causes companies to default to what they know: they end up talking about product line, service offerings, company history, and experience. But talking about these things is neither compelling nor effective. If time is scarce, why not respect your audience’s time and really connect with them? Back to our dream girl; she doesn’t want to hear all about you. And remember, she’s popular–she can date anyone she wants! There are three easy ways to make a meaningful connection with your target audience:

1. Develop messages that are relevant, specific, and valuable to the audience

The best way to do this is to determine what it is about the product or service that frustrates your audience. Determine your customers’ pains by simply asking them–and ask prospects too. It’s important to do this well – navigate past typical “good price, good quality, or good service” type responses and really dig in. Having third-party expertise to facilitate this process will help you garner more honest feedback that will inevitably be more useful.

Once you have a list of frustrations from the customer, match what makes you unique to counter those frustrations. Maybe a certain way that you conduct your business alleviates that frustration. If not, then what do your competitors do that alleviate that frustration? Can you do the same or better? Or, maybe no one in the market is working to alleviate that frustration. That’s even better because figuring out how you can do it gives you a competitive edge.

2. Develop a target audience profile and an individual as its primary representative

Developing an audience profile is a good way to capture basic demographics (age, income, etc.), but it fails to really nail down an audience’s personality. To get at this, develop an individual persona that represents the group. Be specific! Give that person a name; outline their motivations, hobbies, and feelings. This might sound superfluous, but it isn’t because it’s much easier to write messages for a marketing piece if you’re thinking of writing to one person vs. to a group. To be really successful at this, consider developing a physical representation of this person–a cardboard cut-out, a custom action figure, a poster, etc. This way the person is at the front of your mind at all times.

3. Develop a Theme or Story

The book Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath gives us a formula to help make ideas or messages stick. They need to be simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and story-like. Stories are a great way to tie in your brand and your messages in a way that resonates with your audience. When done properly, a brand theme or story should diffuse through every part of your business (your office design, your signage, your print material)–think about every single audience touch-point. To be really successful at this, try to apply those elements to your story. The great thing about stories is that it cuts through the clutter too. It’s easy for competitors to say that they do the same thing that you do, but rarely will they have the audacity to copy your brand theme or story.

Be sure to connect on that first date! Find out what your customer’s frustrations are then match them specifically to what makes you unique. Develop a very specific target audience persona and keep a physical representation of him or her nearby as a constant reminder. Lastly, work on a creative story or theme that helps you stand out, hits messages home, and is difficult to duplicate.