In the age of technology and automation, one can get lost in a sea of generic auto-replies and designs. To ensure your employees are engaged, we rounded up three internal marketing strategies for you to try. Adding personal touches to your intranet engages employees and reminds everyone there is still a real person behind the brand.
Automated technology is everywhere, from replying to a text with an automated text to setting an out-of-office response on email when you’re away. That being said, one thing is often overlooked, and it’s vital for engaging people and reminding them of your brand’s unique wit and charm: personalization.
There are some great examples of brands, highlighted below, personifying their messages, designs, and tone of voice to ensure you love not only their product/service but their brand and the people behind it.
FitBit – when you get emails from FitBit on your progress, they are 100% custom to not only you, as a user, but with brand consistent images and a tone of voice that says we’re ‘casual yet cool’. They know you’re working hard, they love that you’re using their technology, so they’re your #1 cheerleader and it shows! There are even forums dedicated to people sharing the fun things their FitBit has said to them (which is great brand building). Take this cue from FitBit and apply it internally by offering employee recognition for a job well done on your intranet!
Yelp, Groupon, and other app upgrades – If you have updated apps on your phone and selected the drop-down menu to review what is included in the upgrade, you may have been pleasantly surprised. Upgrades can sometimes be a bore, fixing a few bugs, but some brands are staying true to their brand’s personality while providing this usually ‘boring’ information. These fun twists instead of the expected engage us and really encourage us to make the upgrade. The same can be done for engaging employees on your intranet. Launching a survey? Don’t make it monotone, take the chance to market your brand internally. Below are some of the amazing ‘personalized’ upgrade messages.
We’ve discussed the importance of brand building previously, now it’s time to take it a step further. Your intranet is an entire internal communication system filled with automated workflows. Of course, these workflows have been set up with pre-populated content to ensure you can get up and running as soon as possible, but once you’ve launched, it’s key to get personal.
A webinar hosted by Cadence stated that personalizing internal communications is a form of ‘internal marketing’ and can include three things, such as:
- Internal Company Communications – develop an internal communications calendar (newsletters, meetings, updates)
- Employee Training and Development – host professional development for leaders/managers and develop brand ambassadors
- Promote Creative Culture Projects – have an internal photo gallery of events, offer recognition and company news feed to name a few
So where is the best place to start your internal marketing strategies? On your intranet. Below are a few areas of your intranet you can customize and establish strong company branding!
Build your brand and improve employee engagement with these three internal marketing steps:
1. Make Your Intranet Personal For Employees
Your intranet’s pre-populated content gets the job done. But if you want to add some flare and personality to your messages, you can easily customize this content. First and foremost, take into account all the actions on your intranet that send an auto-reply. Once you’ve compiled all the areas you want to customize, it’s time to get personal! The screenshot below shows you how to simply add your brand voice, and personality, to your workflow. At Intranet Connections, when I request time off in our Vacation Calendar, it goes through an approval process. The first email I receive lets me know the submission was successful, then it says “We are looking at your vacation request, you deserve some time off!”
2. Make Intranet Content Visually Pleasing
You ensure your website looks amazing for potential customers and now you can do the same for employees; no IT required. The design of your intranet (see best Home Page designs) can be done by keeping your storyboard up to date, and adding your company logos, colors, and images. A storyboard is a great way to visually present information in an engaging way. Whether it’s sharing a new policy that everyone has to read, advertising the Christmas party, or summarizing the quarterly sales report, using the storyboard will encourage interaction and sharing.
To keep the brand up to date, just a few clicks of the Simple Theme Editor and your intranet can pull your logo colors for you to choose from and you can easily apply them to navigation bars, text colors, and more. Some of the most engaging intranets stem from consistent branding both outwardly to customers and internally for employees.
3. Make Information Easy to Navigate
Aside from internal communications and design, you want to provide an intranet that has all the information easily accessible. We have spoken about effective intranet navigation previously, but a key takeaway is to think about how employees think, don’t tell them how to think. Your navigation, and Mega Menu, provide crucial links people need at the click of a finger. Ensure the links’ titles are ones your employees can easily identify. This may mean renaming intranet features that suit your company brand such as: uploading employee plans for the next quarter to your intranet but employees refer to them as ‘quarterly goals’. If they go to your intranet looking for ‘quarterly goals’ they will overlook the link and feel disengaged.
There are a variety of unique ways to build up your internal brand, and auto-replies, design, and navigation are just a few ways to get personal with your employees. Company branding starts from the inside, be genuine and it will shine through!
Want to see the above internal marketing strategies in action? Contact us for a free demo today! And be sure to check out our assessment tool to get important insights about your internal comms!
