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We can’t market alone, especially since our front-line colleagues are constantly talking about our organizations. Yet, all too frequently, marketers like us find ourselves frustrated and stuck—unable to “make” colleagues into the:
- Insight and story gatherers we depend on to accurately shape and personalize most likely to be remembered and repeated
- Powerful messengers we so desperately need to strengthen supporter relationships and expand reach.
Here are three compelling reasons—based on research findings to reassure your boss and board—to start helping your colleagues market your cause a.s.a.p.:
1) You’ll never have enough time, talent on hand, or budget to communicate the way you need to
Whether you’re the one person in your organization focused on communications, it’s just part of your job, or you’re part of a larger team, I’m talking to you! You know what you need to do, and the difference that would make, but can’t get beyond the limits of time, expertise, and budget.
2) Your colleagues are spreading the word, but it’s frequently the wrong word
It’s no surprise that we do a lot of talking about our workplaces since work is such a big chunk of our waking hours. According to PR-firm Weber-Shandwick’s research report on employee messengers:
- 50% post messages, pictures or videos
- 39% have shared praise or positive comments
- 16% have shared criticism or negative comments
- 14% have posted something about their employer that they regret.
But 42% of them can’t accurately describe what your organization does, much less convey the crucial needed to advance your communications goals. That’s disastrous because the only way to connect is to make it easy for people to “get” our organizations’ value and impact. Now, more than ever, incorrect or inconsistent messages diminish trust, create doubt and thoroughly confuse the people you’re striving to engage and activate.
3) You’re not the staff member with the best access to your audiences or the insights and stories you need
In most cases, your program team and front line colleagues (such as the receptionist and the person who answers the phone) have:
- Greater access than you do to the information you need to shape your marketing methods and content, and the testimonials and stories that will fuel it like nothing else
- Better, and more frequent, opportunities to share the right messages.
So empower them to do it! I urge you to launch—ask, train, support and appreciate—your team of employee marketers.
Let’s do this thing! You’ll learn everything you need to launch your marketers in this 3-part webinar series and workshop.
STARTS THIS WEEK!
Join me for Building Your Powerhouse All-Organization Team of Marketers and I’ll walk you, step-by-step, through how to:
- Build buy-in and support
- Design the approach that will work best for your organization
- Pinpoint the best launch opportunity and timing
- Identify and recruit the best first team members
- Create tools, content, and systems to launch and support your marketers
- Shape roles and responsibilities for every step along the way
- Train them to spot great stories and gather all the key elements
- Train them to share the right messages with the right people at the right time, with ease
- Thank and reward them.
Here are the dates for the webinars:
- May 25 – Part 1: Build Buy-In & Support, then Design the Approach that will Work Best for Your Organization
- June 30 – Part 2: Jumpstart Your Insight Gathering Team
- July 20 – Part 3: Recruit, Train & Launch Your Team of Confident Messengers
In addition to these 3 webinars, I will also provide worksheets and tools to help you and field questions and provide support via our private Facebook Group.
Register here to jump start your confident, competent all-organization team of marketers. I promise you, you’ll never look back.
Talk to you this Wednesday!
