In today’s digital world, most marketing initiatives forget to include a very important channel in their communications strategy: the human channel.
I’m talking specifically about the people who sit within the four walls of your company. Your human channel is on the frontline with your customers. From that vantage point, they can single-handedly destroy the effort of an often lengthy and costly marketing campaign, with just one interaction.
Take the time to get your human channel on board before investing in a large-scale marketing effort. Change management programs help align employees’ behavior to a brand’s promise, and should be a baseline requirement for all marketing initiatives. Yet today, they’re not.
Consider the Investment
US advertisers spent $209 billion in 2017, according to Magna, the research arm of the media buying from IPG Mediabrands.
Yet based on a survey with CMOs, conducted by Lippincott, fewer than 22% believed employees understood their role in delivering the brand. With such a disconnect, the impact of the billions of dollars invested in advertising will be eroded through inconsistent messages and behavior in the marketplace.
At Ogilvy, we believe you have to build brand advocates on the inside before you can be successful at delivering on your brand’s promise on the outside.
To ensure your marketing and human channels align, ask yourself the following:
· Do employees and sales teams know what your brand promise is and why they should be committed to it?
· Can they effectively articulate that value to customers?
· Have you made sure they’re equipped to deliver on it? Every day?
· Do you have examples of company leaders and employees that have demonstrated the brand’s value?
If you’ve answered no to any of these questions, you’ve got some work to do.
Ogilvy has developed a methodology to get your internal teams on board and ready to deliver on your brand’s promise, through our Employee Experience practice. We have a proven approach to developing brand advocates from the inside.
If you are interested in learning more about our Employee Experience practice at Ogilvy, please reach out! We’d love to find time to connect.
Author: Cheryl Ader-Dunne, Executive Director of Strategy
Sources:
1. US Spending on Paid Media Expected to Climb 5.1% in 2016
2. How Starbucks, Walmart And IBM Launch Brands Internally And What You Can Learn From Them
