How Marketing Principles Can Improve Internal Communications

If you work with internal communications, you may not think marketing principles would apply to what you do. But you would be so wrong! Many marketing principles can be directly applied to internal communications to improve your strategy and implementation.

Understand Your Target Audience

While any sort of internal communication strategy is better than nothing, it’s helpful to take a page out of marketing’s playbook and differentiate strategy based on target groups. Different employees have different needs, and knowing those needs will help you better engage with each group.

Tailor Your Message

When you know your target groups, you can tailor your message to each group. Internal communications isn’t always a one-size-fits all solution, so learn from your colleagues in marketing and tailor your message as needed. Knowing your audience and tailoring the message to fit them will ensure they really understand and receive your message.

As Connote Magazine notes, there are several reasons to tailor your message but one important one is language and jargon. Some parts of your company may understand ROI while others have no idea what those three letters mean. Make sure your message makes sense to your audience.

Use Multiple Channels

Because different groups respond to different kinds of communication, it’s important to use multiple channels to convey messages. Millennials tend to prefer online methods like social media, while older employees may prefer more traditional methods like emails, phone calls or in-person events. Using multiple channels to spread the same message will ensure consistency — and that everyone gets the message.

Stay Consistent

It’s important to note that staying consistent is not incompatible with tailoring your message. You should be communicating regularly with employees, even if that communication comes in multiple ways and slightly different packages. Gerard Corbett, a PR agency CEO, wrote “nothing succeeds like consistency.” And he is absolutely correct — consistency is key in most things, and internal communication is no exception.

Effective internal communication does more than engage employees — it can motivate, inspire, and energize employees. Forbes points out that “fewer than 50% of employees believe in their company’s brand idea, and even less are actually equipped to deliver on it.” If you want employees to understand your company and do their jobs well, you need to keep them engaged and informed. Integrate these tried and trued marketing principles to your internal communication strategy and see how quickly they make a difference.

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