As an internal communications professional, you’re responsible for providing employees with key company information in a timely manner. Naturally, not all company news is exciting, but you still need to ensure that employees get the message.
There are countless employee newsletter ideas online about how to spice things up when you feel that things are getting stale, but you can’t do everything; it needs to be appropriate and contextual.
For larger or more consistent internal communications projects, a full campaign may be required. It doesn’t have to be lengthy, but it does need to have a clear plan and flow to it. We’ll look at some top companies’ past internal communications campaigns and why they succeeded. We’ll also look at how these campaigns were created and what internal communications tools you can use to create and send email campaigns.
Pro tip: Still using an external marketing tool for internal communications? Create better emails and build employee using ContactMonkey—it’s like Mailchimp for internal communications.
1. Internal Communications Campaign: H & H’s Millie Initiative
We all know phrases such as “change management” and “organizational restructure” can throw employees into a panic, especially during times of crisis.
As an internal communicator, you can’t expect everyone to be receptive to change. This was exactly the challenge faced by Millicom, a telecommunications company that wanted to introduce new codes of conduct to employees without making this sound boring or overwhelming.
The company approached UK internal communications agency, H & H, and asked them to come up with an innovative internal communication campaign. One of the objectives of this campaign was to re-energize employee engagement within their organization.
The process:
H & H decided the best approach would be to develop a campaign-specific human avatar to act as the face of the internal communications campaign. Although they didn’t get an actual on board, yet they were able to create something that appealed to employees.
If the idea of a fictional character communicating messages to employees sounds a bit absurd, think of which cartoons you loved as a kid. Are you thinking of your favourite Disney movies? Well, then you know Disney has a pretty successful brand avatar known as Mickey Mouse (a pop culture icon).
In the case of H&H, they decided to use an avatar to ignite human emotions and connections within their intended audience.
The character, named Millie, was used to communicate Millicom’s new rules and regulations. They also wanted to position the internal communications department as a helpful division of the organization.
“The ambition was that employees would actively engage with the IC team, building dialogue, conversation and productive feedback around ethical behaviours.” – H & H
Millie became the internal face of the company and shared information with employees on the upcoming changes. Employees could talk to her, ask her questions, and feel at ease.
The results of the campaign were promising as well. The internal communications team at Millicom was able to successfully communicate the necessary changes to their employees without sounding dictatorial.
They were further able to position themselves as helpers and listeners, rather than as corporate policy changers.
So, the next time you’re looking for internal communication ideas to re-energize employees, think about creating a fictional brand avatar, and build a stellar internal communication campaign around it.
2. Internal Communications Campaign: Asendia
Want to boost employee engagement by inspiring employees to become a part of the decision-making process? Take inspiration from the global mail and shipping company, Asendia.
Asendia wanted to come up with an internal communications campaign to improve employee engagement. They also wanted employees within their organization to become experts on their business strategy, and play an active role in shaping ideas and innovation within the organization.
They hired B2B marketing agency, The Think Tank, to create an epic internal communications campaign that would revitalize employee engagement.
The process:
The Think Tank was asked to create an internal communication campaign designed to communicate new corporate values across the entire company, from the United States to Singapore.
The agency decided to craft an employee engagement campaign by drawing upon ideas and values embedded within another famous brand – LEGO!
They positioned LEGO within the company’s imagery to communicate the organization’s new core values effectively by highlighting trust, friendliness, and ease of use.
Through this powerful imagery, Asendia was able to effectively demonstrate what each value would mean for each department within their entire organization.
Several different mediums were deployed to communicate the message internally:
- Animated video
- Leaflets
- Pamphlets
- Poster
- Set of LEGO for each team
The first part of the campaign also involved educating employees about Asendia’s business strategy through a fun quiz. The quiz, titled “SuperAsendian,” asked employees multiple choice questions around the company’s strategy.
This was followed by another employee engagement activity, titled the “SuperAsendian Challenge.” Employees were grouped into teams for this challenge and asked to pitch new and innovative ideas that were in line with Asendia’s business strategy.
The results were highly positive and managers from each department praised the initiative. Awards were given to those employees who were able to showcase these core values within their daily work.
This campaign also won the Best Employee Engagement Campaign award at the Corporate Communications Awards in 2014. Pretty inspiring, isn’t it?
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3. Internal Communications Campaigns: HSBC
Remember the global financial crisis of 2008? This recession left many employees working within financial institutions completely disillusioned, including HSBC.
Most HSBC employees felt completely disengaged and a 2011 survey showed that only 50% of employees trusted decisions made by the upper management.
Executive leadership realized they needed to act fast to rebuild trust, restore pride, and create a culture of good within their organization.
The process:
They decided to launch a video platform known as HSBC NOW. The platform was dedicated to showcasing the struggles of HSBC employees, and making them the heroes of the organization.
Common video themes revolved around the topics of friendship, sacrifice, and triumph. An average episode gets around 42,000 views internally, and have been known to go as high as 80,000.
The next time you’re stumped about how to improve your internal communications, think of making your employees the stars of your story.
If you’re specifically looking for internal communications video ideas, check out email template builder to learn how you can include them in your company newsletter. You can also use ContactMonkey’s OpenAI ChatGPT integration to generate new email ideas based on prompts you provide.
TL;DR–Internal Communication Campaigns
Before you sit down to map out your internal communications campaigns, here are the main things to keep in mind from our piece:
- Determine the goal of your campaign (e.g. communicating company values)
- Play around with different media (e.g. videos, posters)
- Don’t be afraid to seek a third party opinion
Considering internal communications best practices will guarantee success for your internal communications campaign. Combined with ContactMonkey’s internal communications calendar, you can ensure your internal emails are engaging year-round.
Feeling inspired to take action and launch a brand new internal communication campaign? We hope the above examples helped you craft some new ideas that you can execute; this could include an internal newsletter. Click on the button below to book your demo with us, and see the possibilities!
