Most marketers are working in such isolation that they are failing to tell the rest of the company about new campaigns, missing a trick by failing to get all customer-facing staff onboard.
A survey of campaign briefs by integrated marketing company The Purple Agency shows that internal stakeholders are rarely considered when launching new marketing initiatives, with only 1% of briefs the agency has received in the last two years addressing the issue of communicating campaigns internally.
Purple Agency director data and planning Andrew Woodger (pictured) claims that to be truly effective, marketing messages need to be aligned with corporate behaviour and that means involving internal stakeholders in the campaign.
He said: “The proposition made to customers has to be delivered whenever and wherever they interact with the organisation. Unless everyone understands what you are saying to customers, it becomes a hollow promise and quickly comes unravelled.
“It may well be that human resources departments or other internal groups are being given this task, but equally it could be that marketers are simply missing a trick.
“It is a missed opportunity to involve staff, and to engage and empower them to deliver the promise of a better service or a better product and act as ambassadors for the campaign.”
The Purple Agency looked at over 350 communications briefs it had received over a two year period. These ranged from major campaigns to one-off projects, across a broad range of clients, from large multi-nationals to smaller to medium-size enterprises, and from localised activity to major nationwide programmes.
Woodger added: “Communicating campaigns internally not only mobilises staff to promote the campaign, but also ensures the marketing proposition is reinforced at every customer interaction maximising its impact.
“Our experience suggests that this aspect of marketing is often neglected. We hope that by highlighting its absence we can start a wider debate about the reasons why – and encourage more organisations to include an internally focussed element to their future marketing campaigns.”
Purple operates in a range of industry sectors including publishing, technology, pharmaceuticals, sports and leisure, and retail for clients including Aintree, UK Sport, Fitness First, Moneygram International, and IBM.
