Three Secrets for Executive E-Newsletter Engagement

Corporate E-Newsletters are becoming an increasingly popular method to reach out to corporate employees and keep them up-to-date and engaged in company updates, events and business decisions. Karen Gedney recently published the article, Three Secrets for Executive E-Newsletter Engagement on Clickz.com, and it focuses on author Michael J. Katz’s three simple secrets to effective e-newsletter communication. The link to the article can be found below for additional information.

Secret 1: Focus on the Content
In an e-mail-fatigued world in which business people scan their in-boxes, ready to press the "delete" key, your e-newsletter must be engaging, relevant, and a must-read.
One of the best ways to accomplish this is to write about the questions your customers and prospects ask you about most. Keep a notepad by your phone and when people call you, jot down a list of their most common inquiries. Your answers are your e-newsletter content.
These frequently asked questions should be answered in the same friendly, practical manner you would use over the phone. While we all want to be considered thought leaders, that doesn't mean articles have to be lengthy, academic treatises. If you talk from your own experience about what works in your business, people will immediately get that you're an expert. Once your expertise is established, you're on your way to forging a productive, professional relationship.

That leads us to the second secret...

Secret 2: Focus on the Relationships
As Katz says, "The primary reason that e-newsletters are so powerful is because they provide a systematic means for growing and maintaining relationships. It's not because they're cheap or trackable or clickable or forwardable, although they certainly are all those things."

Your e-newsletter gives you a vehicle for connecting with your customers or potential customers month after month.

He goes on to say, "If you write your company newsletter with a focus on enhancing the relationship between you and your readers, you will stand head and shoulders over your competition, most of whom are missing this point entirely and who (whether they say it out loud or not) view their e-newsletter as an inexpensive way to send direct mail to their house list."

Secret 3: Be Genuine
Your e-newsletter should sound like it's written by you.

If you are a Fortune 500, your e-newsletter should either sound like it's written by your CEO or reflect your corporate culture and brand. It should speak to your customers and prospects just as if you were sitting across from them at a conference room table or, better yet, a restaurant table.

Katz says, "Your newsletter should give potential customers a sense of what you're like, who you are, what you believe in, what you know about your industry, and what doing business with you is all about. For existing customers, it's an ongoing reminder of all things."

From my own experience publishing an e-newsletter and writing this column for ClickZ, I see the principle of "like attracts like" works in e-newsletter writing.

People who like what I say tend to contact me after each column is published. When we get on the phone or chat by e-mail, it's like we're old friends -- and, of course, many of these warm, collegial contacts quickly turn into enduring client relationships.

What's beautiful about this approach is that it also weeds out the clients who would have been a bad fit. I guess they read the e-newsletters that coincide more with their own point of view!
Katz reminds us, "Relationships happen between people (not between organizations) and the more you can write in a genuine, spoken manner, the more it will feel to readers like somebody (i.e., you) is really on the other end. Turn out something that breaks down walls between your company and your customers, and you will be just fine.""

The article concludes with three key questions that you should ask yourself to see if your newsletter is ready to be made over.

"1.) Am I answering the questions my clients and prospects typically ask?

2.) Am I building relationships between me and the people I want to do business with (rather than pushing out information to their organizations)?

3.) Am I writing the way I talk so people can get a sense of what it will be like to actually work with me?

If you answer "no" to any of these questions, perhaps it's time for a spring e-newsletter makeover."

If you continue to be interested in optimizing your newsletter capabilities, keep checking back for the latest information.


http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628971

Going Green in the Corporate World

Since environmental issues and awareness started leaping to the forefront in recent news, many companies have felt the social pressure to “go green” in some way, shape or form, or at least speak up and do their part by communicating a pro-green attitude to their customers. Joel Makower, in his article, Green Corporate Communications: The Unstoppable Urge to Talk the Talk, asks this, “In a world gone green, how does a company make itself heard, credibly and authentically?”

Good question. I started thinking about the different ways that companies can “go green” without seeming that they were simply pressured into the trend of changing their logo colors to green and yellow, or giving money to an environmental group somewhere; and how can companies do their share in truly advocating an environmentally friendly message to their consumers? The article outlined this dilemma as one that is not easily resolvable. If the public is eager to look up to someone, then who will be the leader in truly, authentically, transparently going green without getting completely lost in “self-congratulatory backslapping”?

A report titled, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Communications had some suggestions:

1. Corporate Responsibility (CR) must be a priority emanating from the top.
If the CEO and top management take active interest in CR, provide resources and insist on accountability, a company’s CR efforts and communications will be significantly more effective and credible. For a company’s CR mandate to have teeth and be integrated with company values, senior management must demonstrably support and encourage CR efforts. Only then does social and environmental accountability become internalized to the point where CR communications and reporting is taken seriously as an essential component of the company’s benchmarking and goal-setting—and not viewed as an empty communications exercise.

2 . Stakeholders often find communicating with companies to be difficult
Companies now grasp the business case for effective stakeholder engagement and are working hard to improve communication lines—whether it’s through direct stakeholder contact, new web-based CR reporting, or other channels that allow for greater responsiveness to stakeholder issues and recommendations. Yet stakeholders
of every stripe—NGOs, SRI fund managers, journalists, internal audiences—have criticized CR communications and engagement.

3 . Stakeholders expect companies to lead—not just manage risk—on key issues
Society’s lack of confidence in governments and public institutions to adequately address key global issues such as climate change, human rights, and poverty alleviation has resulted in increased expectations for the business sector to take the initiative. No longer are stakeholders content with reactive corporate responses to the world’s problems. Rather, they view corporate actions such as offsetting CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions or providing access to medicine in the developing world as litmus tests for trust in the private sector. With considerable media coverage of environmental and social issues, companies have an opportunity to align their brands with positive values and earn credit for their improved records.

4 . Employees and socially responsible investors have emerged as key CR
communications audiences
Business leaders are recognizing the valuable relationship between employees and CR performance. With that in mind, leading companies are increasingly engaging in dialogue with their employees and subsequently making positive changes on issues like diversity, labor relations, and human rights. This surge of discourse with employees is matched by a similarly vigorous courting of SRIs. The corporate world has woken up to the growing
ability of socially responsible initiatives to mitigate risk and create new opportunities—which directly affect their stock prices. SRI ratings matter to the extent that they influence the big institutional shareholders as well as potential business partners.

5 . Companies often neglect an important CR communications audience: prospective employees
While corporations are actively and successfully engaging employees on CR issues, they are not adequately courting prospective employees to the same degree. Companies do not consistently integrate CR messaging in their recruiting because they underestimate the importance a prospective employee places on a company’s CR programs. Prospective employees seek to make informed career choices and having access to a potential
employer’s CR performance data is essential to the decision-making process.

6 . Transparency is a key indicator of a socially responsible company
Although philanthropy spawned many CR programs, today philanthropic activities and donations are the baseline that stakeholders expect all companies to meet. What stakeholders care most about is how honest and open are companies being and how are they treating their employees.

In conclusion, it is important to remember that even though consumers eagerly look for thought and social leadership from companies, they demand authenticity. These suggestions are great to draw upon as guidelines to reaching out to consumers in an honest, trustworthy way, while still communicating corporate responsibilities.

Keeping Corporate Bloggers Motivated is Worth the Effort!

Corporations worldwide are taking online corporate communications much more seriously than ever before. Companies are starting to rise up to the reality that people are now more connected than ever because of the Internet. Moreover, through the use of online social media such as Facebook, forums, and the blogosphere, people are connected to one another at an unprecedented rate. People are using online social media as a means to not only gather information, but to stay connected, seek out new products, keep up with the times, get advice, and much more.

The Internet has shifted a great deal of how people live on a daily basis and do business altogether. With more people sharing knowledge through forums and blogs, it is clear to see why ignoring online communications or what is being said about a company’s products, services and other goods online would lead companies to miss out on a multifaceted opportunity that could reach the masses, lead to a better brand image or name, garner more business, and lead to additional income.

According to a Pew Internet & American Life Project Survey, 58% of the US population, as of 2007, consults the Internet as their first source of information; the highest statistic of more traditional sources, such as professional advisers or newspapers and magazines. Although many corporations and small businesses have blogs as a form of external communication (about 89% according to GuideWireGroup.com), most companies face a problem with maintaining enthusiasm for blogging, and find encouraging adoption a hindrance; resulting in minimum blog use.

How do companies maintain enthusiasm for blogging and what can they do to motivate blogging? One suggestion from clickZ.com states that guidelines should be formulated and followed as any other policy to maintain blogging. Another suggestion from lifehack.org states that if you're running out of steam for blogging, the best way to get inspired, stay motivated and feel confident in your blogging is to engage in others' blogs read other posts and converse with others who post blogs.

Lorelle.wordpress.com gives us several ways to overcome the blogging slump including setting realistic goals that won't sabotage your efforts; as well as blogging about something that you really enjoy or found interesting.

If companies now are following a relationship-based approach to gaining business, then they should also utilize the blogosphere and other social media as a way to create and maintain relationships as any other traditional form.

RSS: New Tool for Corporate Communication

When communicating in the workplace, it is important to take into consideration the media in which you relay the message. Many companies have stopped using e-mail for sending important messages. This is mainly due to spam problems. Employees often miss important messages when they are hidden between junk mail. Another problem is that sometimes filters will block emails, so people may not even get the message at all.

A new method of communication used by Web sites and bloggers is RSS feeds to broadcast content, according to an Intranet Journal article. It is a good way for marketers and advertisers to attract customers as well. RSS allows companies to use various categories like "important announcement" as a title. RSS can benefit corporations as well, since senders can create feeds for different topics, and subscribers can choose which feeds they want. This allows for increased organization, which was sorely lacking in email.

Corporate Wikis Flourish

Companies are now using wiki technology to share knowledge online. Corporate wikis are areas where employees can post information, and those postings can be edited by anyone within the company. Some employees don’t appreciate their work being edited, but it is a good method of quality control, according to a Business Week article. Security controls must be created for these sites, to prevent outsiders from viewing proprietary information.

Corporate wikis are often used for project management, tracking industry news, setting meeting agendas, posting corporate policies, and creating strategic documents. Many large companies are using them, including IBM and Yahoo. Companies using them have an advantage, since it makes collaborating on projects a lot easier.

Companies that do not foster a climate of collaboration may have more trouble adapting to this concept. Wikis will not create this climate easily; people may not feel comfortable using it if they haven’t been able to collaborate in the past. However, wikis bring people together, and could cause a shift toward cooperation and collaborative working.

Employee Engagement

Often, communicators focus thier budget and efforts heavily on external communications and leave employee engagement as a minor element of the overall strategy.

As communications become more sophisticated and company information is readily available, it is critical for communicators to engage employees in dialogue. All facets of employees should, and need, to know what is happening at the corporate level.

Some basic criteria should be considered when developing a plan for employee communications:

* Establish a schedule to communicate with employees and stick to it
* Be sure each employee understands the impact of their jobs to the overall corporate vision
* Make sure they have all information (good and bad) to carry on intelligent conversations with clients, family, friends and other employees
* When major changes take place, inform your employees first before making the information public

The employee communication should be developed in tandem with a business plan and should align with the corporate goals.

After you decide the voice and message that you want to convey, there are a multitude of channels to choose from:

managed email communications... voice mail... videos housed on the Intranet... bulletin boards... wikis... CEO blog... brown-bag lunch discussions...

Regardless of the strategy that you choose to follow, consistency and trust are the key elements to success

MindComet Pearls...of Wisdom

I had an interesting lunch with Paul Lewis and Scott Allen last week and something that was said stuck in my mind all weekend. We were discussing strategy and success metrics for a client and Paul's mantra for project development came up.

While most of us open a Word doc to develop an idea, Paul opens Keynote (or PowerPoint for an equivalent). He always thinks of how his ideas will play out in a presentation. Great strategy, though I am not sure if I can abandon my Word outline quite yet. The concept is not new-- think of the end goal and figure out how to get there. However, thinking in terms of the "presentation wow factor" is often forgotten. This strategy can be implemented not only for clients, but employee programs as well. Try it out with your communication strategies and hopefully you can kick the Word doc habit quicker than I.

Are Wikis really the way to go?

With all of the varying options and opportunities for multi-channel marketing, there continues to be even more choices for marketers. Wikis are the new, engaging tool they are using. They are much more up-to-date and easier to use than message boards which can repeat the same information over and over and over again. Wikis allow users to add, edit, and change information while message boards are harder to follow and simply are a thing of the past.

By using Wikis, marketers can fulfill their social responsibility to the public. Requiring corporations to provide updated information on their company, its products, and related industry info are part of this responsibility.

Consumers also become fully involved with the corporation by discussing its products, asking questions and getting answers immediately. For example, Ebay has used Wikis in its customer-support section letting users collaboratively write answers to frequently asked questions. The NBA’s Dallas Mavericks announced a plan to let fans Wiki every game using the same software as Wikipedia, T-Mobile launched a Sidekick Wiki that has produced collaboratively written pieces including tips on how to pimp out the inside of the phone and a wish list of improvements the community would like to see.

Leaving free-range of opinions could destroy the corporations’ reputation or it could increase the amount of goodwill seen within the consumers’ eyes. They’ve always said no PR is bad PR but we’ll see.


Forget Message Boards. Wikis Are Where It's At

Corporate blogs, should they be deemed controversial?

Researching current CEO blogs, it finally hit me why some CEOs are reluctant to incorporate blogging into their corporate communications strategy. To date, much has been attributed to the fact that most CEOs are not in touch with the technology which leads to discomfort. However, if a CEO takes the next step to understanding the technology, what they find in a simple Google search most likely will turn them off to the medium because edgy, haphazard posts. These litter the blogosphere while providing commentary that is outlandish to a CEO reader. This approach might work for some CEOs and companies, but for the CEO managing a global organization, it will not-- particularly for employee communications.

Blogging is here to stay and CEOs not only need to understand the ramifications of the medium, but make an attempt to utilize it for employee communications. Using this technique will broaded their internal communication and aid in developing a stronger corporate brand. Here are some tips for "conservative" CEO blogging initiatives for intranets:

1) Keep the blog a professional, positive medium.
2) Use this as an attempt to engage employees in what your company is up to. Remember your audience. What does this mean for a supervisor all the way down to a factory worker?
3) Consider if you need to delete the "comment" functionally. The wrong comment can send your message in the wrong direction. Again, this depends on the company.
4) Include specific happenings from conferences, meetings, or presentations when applicable.
5) Highlight financial good news.
6) Use as a directional commentary on the company. Where has your company been and where is it going?
7) Use as a place to highlight new products/services. Fit into the scope of suggestion 6.
8) Comment on industry and legal news. Fit into the scope of suggestion 6.
9) Highlight key accomplishments of employees or your product/service.

Using Multi-Channel Marketing to Build Your Corporate Identity

Using multiple channel marketing is the key to reaching out to your market, keeping them informed, and ensuring their long-lasting relationship with your company. Tricia Robinson of Integrated Marketing, explained in great detail how using these channels will create loyalty and promote profitability.

Customers will find benefit in frequenting your company website due to all of the extra efforts the company puts forth in reaching each individual. Have your company construct an internal communications plan to ensure all of the channels are consistent with the others and keep a close watch on consumers’ habits to better serve them in the future.

Through corporate training, companies can excel in this form of marketing while building the corporations' identiy in the public's mind. Making the customer feel as though they are the only customer is the key point in maintaining customer loyalty.

Grow your company, keep your customers, expand your options for reaching those customers, a guaranteed success!

Getting Value from Your Measurement

One of the most important aspects of an organization is how consumers view the company. The most effective way to know what consumers think is to simply ask them. Surveys are extremely beneficial in getting important information in a timely manner. The Hub for Internal Communications(subscription) has provided five key points to help achieve this goal.

1. Be clear about why you are doing it.

2. Get the sponsors on your side.

3. Explain the benefits of the research to involved parties.

4. Move quickly when testing or surveying for responses and opinions about the company.

5. Be ready to act on these findings.

This is also an effective interactive tool. Usability testing and web analytics can act as surveys to help define what works well on a site and what needs to change to satisfy users.