Taking a campaign approach to internal comms

Best in class internal communications isn’t about sending out disparate emails and hoping the message gets through to diverse worker types. Rather, it’s about building an immersive narrative campaign that draws employees in and helps them envision themselves as part of a bigger effort.

Frank Wolf, co-founder and president of employee communications platform Staffbase, emphasized the importance of this kind of storytelling during a Power Conversation with Ragan.com editor Sean Devlin at the Internal Communications Conference.

“If you look at employee communications, it’s actually pretty hard to establish a platform, and what we learned over the years is pretty much two things you want to do,” Wolf said. “One is establishing channels which really work to a diverse audience, in terms of frontline workers, workers at home, hybrid work, people sitting at desks. The other thing is, once you’ve established that, how can you actually communicate with impact?”

Wolf explained that the platform can vary. At Staffbase, that might include an employee app, email solutions or an intranet. It’s highly personalized based on the needs of each organization. But he urged the messaging piece should be more strategic than tactical, adopting a campaign-based approach that’s less common in internal comms.

“How does my campaign work?” Wolf said. “How many times have people seen parts of this campaign overall, not just an individual piece? How did we shift the opinion of people throughout the campaign so we can check in on multiple times throughout a year or multiple years? We can show you the progress, how you move the needle, how you move the narrative.”

Watch the full conversation below to learn more about immersive storytelling, measurement and more.