How to make internal comms campaigns stick after launch

Alyssa Oshiro, director of internal communications at The National Wildlife Federation, told Ragan that she and a colleague were discussing how to promote a live internal podcast, but a question kept cropping up.

Why would employees listen to this live when they can just tune in later?

That question changed the strategy. Instead of sending another reminder, the internal comms team told employees that joining live would let them ask questions and hear the conversation first.

“You have to give people a reason to take the next step,” Oshiro said. “They could absolutely listen to the podcast later, but joining live gave them a chance to participate. That quick conversation helped us see what the original message was missing.”

She added that the simple takeaway was that follow-ups need to add value rather than just restate the facts.

“That’s where collaboration comes in,” Oshiro said. “A quick back-and-forth with someone who knows the audience can help you tweak the message. Then you’re not just asking people to do the same thing again.”

Oshiro’s podcast example exemplifies the point that launch week only gets the message out initially. Keeping a campaign moving means that communicators need to give employees a reason to stay with it and use their response to shape what messaging comes next.

Plan past the first week

Internal comms campaigns are a lot more likely to stick when they’re rolled out in successive messages rather than in one big announcement. When the National Wildlife Federation refreshed its organizational values, Oshiro and her team broke the campaign into stages. Each message built on the one that came before it rather than trying to encapsulate everything at once.

“I don’t think about a message in isolation. I think about it as part of a continuum,” Oshiro said. “With our values campaign, we didn’t ask employees to read 12,000 words about the full plan. We released it in stages so each message could stay short and consistent.”

Before launch, Oshiro also said communicators should answer a few questions that will help carry the campaign beyond its first week.

• What do employees need to know first?
• What do they need to do next?
• Which examples can make the message feel real?
• When should managers reinforce the message?
• What should success look like after a few weeks?

“Don’t just plan for the first week,” she told Ragan. “Plan the whole thing, then release it in steps. That way, each message can move people a little further.”

Let employee questions help shape the follow-up

Even a well-planned campaign needs room to change once employees start reacting to it. The questions that employees ask after a message launch can be very useful for determining where the follow-ups go. When the NWF rolled out a new process for employee promotions, managers attended an information session after the initial announcement, and their questions during the event formed the basis for an FAQ document.

“You push the message out, listen to the early adopters and learn where people still need clarity,” Oshiro said. “Those sessions showed us what managers were asking, so the FAQ reflected the questions people actually had.”

Comms pros can use the same approach by checking in with managers, reviewing questions from town halls or asking employees what they’re still not understanding. When the same questions keep coming up, you’ve got the subject of your next message in front of you.

“Sometimes you just need to ask, ‘Did this land?’” Oshiro said. “You can’t always tell from an email metric whether people understood the message. Those relationships help you refine it and keep going.”

Determine what a campaign ‘sticking’ looks like

Communicators also need to know what the campaign is supposed to change. Leadership measures the success of internal comms based not on open rates, but by whether employees actually took action.

For example, a campaign built around a survey should track completions. An initiative that introduces a new process should look at whether employees are actually using it. Oshiro said that communicators should determine the metrics before launch rather than deciding what success means after the numbers come in.

“If you want people to get something done, measure how quickly it gets done,” she said. “If you want people to change behavior, then you have to get more granular with your metrics. The measure has to mirror the stickiness of the message.”

Those results should guide what happens next, whether the message needs to be clearer or the campaign needs more time to take hold among employees. Numbers aren’t the only sign that a campaign has had its desired effect, though. Sometimes the clearest proof is hearing employees use the message on their own.

“When someone in a meeting speaks your message back to you or uses a word or metaphor you put into the communication, that’s the best feeling,” Oshiro said. “They didn’t just read it. They internalized it, made it their own and repeated it naturally in their own context.”

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications.