Leading Change

How to use content AI and remain authentic – practical guidelines

How to use content AI and remain authentic – practical guidelines

If you are someone who writes content for a living, you may have entered 2023 a little worried about your job following the launch of ChatGPT in late November 2022. There’s no denying that on first trying out the tool, it was impressive just how quickly it could write something that was clear, well-structured and seemingly accurate. But by the third or fourth go, you quickly realised that it all looked and sounded the same, and it was glaringly obvious when someone had copied and pasted straight out of it. Content writers everywhere breathed an audible sigh of relief. The robots haven’t replaced us just yet!  

However, it’s exciting to explore how we can achieve productivity gains and access these vast knowledge banks to lift our own content, striking the balance between AI and human capabilities. Here are our guidelines on how to get the best out of content AI tools while still sounding “human”, authoritative and authentic. 

Your research helper 

Use ChatGPT or other content AI to help you research your topic and develop your key points for your piece, alongside your other previous research methods. It can also be used to research clients, client prospects, the state of the industry and so on. But asking the right questions is critical and you should never accept the first response you receive. So much so that some companies are now hiring “prompt engineers” with expertise in this area. You must keep refining your prompts to get higher quality responses and reach the level of depth you require.  

Note that ChatGPT has limited knowledge of events after a certain date and nobody seems to be clear when that date is according to a recent article by ZDNet. You may need to stick with traditional research methods if it’s recent events you’re interested in. Take an agile approach to testing what research methods work best to produce an outline which is comprehensive and accurate. 

Creating personas 

Open AI has given ChatGPT a carefully chosen tone of voice which is designed to appeal to the majority and is best described as neutral and professional, i.e. a bit generic and boring. However, you can train ChatGPT to create content that reflects your organisation’s unique style, vocabulary and tone of voice.  

To do this, you need to create a training dataset which consists of a range of content examples that reflect your organisation’s tone of voice. This should include blogs, social media posts, articles and client-facing emails and cover a variety of topics. 

If you produce content for multiple organisations, you can create different ChatGPT personas for each organisation which reflect their individual writing style. Building on an agile approach, you could set up different personas for an organisation to help test different styles and see which achieves the most engagement. 

Need for speed 

Like the famous racing game series, the pressure to increase efficiency and speed impacts us all. Content AI can absolutely help you to write and produce content much faster than previously, by speeding up the phase that takes the most time — researching and planning your piece. This can allow you to focus on the tasks that require more creativity and innovation.  

Be careful though, ChatGPT isn’t perfect and can sometimes generate inaccurate information. It’s only as good as the data it’s trained on and as with all things, fact-checking and a good pinch of common sense is required. 

Overcoming writer’s block 

Sometimes getting started is the hardest thing when it comes to writing and we all suffer from writer’s block from time-to-time. Asking content AI what it thinks about a certain subject can be enough to kick-start the creative juices. Once they start flowing again, it’s time to step away from the AI.  

Run a pilot 

We always recommend taking an agile approach and running a pilot to test and learn before deciding which content AI to adopt within your organisation. This provides the opportunity to demonstrate to leadership how the tool can help improve your team’s productivity without compromising on quality. As with all AI, privacy and security should be a key consideration. Leaders need to ensure guardrails are in place for their teams to be able to test and adopt AI solutions safely. This agile approach enables you to test and learn then quickly scale where value is demonstrated. 

Human’s rule 

ChatGPT and other content AI are still powerful tools and can speed up the content writing process, but they cannot replace human creativity, intuition and empathy. It’s essential to strike a balance between AI and human capabilities to achieve the best outcomes. Any piece of content should always reflect your organisation or client’s tone of voice to ensure it remains consistent and authentic. 

Content AI can’t compete with your insider knowledge about your market and your audiences. Always remember you are the expert in your area!   

 

Get in touch to find out how Bright can help you harness agile marketing to deliver your marketing strategy in 2024.

Resources/reading list:

Alaina RobertsHow to use content AI and remain authentic – practical guidelines
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AI, RevOps and emotion! A look back at the top B2B marketing trends of 2023

AI, RevOps and emotion! A look back at the top B2B marketing trends of 2023

It’s that time of year where we all start to reflect on the trends that have had the biggest impact in 2023. At Bright we’ve spent our year reinventing marketing with our amazing clients, including injecting greater agility into how marketers work together and with other revenue generating teams to refocus on the customer. It’s been a big year for marketing transformation. Marketing is emerging stronger, leaner, more data-driven and able to be more effective and efficient at engaging audiences.   

It’s been a rollercoaster from a macroeconomic perspective and as a business founder and MD there’s been a lot to navigate personally, as well as helping clients become more adaptable and able to manage change.  

One of my highlights was being selected as a juror for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for the B2B Creative Lion. Not only was this an amazing experience but it gave me unique insights into some of the biggest trends and critical success factors in B2B. Ranging from why you need to forge an emotional connection with your audiences, to the need for investment in long-term brand building to augment your demand and performance marketing.

As well as this, we have seen the growth of AI and RevOps (my personal favourite), and marketers moving further away from a traditional funnel to a fly wheel model. Throughout all of this, an agile marketing approach is fundamental to being able to quickly test and adopt these developments by staying responsive, data-driven and collaborative. 

The importance of emotion and patience

During my time as a judge at Cannes Lions it was clear that a shift towards a more creative approach (akin to the boldness of B2C) is increasingly evident and showing results in B2B. It’s evident in successful campaigns such as Workday’s Rockstar and Disco’s Lady J [add links] B2B marketers to use emotion in their campaigns to achieve cut through and connect with their audiences.   

Research has shown that using emotion, storytelling, and humour leads to better audience engagement. Campaigns with purely emotional content performed about twice as well (31% vs. 16%) with only rational content according to neurosciencemarketing.com. This is still fairly new ground for B2B marketers so using agile principles to test and measure what works and what doesn’t is key. 

The other trend I saw emerging at Cannes Lions was that patience is a virtue in B2B. From the entries we consistently saw more of a focus on long-term brand building, and a move away from over-reliance on performance marketing. According to LinkedIn’s B2B Marketing Benchmark report, 59% of B2B marketing leaders say their C-suite has increased the importance of brand building given economic conditions. Fellow B2B Creative juror Ty Heath, Director of Market Engagement at LinkedIn’s B2B Institute commented: “Brand building is the single greatest opportunity in B2B. We see that most B2B marketers are over-leveraged in lead generation, but brand building is what drives future cash flows.” 

The AI wild west

No 2023 wrap-up would be complete without mentioning the impact of generative AI. This was the year when AI really started to disrupt B2B marketing, and beyond. The areas where we have seen the biggest impact from generative AI has to be in content generation with the launch of ChatGPT back in November 2022, what a difference a year makes! Other content AI tools soon followed. Lead generation tools such as LeadIQ and Kartra are also helping to identify and generate high-quality leads for B2B marketing campaigns. 

AI in marketing offers unpreceded opportunities, with many starting to realise efficiency gains through simple use of AI apps within their existing martech. Longer term marketing leaders will need to understand which types of AI to test and invest in and how to approach it. Privacy and security related issues are a key consideration. Leaders need to set up their teams to be able to successfully test AI solutions by putting in place the guardrails for successful and safe adoption of AI. This points to an agile marketing approach and being able to test and learn then quickly scale where value is demonstrated. Marketing leaders need to be careful to safeguard and remain customer centric and authentic. Quick efficiency gains could spell disaster without proper consideration around effectiveness and the impact on engagement. There is plenty of upside in AI adoption as long as developed within a proper framework.

From funnels to fly wheels 

The move away from a funnel view of our customers to a fly wheel model continues to gain traction. In a traditional marketing funnel model, the focus is on attracting customer prospects and then converting them to purchasing customers. But marketers have realised that it’s not just about acquisition and customers can fall out of the model. Smarter marketers are recognising the full value of a customer and the need to market to clients at every stage of their lifecycle. By fostering loyalty and advocacy you can maximise the customer lifetime value.  

The flywheel model focuses on keeping existing customers engaged and turning them into repeat customers who are also willing to act as promoters for your business. The flywheel business model is more effective and should drive higher revenue because it prioritises the customer. 

The rise of RevOps 

Another big trend in B2B marketing this year has been the growth of  Revenue Operations or RevOps . Aligning your revenue generating teams – sales, marketing and customer success functions across the customer life cycle to drive growth and keep teams focused on the same metrics and KPI is quickly becoming table stakes. This cross-functional alignment clearly requires an agile approach, breaking down siloes to improve communication, collaboration and alignment to business goals.  

Agile remains key 

What’s clear is that 2023 has been one of the most exciting years for B2B marketing. All of these trends have the potential to transform how we engage with our audiences and increase marketing effectiveness. While the developments and trends in our industry are exciting, it can get overwhelming to keep up and remain innovative. An agile, growth mindset, alongside the related tools and processes enables marketing teams to respond quickly and effectively to changing customer preferences, market conditions and developments to ensure they are delivering the best results for their companies and clients.  

Get in touch to find out how Bright can help you harness agile marketing to deliver your marketing strategy in 2024.

Resources/reading list:

Zoe MerchantAI, RevOps and emotion! A look back at the top B2B marketing trends of 2023
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Activating Agile Marketing: Moving Beyond the Buzzword

Activating Agile Marketing: Moving Beyond the Buzzword

Embrace the rapidly evolving business landscape with the adoption of agile marketing. Discover the transformative potential it holds for B2B organisations by gaining valuable insights from industry-leading marketing experts who have successfully implemented agile practices within their departments.

This exclusive panel delves into the fascinating journeys, challenges and strategies of these marketing pioneers as they transitioned to an agile way of working. Learn first-hand how agile marketing has revolutionised their teams and discover the benefits it can bring your team and organisation.

Our Smarter Marketer panel event delves into;

  1. Agile Marketing Foundations: Core principles in B2B environments.
  2. Building Agile Teams: Mindset, training, and nurturing adaptability.
  3. Establishing Agile Processes: Flexible workflows and communication tools.
  4. Navigating Challenges: Real-world examples and overcoming strategies.
  5. Measuring Success: Key performance indicators for continuous improvement.
  6. Agile Marketing in Action: Case studies from various B2B industries.

Missed the session, watch it on demand!

Access the reframe cards – Activating Agile Marketing edition

Start activating agile marketing with our reframe cards – purposely created to help you and your teams improve your approach to agile marketing, with tips on how to restructure your thinking.

Meet the speakers

Catharina Rozendaal

Catharina Rozendaal is a results-driven marketing leader with a focus on driving growth. As the Marketing Growth Director for Emerging Markets at ADP, she combines her strategic expertise and deep understanding of market dynamics to execute impactful marketing campaigns.

Emily Nicols

Emily Nicols is a seasoned marketing professional with a passion for driving growth and creating impactful campaigns. As Group Marketing Director at Informa Markets, Emily has successfully implemented comprehensive marketing plans that have consistently delivered measurable results.

Sian Heaphy

Sian uses agile methods to encourage creativity, curiosity, and data-driven decisions in marketing. She works with teams to design experiments, gain insights, and achieve business goals. Sian promotes continuous improvement through experimentation and learning.

Lydia Kirby

Lydia Kirby is a marketing transformation director with over nine years of experience in the agile marketing methodology. She has worked with B2B tech, consulting, and professional services companies to help them use data and creativity to transform their marketing whilst delivering business outcomes. Lydia is passionate about showing tangible value for marketing and finding creative solutions to business problems.

Reading List

Watched the panel and interested in hearing more? Check out our extended list of agile marketing resources:

Blogs:

5 popular myths of agile marketing
A 5-minute read that dispels myths on agile marketing and how theory comes to life and the true practicalities of agile ways of working.

Getting started with agile marketing
A blog that shares practical tips to adopt agile ways of working in a marketing organisation and how to start on the right foot.

Books:

Hacking Marketing by Scott Brinker
A great book that explores how applying software-inspired management concepts can accelerate modern marketing. Giving insight into how greater agility can improve customer experience.

Agile Marketing by Neil Perkin
This book dives into adaptive marketing principles and practices, providing guidelines to redesigning marketing structures, processes and culture, to be fit for purpose in today’s changeable environment.

The 6 disciplines of Agile Marketing by Jim Ewel
An informative read that provides a concise, approachable, and adaptable strategy for the implementation of Agile in virtually any marketing organization.

Other resources:

Agile Marketing Manifesto
An online resources created by marketers to codify agile marketing and create a manifesto for the industry to utilise and reference.

Sian HeaphyActivating Agile Marketing: Moving Beyond the Buzzword
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Change enablement: unlock the true potential of your people

Change enablement: unlock the true potential of your people

The business world is constantly evolving, and those who can effectively navigate change are the ones who will come out on top. That’s where our change enablement toolkit comes in – the secret weapon that prepares, equips, and supports individuals and teams to successfully adopt change.

With our toolkit, you’ll be able to embrace change enablement and unlock your true potential. No more stagnant business practices holding you back – instead, you’ll have a dynamic, thriving organisation that can take on any challenge that comes your way.

Don’t wait any longer to take your business to the next level. Get your hands on our change enablement toolkit today and watch your organisation soar!

Download your change enablement toolkit

Alexandra JefferiesChange enablement: unlock the true potential of your people
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Empowering your transformation – importance of change enablement

Empowering your transformation – importance of change enablement

Are you encountering resistance when going through business change and transformation? Perhaps you’ve started on your transformation journey and are encountering confusion or stagnation. We’ve seen it first hand, and that’s why we’re excited to present our exclusive on-demand content for the Smarter Marketer panel event.

Our panel brought together the brightest and best minds in the industry to dive into the world of change enablement and how you can bring your team on the journey to realise the power of change enablement.

We want to give you as marketers the power to do great work – check out our Smarter Marketer Event on change enablement; a 45 min panel discussion featuring the savviest marketers in B2B and can share their secrets behind seamless transitions, how to cultivate adaptability whilst boosting productivity and team morale.

Missed the session, watch it on demand!

Access the reframe cards – empowering transformation edition

Get started with change enablement with our reframe cards – purposely created to help you and your teams cultivate adaptability, and boost productivity, morale, and engagement in your change and transformation programmes.

Meet the speakers

Nick Sunderland

Nick, Director of Programmes at Boots, is an experienced leader who recognises the importance of change enablement in driving effective transformation. With an MBA focused on strategy from Edinburgh University, Nick is a skilled business development professional who brings valuable knowledge and experience to the table. We look forward to gaining insights from his expertise on change enablement.

Lucia Adams

Meet Lucia, an experienced transformation leader, consultant and coach. Lucia has over 25 years’ experience in companies such as: Bauer Media Group, The Times and Sunday Times as well as running her own consulting business supporting a wide variety of businesses and sectors.

Alex Jefferies

Alex is a change enablement expert with over a decade of experience in communications, culture, and change. Their passion lies in creating impactful and timely content and communications that drive positive change.

Zoe Merchant

Zoë is an agile marketing aficionado — a passionate believer in staying ahead of the competition with resilience, adaptability, and pace. After 20 years of delivering B2B marketing strategies, Zoë founded Bright to help tech, engineering and consulting firms get the most from their marketing investment. Using agile marketing to test, learn and build on success. Zoë leads the team in delivering results through continual and focused improvements to support clients’ business goals.

Reading List

Watched the panel and interested in hearing more? Check out our extended list of design thinking in marketing resources:

Books:

  1. Atomic Habits by James Clear
    A great book that highlights how small changes can grow into such life-altering outcomes, uncovering simple hacks that have a revolutionary effect.
  2. Make Change Happen by Ian Coyne
    This book delves into the secrets of successful, well-managed change, from ideas to implementation.
  3. Do Disrupt: Change the Status Quo or Become It by Mark Shayler
    A fantastic book that helps create or refine ideas and take them concept to market.
  4. What You Do Is Who You Are – How to Create your Business Culture by Ben Horowitz
    This book delves into the all important question, how do you create and sustain the culture you want? Sharing how to make your culture more purposeful.
  5. Switch by Chip and Dan Heath
    A great book focusing on change and why we insist on seeing the obstacles rather than the goal.
  6. Contagious Culture by Anese Cavanaugh
    A great read that focuses on improving your leadership presence, setting yourself up for success and creating a space to share your vision.
  7. Leading Change by Kotter
    This book focuses on the 8-step process that every company must go through to achieve its goal.

Articles, podcasts, and videos:

  1. Think Fast, Talk Smart by Stanford Business
    Join Matt Abrahams, lecturer in strategic communication, as he sits down with experts from across campus to discuss public speaking anxiety, speaking off the cuff, nailing a Q&A, and more.
Sian HeaphyEmpowering your transformation – importance of change enablement
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Communicating in uncertain times

Communicating in uncertain times

With exclusive insight from industry experts

Hear from BAE Systems, Tesco, and FT

Businesses need an effective communication strategy now more than ever — one that offers reassurance, increases stability and builds trust. In the UK, we are now facing a period of almost unprecedented uncertainty.

That’s why we have developed this exclusive eBook, with expert insights from global communications leaders, and their take on how to best tackle creating an internal communication strategy during times of uncertainty. Hear from the likes of: 

  • Louise Fisk, Comms and Marketing Director at BAE Systems
  • John Kundert, CTO at Financial Times
  • Nick Sunderland, Head of Integration at Tesco

Find out:

Discover:

Why flexibility is key when planning your communications strategy
Situations can change quickly, so make sure your communications planning is developed to be agile from the very start.

Which trends, political or otherwise, are most likely to impact organisations
Brexit, the digital revolution and the threat of nationalism will continue to impact businesses globally. Businesses need to be able to adapt and thrive in uncertain and ever-changing environments.

How best to manage negative sentiment during times of organisational restructure
Why demonstrating honesty and empathy to employees is so important during times of change.

Download now

Alexandra JefferiesCommunicating in uncertain times
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Are you getting through?

Are you getting through?

Critical success factors at the sharp end of communication

It is difficult to think of a time where there has been greater risk and turmoil in the world, especially in the last 50 years, and this creates a difficult position for those charged with communicating to employees, partners or clients.

Of course, Coronavirus is just one example of business disruption, anyone remember Brexit? Highlighting why the ability to communicate in tough times is so important.

The damage and cost in terms of lost clients, talent and reputation of poor communication practice is unquantifiable. High performance businesses know that clear, consistent and timely communication is key to business resilience and even more so during times of rapid change. Here are my top five critical success factors for communicating successfully, now and as we move through the downturn:

Don’t stop communicating

Never stop communicating, that’s it. Whenever faced with ambiguity there’s a natural reaction not to say anything until we are absolutely clear on our response. Employees and clients will usually already be aware of the issues, starting to worry about the impact and hypothesising on how best to deal with the situation. Even if you can share very little factual information, employees need to know their leaders are scenario planning and working on solutions. When things are uncertain that is when communication is most important. If there’s silence from the top, people will fill in the gaps themselves and it’s unlikely to be in a positive way.

Never speculate

Be as transparent as you can be. No one will expect you to have all the answers, but they will need to feel that you are sharing what you can and being honest about what you don’t know yet. Of course, the flip side is that it is equally important that you don’t feel pressurised into communicating something that you’re not totally confident about. If you are not 100% sure something is true, don’t share it. Validate your information before communicating it – never speculate! Let people know that you’re working on getting an answer and will come back to them as soon as you have it. Drip feeding progress updates is a good way to minimise frustration and provide reassurance to your team, clients and prospects whilst you fully understand the situation.

Show empathy

It’s important that communications are as much about giving people the information they want to hear, as it is about the information you want to tell them. Understanding where the areas of highest concern are, and ensuring you are providing people with the information that you can around those areas, will demonstrate understanding, empathy and ensure your comms are authentic. Have a plan and be upfront about when they will receive further information to keep them informed.

Take the information to the people

Too many organisations hide behind email. Although it is an effective channel of communication it should not be the default for everything. 

When people are worried, face-to-face is the best way to engage and when that’s not possible you need to think about how you can use tools like video conferencing to ‘bring people into the room’. The use of video conference has vastly increased since COVID-19 and as human beings we rely on sight more than any other sense so it’s not surprising. People are far more likely to trust a message when they can see the person delivering it and it can offer the opportunity for QA and sharing ideas that will help you plan further communications and really understand what the concerns are for your people or clients.

Digital channels should be understood and used to reach key audiences to enable effective communications. Comms leaders need to become masters of data and insight so they can understand performance through reporting on engagement across digital tools including email and collaboration tools such as teams, slack and intranet traffic to underpin recommendations for the next wave of comms or tactics to improve results.

Build in agility

Resilience and flexibility are key. As we all know, situations can change quickly so your communications planning needs to be agile. Introduce new ways of working so that your comms team and key stakeholders in the business can work as a cross functional team to adapt quickly, respond appropriately to ever changing situations and developing a test, learn and improve culture. Use data and insight to understand the performance of key channels, how well you are reaching your audience and inform your next communication activities to adapt your plan and ensure those that need to be informed and act on critical information, do so.

Of course, there is still the challenge of a recession ahead and those businesses who have the greatest agility and ability to adapt at pace will be most likely to survive and thrive. These are interesting times for everyone and having the right narrative and communicating with clarity so everyone understands key information, the role they should play and the actions needed is going to be critical in determining how well your organisation will be able to navigate through the downturn.

Tough times don’t last but agile businesses do. Find out more about agile marketing and communications and how it can help you.

Alexandra JefferiesAre you getting through?
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Is the honeymoon over for WFH?

Is the honeymoon over for WFH?

Craving the office just a little bit? Some tips for getting back into the WFH groove

Most of us have now been working from home since early March and with the future looking uncertain on how office life moves forward, some people are finding the WFH honeymoon almost over. With communication platforms like Microsoft Teams and Zoom trying to keep us excited with new backgrounds and functionalities, it still seems to be getting a bit much. People are craving human interaction with colleagues.

Finding the balance to ensure productivity and a happy home life is hard, especially when we are so restricted on social aspects and juggling teaching children with a full-time job and trying to protect our more vulnerable nearest and dearest by keeping ourselves to ourselves. The norm would take the teaching kids out of the equation or have us leaving the house in the evening to go for a relaxing drink or a family dinner, while currently, we eat sleep and breath office surroundings in the comfort of our own homes.

Here are some top tips on how you can keep productive, healthy and sane whilst WFH:

Keep on moving:

You’ve heard it before, but we’ll say it again, exercise is oh so important and helps heaps with keeping your brain productive and sleep patterns in check. Staying in the house day in, day out is hard and going for a 20-minute run at lunch or putting on a home workout video helps refresh your mind and breaks up the day. Keep moving. We know it’s hard but try and get yourself into a routine and join a fitness tracking app – it’s a great way to keep motivated when seeing your friends and colleagues do the same and can get a bit competitive, which is always healthy!

Draw a line between your desk and home life:

If you can, keep your desk separate from your home life. This can really help but understandably, isn’t possible for everyone. If you don’t switch off, your productivity will suffer and even though you are working longer hours, your quality of work may take a hit.

Stay organised and don’t give up:

Being organised is a well-desired trait and some of us don’t have that gift, but since the pandemic, we have had to adapt overnight and ensure we are planning, staying efficient and keeping our to-do lists ticked. Don’t give up – spend some time before or after work setting out the day ahead. Take five minutes to formulate a to-do list, tidy your workspace and get ahead. No one wants to start the day in a flap with no plan, don’t make it harder for yourself to stay productive. There is some great tech out there to help with that or a good old notebook and pen is sufficient!

Children need attention, and that’s ok:

Companies understand we are in a parallel world right now and having a full-time job working and educating your offspring is hard. Don’t beat yourself up if they only spent half the day learning and the other half watching Moana – it’s to be expected. There are lots of free online tools out there to help support with this balance and a lot of teachers are keen to supply extra activities and worksheets – so don’t be afraid to ask for the help. No one is judging you.

Be creative:

Take on a hobby to help you zone out from the one or two jobs you may be juggling. Who knows, you may even find something you’re really good at. I pretty much think I’m Monet now with the 2 paintings I completed in lockdown and my colleagues have just purchased a pottery making kit to start creating ceramics from home, so we are expecting to see video evidence of the iconic scene from Ghost make an appearance soon!

Ghost GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

There is such a thing as brain food:

It’s hard to do all the above and still have an ounce of energy to keep on top of your health – we get that. But brain food does exist and the healthier foods you eat – the more energy you will have and the easier it will be to stay on track with the WFH life. Don’t get us wrong, a takeout here and there is the only way through the new life of no eating out. It’s balance you want to focus on. So, enjoy that kebab on a Friday night because you worked hard all week and you deserve it. It’s guilt-free.

This pandemic has challenged us all in more ways than one but staying positive and not putting ourselves under unnecessary pressure is as important as that to-do list you have sitting in front of you. There is light at the end of the tunnel! To read more check out our ultimate guide on working from home.

Alexandra JefferiesIs the honeymoon over for WFH?
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Getting your team on-board with digital change

Getting your team on-board with digital change

When you think of internal comms, what immediately springs to mind? Perhaps a monthly company newsletter announcing new hires, leavers, births or Sally in HR getting married. Or that repetitive monthly email reminding you to cast your vote for ’employee of the month’. Not particularly exciting or inspiring. However for today’s businesses, internal comms is fast becoming a cucial tool. Especially when it comes to communicating and managing digital change within a business.

I’m sure ‘digital disruption’ must be the most over-used business phrase of the last two years but there is no denying that digital transformation is now taking root in even the most conservative of organisations. Digital transformation, whether it’s implementing a specific new technology solution or an entire organisation wide digital strategy, needs to be communicated to employees. And, crucially it needs to be adopted by them to ensure that your programme isn’t one big expensive failure. Enter internal comms.

From Partner to Graduate and everyone in between

First and foremost, any internal comms strategy needs to have a pretty good understanding of who it needs to communicate to. In most large organisations the employee audience can be pretty diverse. From Senior Management or Partner level, who may have been with the company for most of their careers, to young graduate trainees fresh out of Uni.

There may also be specific job roles within an organisation that will be particularly affected by the change. Tailoring your communications and messaging to highlight the key benefits of the new solution or strategy to certain employee groups is crucial. Understanding where you are most likely to come up against resistance to change and ensuring that they feel involved in the process from early on can really help overcome any grumbling. A little extra hand holding goes a long way.

Channels and Champions

Of course you’re going to need to explain why you are making the change and inform employees what actions they need to take as part of this. Inevitably, for most organisations, email will play its part. However, the snag being that we’re all guilty of ignoring emails that don’t need our immediate attention and then forgetting to look at them again, so don’t rely too heavily on this. Consider other channels such as impactful short videos, micro-sites to host more detailed information, desk drops and office launches to grab peoples’ attention and get them engaged and listening. That way when emails with important information do come through, they’re less likely to ‘file’ them in the trash folder.

Having said that, the most effective vehicle for communication are your employees. Find your champions, people on the ground who are engaged and enthusiastic, get them to act as ambassadors for the change. Despite all the different channels at our disposal today, word of mouth is still the most effective form of advertising.

Internal vs External

It is one thing to recognise the value of internal comms, but another to ensure it is carried out effectively. Many organisations may not have an internal comms function. If they do, it may be one person in the marketing department and it’s pretty unlikely that they have a good understanding of what it means to successfully implement technological change within a business.

For organisations looking to implement digital change, internal comms can be a real blocker. So, in many cases they are looking outside of their organisations to external communications experts, who approach an internal comms project in the same way they would an external comms or marketing campaign. In fact, both your internal and external comms strategy and objectives should closely align to be truly effective.

Ultimately the success of any digital transformation programme comes down to whether employees embrace and adopt that change. Businesses must go beyond engaging with their employees, to compel them to change their working behaviours. Effective internal comms is the key to effecting that change.

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Alexandra JefferiesGetting your team on-board with digital change
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Transformative communications

Transformative communications

Why comms needs to be factored into your business transformation plans, right from the start

There can be few large businesses around the UK and beyond that have not already been through, or are currently going through large scale business transformation programmes. But how many have developed their transformation plans with communications factored in from the start? And how many add it as an afterthought when they are already some way down the line, having realised that change can’t happen without employee engagement? Communication is critical to any form of organisational change. Embedding clear processes around how and when you should communicate from the start will help get your transformation off to a flying start. 

There are two key areas where effective comms can make a real difference to the success of a transformation programme. The obvious one is when it comes to communicating out to the rest of the business and getting employees to change behaviours. But comms can also help in bringing together cross-functional teams and getting them working more effectively towards the same goal. 

Engaging your employees 

Communication plays a vital role when it comes to engaging employees around a large-scale business change. If you fail to communicate your goals and how you plan to achieve them, how can you expect employees to support and adopt the changes you are implementing? Many a digital transformation program has been viewed as unsuccessful because employees have failed to fully adopt new tools and technology or processes. 

So how do you engage employees? Firstly, it is vital that you understand your internal audiences. In a large organisation there will be different types of employees with their own challenges and requirements, so you will need to tailor your communications to different employees. There isn’t always a one size fits all solution.  

Avoid over reliance on email and make use of existing business collaboration tools. You should always make sure you are communicating via different channels to ensure that your message has reached everyone in your organisation. 

Two-way communication is crucial when it comes to engaging employees. Give your employees the opportunity to ask questions and to share their thoughts and feedback where possible. Face-to-face communication is always the best way to engage.

Louise Fisk, Communications and Marketing Director at BAE Systems suggests,

When that’s not possible you need to think about how you can use tools like video conferencing to bring people into the room.

Helping cross-functional teams work effectively 

During large scale business transformation, it is often the case that teams which don’t usually work together, will have to come together and form cross-functional teams. Open and transparent communication between both leadership and team members is crucial here.  

Hannah Bamberger, IT Communications Lead at Boston Consulting Group comments,

Where teams are cross-functional and often working remotely, it’s important to have transparent communications from the beginning to avoid any misunderstanding which may arise from not being able to see each other face-to-face each day and ask questions.

Matt Perry, Director at Transition15 suggests that,

Cross-functional team communications need to be built into the ways of working from the start. The mechanisms for regular communication should be agreed by the team so that they feel they are owning this process, rather than being told how they should do something.

It’s also important that leadership are clear in their goals and communicate them to their teams from the start so that they unite to achieve the same goal. A lack of communication coupled with an unwillingness to come together to work as a cross-functional team, can happen when leadership hasn’t communicated well around what is needed, and what the goals are from the beginning.

Hannah Bamberger comments, 

You often end up with the wrong thing being delivered or half way through a big transformation programme you realise it isn’t going in the direction it should be. At that point it’s much harder to recommunicate and get people to change direction.

There’s a high likelihood that change will fail if you do not communicate from the start. Employees need to feel part of the change as its happening and you will need to support people through the change curve, which can take time. If you get this right, then any future change is likely to run more smoothly and be successful. 

If communicating around change sounds like something you are currently struggling with, get in touch to arrange an employee engagement workshop, or a planning session for how to support cross-functional teams in working together more effectively. 

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Alexandra JefferiesTransformative communications
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