It's the start of a new week and here at Sorce during our normal weekly catch up meetings, Coronavirus was raised. With ever increasing cases here in the UK and many of us travelling as part of our everyday role, I think it's absolutely the right time to be considering our options from a communications and marketing perspective.
Within our marketing team we've been asking: What should we do about our upcoming events? What about meetings? What about staying in touch with clients? How will we continue to function?
After an impromptu brainstorm, the answers began to emerge. Here are some of our thoughts on how you can keep your marketing and business comms on track over the coming days and weeks in the event of travel restrictions and changes to the way we work.
1. Make the most of your intranet:
Of course, this was always going to be our first go-to! Intranets are the hub of any business and will be the place for all employees to go to for news, updates, key documentation and getting in touch with colleagues.
2. Choose the best communications channel:
Face to face meetings, events, webinars and virtual meetings are all common communication channels. over the next few weeks, the balance may shift to more virtual meetings, webinars and recorded content. We need to achieve the same result with reduced options. We are reviewing our content and meetings and evaluating how much could be turned into a series of videos, downloads and webinars, quickly and effectively.
It's always good to ask, Can your intranet do this? if communicating internally and if you are considering external communications, make sure your design team have capacity to help you!
3. Review Your Content:
Changing the way you communicate is a great opportunity to review your content. Are your key messages clear? Can you communicate what you need to in half the time to save reading or listening time? It's important to extract the core information you want your audience to take away and ditch the usual drawn out intro's and outro's. The KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle is a good one to remember here.
4: Create engaging content:
OK, so we might have to make some snappy decisions when it comes to changing our communications channels over the next few days and weeks but we still need to make sure our content is engaging. Transforming content from a physical event to a virtual one is about a lot more than arranging a go to webinar and booking a meeting room. Follow the KISS principle but also think about injecting insight, humour where appropriate, interactive polls and the chance for Q & A.
5. Choose the right person for the job:
Not all of us are great communicators. You can have the most engaging content, ready to be presented via a webinar and if the presenter is not engaging, you've missed your chance to connect with everyone who has signed up. Choose the most engaging colleague you have to help you deliver your content.
6. Keep colleagues updated:
However your plans may change, make sure you keep your colleagues up to date via your intranet and seek their support and advice if needed. There might be someone going through the exact same process you are going through right now.
I hope this has got you thinking about your own activity for the coming days and weeks and how your intranet can help you overcome some of these hurdles and how you can kickstart your own communciations and engagement review.
Take a look at our free engagement guide for more intranet advice and get in touch if you need further intranet support.