Staff Infection? Internal marketing can help the medicine go down

Mary Poppins had a lot in her bag. She was a progressive lady with a lot of business wisdom to share.

"In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and snap! The job's a game," espoused the child-care entrepreneur and much-hyped advocate of energy-efficient transportation, mostly involving umbrellas and chalk drawings. "A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down."

At the time, it was a novel concept from an enlightened business mind. But today, the "spoon full of sugar" theory is supported by some of the most venerated employers in the world. Whether it's stock options, trendy bikes or video games in the break room, bright colors on the wall or Jack Johnson streaming softly through offices, it's all about making a working space enjoyable and conducive to productivity, innovation and creativity.

Internal marketing is a means to a very important end: company culture. It's the continual efforts you make internally to inspire, encourage and empower your staff, helping them to stay happy, motivated, informed and adept.

Internal marketing is the proverbial spoonful of sugar for the medicine that is the daily grind. It can, of course, be about perks (the gym memberships, the paid time off, the free trips to foreign destinations) but it is also about the atmosphere within the office, the design of the space and the internal communication. And it's about company values not just being printed in employee manuals but hanging from the walls and being realized in every conversation and staff meeting.

Much like traditional external marketing, internal marketing is about engaging your target audience, de-mystifying misconceptions and building a brand. And much like external marketing, your internal marketing must be strategic and focused, it should be aligned with your brand identity or your organization's mission statement. Internal and external marketing should, in fact, be aligned.

Beginning the process of creating an internal marketing plan is not a simple thing to begin, but it is worth it. First you must understand the climate within your company or organization - the good, the bad and the bitter. Whether it includes surveys or interviews, group sessions or one-on- one review meetings, you must know what keeps your staff from being its most productive and most happy. You should identify what obstacles are in the way of achieving a thriving company culture and what mechanisms would help you overcome those barriers. Think, "What is it that we want to achieve here?" and go from there.

Here are a few ideas to help your workforce stay motivated and happy. You'll want to make sure your internal marketing efforts fit your company, your mission and your employees, and while these may not be suitable for your company culture, they are some of A-Train Marketing's favorites.

1. Dance parties. A staff that dances together, thrives together. We prefer ours in kitchens circa midnight, jamming to Duran Duran, Billy Joel and Earth, Wind and Fire (we are usually lucky enough to have a TRI 102.5 DJ on hand). Every A-Train dance party serves as a bonding moment: a circle of friends, red-faced and smiling, shimmying and shaking, knowing that we will one day refer to this nostalgically as the "holiday dinner dance party" or the "anniversary after-hours dance party."
2. Arts and crafts. Every so often A-Train takes a break from marketing the crap out of your business or organization and does a craft project. Usually, we make something that will be auctioned or sold to benefit a local nonprofit (wreathes for Elderhaus or an abstract piece of artistic genius for Northern Colorado AIDS Project). Yes, even our internal marketing helps to drive the greater good, and that's the point: Aligning one's external and internal message and actions is what creates a strong brand.
3. Annual trips to Mexico. Enough said.
4. Creative potluck. Once a week, the A-Train staff holds what we've trademarked "Creative Potluck." Each person brings a dish and their thinking caps, and we brainstorm ideas for various creative projects. It's about getting away from the computer and thinking outside of the box.
5. Resources. We like our staff to be up on the latest and greatest trends, so we encourage each employee to continue their professional education. We subscribe to various publications and online resources to help us stay on top of the comings and goings of our industry. And then we share.
6. Happy hour... no matter what hour that may be. Occasionally, you'll stumble into the A-Train office and find us sipping mimosas or mixing margaritas. It helps us get the creative juices flowing and reminds all of us that there is a balance between work and play: You can't work as hard as we do without taking some time to play every so often.

A-Train Update

A-Train named as Bravo finalist
A-Train Marketing Communications principals Gretchen Gaede and Ryan Keiffer have been named finalists for the NCBR 2008 Bravo! Entrepreneur Awards, which will be held on March 11.
Along with Larry Dolgin of Professional Document Management and The Feet and Doug and Wynne Odell of Odell Brewing Co., Gaede and Keiffer are being recognized for their spirit of entrepreneurship by the Northern Colorado Business Report, regional chambers of commerce and economic development agencies.
Each of the Fort Collins Bravo nominees will share their entrepreneurial stories during the Jan. 13 Emerge Colorado event, which will take place at Café Columbine between 7:30 and 9 a.m. Visit www.emergecolorado.com for information.

A-Train takes a vacation)
A-Train Marketing Communications will be closed between Dec. 24 and Jan. 1. While we celebrate our holiday with a little break from brand discoveries, fundraising plans and press releases, we also want to wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season. We toast our clients, business partners, friends and family with a little song we've created especially for this time of year. Enjoy!

Twelve Days At A-Train
(Sung to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas)
Inside the A-Train office, look and you will see:
12 creative solutions,
11 draft proposals,
10 brand new clients,
9 logo samples,
8 network functions,
7 unused taglines,
6 story pitches,
5 strat-e-gies,
4 SEOs,
3 press kits,
2 invoice payments,
And a contract with a project-based fee.

The Hook Up
Making Lemonade - Networking outside your bubble
The airplane is noisy and crowded in the chaos of pre-flight boarding, and comfort is not an option as families with small children pass out backpacks and pillows and various forms of entertainment. Revving and zooming and a rrrreeeoooorrrr come from the mechanical underbelly. The perfunctory noises compete with the hubbub and hum of excited passengers. Couples bicker about travel plans and children tell strangers about days spent at the pool or gifts from grandma.

You - the person 26 rows back, sitting in between a businessman with a cold and an unnaturally loquacious nature, and a high school boy excitedly playing some sort of handheld video game - are trying to enjoy the rhetorical flourishes of a new book with crisp pages and long sentences, something recommended by a friend of a friend.

Chances are you will spend the entire flight, from take-off to baggage pick- up, avoiding everyone around you. You will work hard at feigning a mid- flight nap, and you will only reply with head nods when the businessman tells you unsolicited stories about his recent trip to Dallas. When the flight ends and he hands you his business card before you push forward away from it all, you will not once think about handing him yours.

***

Tis the season for social situations: from parties and fundraising events to shopping-mall lines and flights to the destination of your choice. It's exhausting and stressful and overwhelming.

But when it comes to making nice with strangers it doesn't have to be all bah-humbug. Networking in the great wide open - away from the drink tickets, white linens and the hungry glares of speed-networkers - can be a worthwhile endeavor. At its best, it should be subtle and strategic and well-paced.

The key is recognizing opportunity when it knocks oh-so gently at your door. That businessman - the one on the plane who waxed poetic about the accommodations at the Dallas Downtown Marriott - may not have been your favorite travel buddy but he could have been your next investor or a friend of a friend of a future customer.

Your spouse's company holiday party is but an oyster and each person there is a speck of sand that could end up being a most brilliant pearl. The acquaintances at the New Year's party are like diamonds in a rough of champagne and streamers.

To use a metaphor straight out of Swingers, they are all like bunnies and you are a big bear with claws and with fangs. You have all the skills in the world to make these bunnies your dinner, but you think, "I don't know how to kill the bunny." With the claws and fangs, you don't know how to kill the bunny - or, in this case, you don't know how to make a friend of a friend into a client, your wife's co-worker into a volunteer, or a co- passenger into an investor.

Here are a few tips to make it a little easier

Reciprocity: Don't take over the conversation but don't let the conversation take over you. The ultimate goal is to get to know this person and find out if they might be a potential business connection, so don't be a conversational narcissist. Ask questions and learn about your new friend and slowly draw the conversation your way.
Keep your eyes and ears open: Look for opportunities from whatever vantage point you have. Listen attentively to others' conversations and engage yourself in those conversations. Hand out your business card only after you have built some sort of connection.
Don't start with business: When all else fails, talk about the weather. A conversation may start off with chit-chat about untimely heat or impending snow, but it can end with a fully formed business relationship. Be friendly and conversational and eventually the discussion will turn to business - if it doesn't, that's just fine too.
Learn someone's name: We are always impressed when we walk away from a newfound contact and they say, "Thanks, A-Train Marketing. It was great talking with you." "No, Sam, it was great talking with you," we say back. Something as simple as remembering someone's name can truly make a big difference in how you present yourself. (Note: A good way to remember is to repeat their name back to them when they are first introduced to you and then try to use it at least one more time before you walk away).
Follow up: It never hurts to drop someone an email and say, "Nice to meet you." Also, check out Facebook and become their friend.



In The Know
Meet the Media - Pat Ferrier, Business/Growth Editor, Fort Collins Coloradoan
In the first of B-Sides' quarterly Meet the Media section, Coloradoan business/growth editor Pat Ferrier gets down to business. Arguably the hardest-working and most prolific newspaper editor/reporter in Fort Collins, Ferrier's career in journalism started as a high school crush and has now become her lifelong passion. Here, Ferrier discusses the good, the bad and the ugly of Northern Colorado business news and offers YOU a few tips for building media relationships.

How did you get into journalism?
I took a journalism class my sophomore year in high school - I had a big crush on the teacher. He resurrected the high school paper and I became one of three editors. I fell in love with the business at that moment. I went on to become editor of my college newspaper and have worked as a journalist ever since. I've always felt it is what I was meant to do. I learn something new everyday, get to engage with interesting, smart and creative people, give voice to those who don't have it and work to make our community a better place.

Tell us about the Coloradoan's Business section: What purpose do you hope the section serves in people's lives? What do you want the readers to get from the section?
I hope the business section is informative, useful and fun. We try to provide a very local look at the business community whether it be new business openings, closings, new technology coming out of CSU, tips for weathering the economic downturn, analyses of our local real estate market, or tips on how to run an efficient meeting.

How do you "select" the content that goes in the section and what you cover? Basically, what determines news value for you?
We try to get the most information in the paper as possible, whether through briefs, applause items, openings and closings or full feature stories. Unless the information is purely promotional - advertising a sale, for example - we can typically find room for it. I look for stories that have broad appeal and significant impact for our readers; for stories that help them live their daily lives and stories that touch the soul.

What are your favorite topics to cover?
I believe all business stories are people stories and those are the stories I most enjoy. Fort Collins has such a vibrant business community it's fun to tell the success stories.

What are your biggest pet peeves about PR people or sources/businesses that are trying to get coverage?
As I said before we try to find a place for almost all items but sometimes there's simply no news hook to the information. Also, it's a pet peeve when businesses expect that we are here as their personal PR tool. We provide information, yes, but our job is not to write only positive stories, which is sometimes what businesses expect. I've been called the "business executioner" for writing stories about businesses that have closed or stories that show a downward trend. Our job is to write the good, the bad and the ugly ... not just be a cheerleader for the community.

How about some advice to the average business/organization about working with journalists? What are good ways for businesses/nonprofits to build media relationships?
Understand that we really do try to accommodate every request for coverage. But we have two reporters covering the entire business community. If you have a tip, shoot me an e-mail and don't be afraid to follow up. Respect our deadlines and give us a few days to deal with your information. Unless you have a major announcement we aren't going to be able to get information in tomorrow's paper that you give us today. We try to turn things around as soon as possible but there are a lot of businesses seeking ink.