Category: Marketing

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Engagement Marketing

“Fun Works” (Really!)

If you’re interested in creating and maintaining a positive corporate culture, check out the 2nd edition (updated & expanded) of Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work by Leslie Yerkes.

Her book lays the foundation for the “fusion” of play and work. She showcases companies that consciously chose to integrate fun into their corporate culture, but it’s not an add-on or forced “let’s-take-a-break-and-play-a-game” type of fun ala The Office. According to Yerkes, “I don’t want to be put in charge of fun. That makes it a job and that would not be fun.”

Yerkes explores how different companies integrate fun into their normal course of business, creating positive experiences for employees and customers, to illustrate “there’s no right or wrong way to engage in serious fun.” She shares what she calls “Principles of Fun/Work Fusion” and the resulting benefits that include:

  • reduced employee absenteeism and better retention
  • a buffer for stress and potential burnout
  • enhanced employee commitment
  • stimulation of creativity & innovation
  • positive impact on productivity.

From my work in internal marketing, I’m familiar with the power of a corporate culture that encourages a sense of humor and appropriate play in the workplace. I found Fun Works a good reinforcement.

Trying to deal with my own workload pressures, I found this book a great reminder that I need to adjust my own Puritan Work Ethic (i.e., work first, play later) to achieve a better balance. (Maybe I need to take a break and catch up on my favorite cartoons … )

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Gaining Employee Support through a New Type of Journalism

[2014 update: the following content still resonates, although the original links in this post were removed because they are no longer available.]

Here’s a fascinating concept to add to your internal marketing & communications toolbox: Workplace Journalism — “a conscious effort to make employee communications at least partly about employees and their concerns, not just the business and its issues.”

I learned about this from Barry Nelson, who believes business communicators can have a positive impact by adding more “empathetic, employee-advocacy journalism … into their otherwise business-results focused reportorial mix.”

He recommends that in addition to communicating corporate strategy, goals, progress & results, (which employees need to know), companies should also share stories of how employees cope with on-the-job issues & stresses (which employees want to know). According to Barry, we need to give “at least some prominence to our employees’ human concerns” such as “how and why to get along with the boss, make friends on the job, cope with stress, live the brand, be a good teammate, and other aspects of a satisfactory work life.”

The Pay-Off

This isn’t just ‘feel-good’ communications for the heck of it. Organizations that share these types of stories demonstrate their care and concern for employees, and this contributes to a strong sense of employee commitment and loyalty in turn.

To learn more, check out Barry’s guidance on getting started with Workplace Journalism.

 

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Marketing

Educating Non-marketers about Marketing: Tell, Don’t Sell

Jill Stover, who has a great blog on Library Marketing: Thinking Outside the Book, wrote an interesting post about convincing librarians that marketing is not fluff. She suggests a marketing-as-teaching metaphor to help her colleagues better understand marketing’s merits: “What we’re actually doing as we market library services is teaching our patrons about what we have to offer, why it’s valuable, and how to take advantage of it.”

Great idea, Jill. As marketers we need to do a better job of de-mystifying marketing by educating our non-marketing colleagues on what marketing really does and how it helps our organizations reach out to really serve customers. This means being open and inclusive in our marketing efforts. (For more ideas here, check out one of my earlier posts on Marketing Marketing.)

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Engagement Marketing

Marketing: Not an Insular Job

Don Schultz’s May 15, 2007 column in Marketing News focuses on marketers’ new job description. As our field continues to evolve in a fast-changing economy, we need to better:

  • Understand our markets, including finding the best ways to segment and/or aggregate markets
  • Develop and deliver customer-focused brand value propositions
  • Monitor our effectiveness in actually delivering on the brand promise.

Inherent in our ability to deliver the brand promise is the need to get buy-in and support from everyone in the organization that impacts brand value. Don clarifies: “… marketing is something the organization does, not what the marketing department does.”

As a result, the new marketing manager’s responsibility goes beyond managing the marketing department to work “horizontally across the company to involve operations, finance, sales, HR and all the other groups that cumulatively create and provide the customer’s brand experience.”

Internal collaboration is critical to marketing’s effectiveness. If you only view it as “other duties as assigned” on a marketer’s job description, don’t bother to apply.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

To Strengthen Employee Relationships, Follow Me

Want a great way to foster mutual respect among the employees in your organization? Try this on for size.

Akron, OH-based ad agency Hitchcock Fleming & Associates (HFA) launched an “In Your Shoes Day” where employees in different departments shadowed each other to better appreciate the various jobs in the organization. After all, they depend on each in order to best serve their clients.

Julie Biddle, an Account Coordinator at HFA, told me it was an extraordinary experience. In her own words:

“For my shadow day I was in the shoes of someone in our production department.  It was eye opening to spend a day with him and to see what his job in the agency is like.  I even got to participate by doing his job for a couple hours.

Staring at the computer all day and working at making sure you notice every little detail was challenging, and I could finally see why some of the production people I work with are exhausted by the end of the day.  The next day, when I went back to being in my own shoes, I not only realized that I am definitely in the right area of work but I also gained a higher respect for the people who work in the production department.

This was definitely a worth while training experience and I praise my company for making all of us participate! “

[Thanks for sharing, Julie.]

You can find other company examples of ‘trading places’ in a previous post. It seems there’s no better way to create empathy, understanding and mutual respect among employees.

See how it fits in your organization.

Categories
Marketing

Nonprofit Marketing Book Special Offer

I shared my post about Robin Hood Marketing with its author, Katya Andresen, and she graciously offered a free copy of the book to one of my blog readers.

I’m happy to give this book to the first person who requests it by writing a comment on this post. Just be sure to include your mailing address so I can forward it to Katya. Note: I’ll omit your address before I publish your comment.

Thanks, Katya!

Categories
Engagement Marketing

“Work continues to be quite strange”

That’s the opening line of an e-mail I received from a friend.

The message continued:

“On Friday our department went out to celebrate two colleagues’ birthdays. Management thinks that treating people poorly is completely canceled out by occasional lunches — which we each have to pay for. A half-hour before we left for the restaurant, the department head held a staff meeting. We all gathered in the conference room and she began to cry as she told us she had just figured out that she is a terrible manager and that we all hate her! This announcement was met with silent stares until the weakest among us felt compelled to say something comforting. And then we all went to lunch.”

Sometimes poor working conditions are caused by personality problems of bosses, as well as co-workers, despite a decent organizational culture.

As my friend commented about being in this Dilbert-like situation: “Retirement cannot come a moment too soon.”

Categories
Customer service Marketing

Notes from the Past – What Lee Iacocca Said

Way back in fall 1996, I heard Lee Iacocca speak at Lehigh University, which is Lee’s alma mater and mine.

I recently came across my notes from his presentation in which I highlighted this quote:

“Technology has evened quality. Hardware is all the same. The difference is how you treat customers.”

It’s a relevant reminder that still resonates today. Technology may have changed how we work in allowing us to serve customers more expediently. But this doesn’t necessarily mean we serve them any better.

The key differentiator is ensuring a positive customer experience that includes a genuine ‘high touch’ component in a ‘high tech’ world of customer service.

I wish more companies would take Lee’s message to heart. “To speak to a live person, press 10 …” just doesn’t cut it.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

“The Power of Acknowledgment” – Myth-ing in Action

In my internal marketing workshops, I sometimes joke about positive reinforcement in the workplace being a lack of negative reinforcement. In other words, if you didn’t get your hand slapped at work today for doing something wrong, you might have done a good job. But how would you know when management holds back with its compliments and “atta boys?”

In her book, The Power of Acknowledgment, Judith Umlas explains why some managers are likely to withhold praise, and she effectively counters these ‘myths’ of acknowledgment.

Myth: If you praise people too often, it won’t mean as much

The law of diminishing returns does not apply to praise that is genuine and heartfelt. According to Umlas, “Imagine that your spouse or partner tells you every day with absolute sincerity how wonderful and incredible you are. Does that make you appreciate this deeply felt acknowledgment any less?”

Myth: If you tell people how good they are, they might not work as hard

Acknowledging people’s efforts will not take away their motivation to be better. “Acknowledgment and striving go together. When people feel validated through acknowledgment … they will go to great lengths … to get the job done the best they possibly can.”

Myth: A compliment given infrequently will be more valued

An acknowledgment means a great deal, especially when it comes from a manager who rarely gives praise. Umlas considers this from the employee’s perspective: “But what about all the time I spent worrying about … whether I’m doing a good enough job? … My concerns would be alleviated … and my performance might actually be improved if [managers] let me know on a more regular basis what they see as my worth and contribution to the organization.”

I’ve highlighted just the workplace-related excerpts from The Power of Acknowledgment. Umlas’ book provides a quick and easy read to help people harness this power in all their relationships.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

“Firms of Endearment” Already a Best-Seller

As I predicted, the new book Firms of Endearment is becoming a best-seller. [2014 Note: This book is in its second edition.]

I heard recently from one of its authors, David Wolfe, that the book is entering its second printing – just a few months after its initial release.

I cite some of the book’s findings in my forthcoming book on internal marketing, Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most: A Guide to Employee-Customer Care. But don’t wait for my book to read about the power of “Firms of Endearment.” Get it while it’s hot … it’s a great book to read and will be a great addition to your business library.