When we think of marketing, we immediately associate it with reaching out to our customers and potential customers. How do we share our story and products to the people who will benefit from them? How do we make them aware that we exist, communicate how we are unique, and encourage them to try our products? But rarely do we think about how to target our marketing to our staff.
Developing a marketing plan for your staff is just as important as developing a marketing plan for your customers. Your staff are on the front lines interacting with your customers on a daily basis. If your staff do not understand the heart of your business, they cannot live out your business’ values.
Let’s say you own a business called Banana Coffee that sells banana infused coffee. Your tagline is “Fruity Coffee Served with a Smile” (this is such an amazing tagline I may just trademark it…) Your entire marketing campaign resolves around two ideas: the fruity flavour and the friendliness of your staff. Let’s say your marketing campaign is a big hit and customers line up by the hundreds to try your coffee. In all the excitement you’ve forgotten to tell your staff that they should be friendly. When your customers arrive, they are greeted by your grumpy staff. There’s a disconnect between what you promised your customers (friendly service) and what they actually experience (frowny staff). That’s an extreme example, but you get the point.
Now let’s continue the example of Banana Coffee and brainstorm some ideas of how you can develop a marketing plan for your staff.
Recruitment and Selection
When you first put out your ad to hire staff, you need to communicate what your business is about. A good ad will attract the right people and turn away the wrong people. When you are interviewing candidates, you should be looking for people who can live out the values of your business naturally. You should be looking for people that believe that friendliness is important and that being friendly makes a difference in the world.
Onboarding Process
Onboarding is about bringing new staff on board to your business, giving them the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviour to do their work. After you hire people to your team it’s important to put together a program to prepare them for the job. This includes gaining the hard skills (how to make a banana coffee) and the soft skills (how to be friendly). It’s important that your new staff not only know that being friendly is part of Banana Coffee is about, but that they understand why you want them to be friendly.
Training
Find ways to help your staff become better at being friendly. A great example of this is the fast-food chain, Chic-Fil-A. One of Chic-Fil-A’s main values is customer service. They send their managers to the Ritz Carleton training program to learn about customer service, because Ritz Carleton is known for their excellent service. If you want your staff to be friendly you need to teach them what it means to be friendly and how to live it out every day. How do you respond to demanding customers in a friendly manner without letting them take advantage of you? How do your customers perceive friendliness? Do they want you to smile at them? Do they want you ask them how their day was? When your staff can grow and learn, it engages them in their work and gives them the confidence to do their job well.
Storytelling
Everyone goes through bad days and hard days. It’s difficult to be friendly all the time. That’s why it’s important that you, as the leader of your business, find ways to inspire your staff. Your job as the leader is to communicate that the values of the business are important on an ongoing basis. You need to repeat yourself over and over and over again. Telling stories is one of the best ways of doing this without boring your staff.
As the owner of Banana Coffee you can collect stories of how your staff are being friendly and the difference that it makes to customers. Even better, let your staff tell those stories to each other. You can do this in person when you interact with staff one-on-one, through regular newsletters to your staff, and at staff gatherings. Remind your staff that their friendliness is important, meaningful, and making a difference in the world.
Do you have a marketing plan for your staff and potential staff?