How do you send out company-wide communications? Third-party company?
Hi, everyone!
For the past year, my company has been utilizing ContactMonkey, a third-party email campaign service to make our communications look better and to make it easier to track email analytics. We send out company-wide emails with links directing back to our intranet, instead of blasting them out company-wide via Igloo. We still use Igloo blog post subscriptions to send our associates news depending on what it is, however we're having a hard time figuring out what to use for what kind of news.
We want the best engagement possible, but we feel that associates prefer receiving news various ways. Has anyone else had an issue like this? If so, some insight is much appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
12 Replies
Hi Brittany Bendeck!
This is such a great topic to post. Thank you for polling everyone here. I do not want to scare anyone away so I'll keep my thoughts and experiences brief!
You couldn't have said it better. End Users expect an omnichannel approach to content. The path to the best engagement will always be one of profiling your user base and listening to the ebb and flow of their feedback. Content is living and needs to be considerate of:
I would take the above and marry it to a sample matrix, like the one below. This way you can determine before the publishing calendar what channel and which bucket it should fall into.
Again, this is really just a high-level sample, but I think I would approach all this by bucketing out my delivery channels and labeling some sample content based on the user-based labels above. That way you can set up a publishing framework and fine-tune from that point on with three types of feedback - focus groups, Igloo polls, and surveys (sneak em in the newsletter occasionally)
Looking forward to feedback from others! Tammy Triplett Molly Sproatt Melissa Dignam Sarah Symanowicz Anna Vucic
fabulous response Tom Ryan !!!
Brad Rooke Andrea Gumz-Dietrich good topic for a community webinar!! Think you found your speaker!
Tom Ryan, thank you for your response! It definitely brings to light some solutions we could try, however I may have some questions in our meeting on Monday. Ginger Avenali and Laura Shapiro read above!
Brittany Bendeck - sounds like a plan!
Tom Ryan - Thanks for drawing me in here. Happy to explain how Leidos handles communications.
Brittany Bendeck - This can be very complex and confusing for your audience and those responsible for sending out the communications. Here's what we do at Leidos:
Set the Stage
How do we reach employees?
I hope this is helpful for you as you think through comms for your company. I'm happy to discuss if you'd like, just let me know.
Tammy Triplett - this is truly awesome!
Tammy Triplett thank you so much! I'm going to bring this information back to my team and get their thoughts. I appreciate you taking the time to craft a thorough response!
Thanks for the tag Tom Ryan
We actually investigated using ContactMonkey or Bananatag and decided we could use Igloo to track our email stats instead. Our plan is currently in development, but the ultimate goal is to drive employees to the intranet to subscribe to our channels, and eventually eliminate emails altogether.
We plan to get there by reducing content in our current emails and moving the “read more” link to the intranet higher and higher up in our messages, while communicating a deadline for employees to manage their intranet subscriptions so they can continue receiving updates from there. This deadline is going to be key to get employees to take action, because today any subscribers end up receiving both the email we send and their subscription notifications (so duplicate content).
In terms of what channels to use for what kind of news, we’ve divided up by:
I think moving subscriptions into employees hands and allowing them to choose whether they want instant, weekly, etc. updates for each of these channels is going to be key to make sure the content we’re sending is actually getting read.
Happy to chat more if you’d like to connect Brittany Bendeck
Melissa Dignam Oh how I'd like to get to the point of eliminating or nearly eliminating email! We are 10 years into community now and I had these high hopes when we first set out, but soon realized that with over half of our workforce embedded with our customers and not always even able to access our community from their customer network, we will never be able to stop sending things they need-to-know by email. I hope you are successful in your transition!
Hey, Rachel Marcus, take a look here.
Brittany Bendeck - This is also a puzzle we're working to solve. We use a third-party email system because it allows us to track metrics, spoof executive name, and do audience customization beyond what Outlook distribution lists (or a lot of BCCing) would let us do. As much as we can, we try to post content to our Igloo and drive traffic there through email.
Karen Rogers, it seems we're in the same boat! Thanks for your feedback