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What’s the difference between a copywriter and a journalist? Many people would say the obvious answer is that one works on marketing communications, while the other works on press communications. But is that all there is to it, or where does that leave Internal Comms? By Russell-Oliver Brooklands and Sue Williams Are the skills we can pick up at journalism school, or the Chartered Institute of Marketing enough? Or do we need additional skills and processes to make a success of running an Internal Comms Department, or even being a member of the team? There’s no question that anyone who’s learned to produce press or marketing comms will be better placed to produce internal comms than someone who hasn’t. And if we look at it rationally, we also cannot escape the fact that internal comms require us to go further still. There are two types of dynamic that make this inescapable: 1 The financial dynamic This relates particularly to journalism. When someone buys a newspaper or magazine, they do just that: they buy it. They take money out and hand it over the counter. And advertisers are paying money too, lots of it, so that readers get to see the ads they’ve placed in the paper (including the free papers) and in the commercial breaks in and around TV and radio news shows. With this as the financial dynamic, the more people who receive the communication, the more money the business will generate. So the game plan for journalism has to be to write stuff that as many people as possible will want to read, watch or listen to – and come back for more of next time. Clearly this is often crucial for internal comms too. But is it always so? And even when it is, is it enough? Interestingly, no - because it’s not the audience or advertisers who pay for the internal comms process; it’s the business. Not only that, but the business also has to pay its audience to receive those communications too. Far from generating income/profit, every aspect of the internal communication process costs the business, so the internal communicator must achieve something more than simply getting as big an audience as possible. It’s that ‘something more’ that journalism training isn’t designed (in fact doesn’t need) to teach. This would suggest that internal communication is closer to marketing – but is it really all that close? 2 The audience dynamics Some people try to ‘sex-up’ internal comms, by calling it ‘internal marketing’. But anyone who tries to apply the marketing model to internal communications is bound to come unstuck, because the audience dynamics are totally different in two key ways. a) Opting in Imagine, say, you’re watching a TV show. And there’s a commercial break. At that moment, you’ll be taking a decision – to either sit through it, pick up the remote and see what’s on the other channels, get up and make a cup of coffee – whatever. The point is that if you decide to sit and watch the ads it’s entirely your choice to do so. The same is true of any ads you choose to read in a magazine or newspaper. But is it necessarily always the case with internal comms? Or is it truer to say that we often more of a sense of duty or obligation to go through many of the communications we receive at work? With a few exceptions (eg screen ads at the cinema, perhaps) marcoms are read, watched or listened to only by people who’ve completely volunteered themselves to do just that. But many internal comms are read by people who feel duty-bound to go through them. The audience’s emotional setup is therefore quite different from the start – which becomes particularly important when we take the second audience dynamic into account b) Opting out Let’s say that you’ve chosen to sit through the commercial break, in the middle of which is an ad for disposable nappies, and another for PCs. And let’s imagine that either you don’t have a baby or toddler, or that you’ve only recently upgraded your home computer – or both. In short, you’re not ‘in the market’ for one or both of these products. Chances are you’d probably say to yourself (albeit unconsciously) “This ad isn’t talking to me, so I don’t need to pay attention to it.” Identifying audiences by means of market segmentation is fine for marcoms, because they’re operating in an open system, where the scattergun approach works fine. If you place enough ads in the right kind of place, you’ll hit enough people who are in the market for your product. It’s therefore OK for many of the people who see the ad to ‘opt out’, because it was never intended for them anyway. But does it work in the closed systems in which internal comms need to work? Well sometimes it does. If, for example, there were a communication about new car parking arrangements for staff, it would be perfectly OK for people who walk to work, or catch the train, to opt out of the audience. But suppose the subject were health and safety, or company security? Clearly it’s not OK to have people deciding “This isn’t talking to me, so I don’t need to pay attention to it”. Sadly, however, many internal comms generate exactly that response, because neither the marketing nor journalism approaches to identifying audiences work for internal comms. No matter how much we might want to believe otherwise. So both the financial and audience dynamics of internal communications mean that, useful as they are, journalism and marketing skills simply aren’t enough to deliver reliable internal communication results. Internal communications require us to develop briefing and writing/editing skills, and briefing and approval processes, that go beyond those available at journalism or marketing schools. In short, internal communication needs its own model. That’s why CiB is launching its Internal Communication Model (ICM) programme, to give you the vital thinking tools you need to redesign your business’s planning, briefing, editing and approvals processes, so they do the job that only internal comms need to do. The ICM programme represents a major step forward for our profession. Because it provides a unique, robust foundation for internal comms – it will also enable you to objectively measure the business value of what you do – in hard cash terms. The programme lasts three days, which are staggered over a seven week period. This format means you don’t have to be out of the office for more than a day at a time. It also gives you a chance to put each day’s learning into practice, and start getting it onto autopilot, before coming back for more. And because the Model is not a hybrid, but bespoke to internal comms, it doesn’t matter how much or how little experience you already have. This programme is relevant to everyone. We’re also aware that fitting professional development into a busy diary can be tricky, so we’re intending to run this as a rolling programme throughout the year. It means that if you had to miss one of the days, you could simply pick up where you left off when that day comes round again. The first day of the first programme is on 11th March. So if you want to know more about the ICM programme (and the support package that goes with it) so you can take your career to a whole new level in 2008 go to the CiB training pages |
