Is Your Communication Team Flunking Internal Communications?

Why Communication Teams Flunk Internal Communications and How to Fix it.

By John B. Heimann

The marketing organization is primarily responsible for the company’s communications. Email, PR, social, brand, collateral, newsletters – basically all internal and external communications run through marketing. Yet, when it comes to communicating within the organization, many marketing teams, well, they stink at it.

How can the team that is so deft at crafting impactful messaging be so daft when it comes to communicating across the organization? Here are three common culprits: 

1. Not Understanding Internal Partner Team Priorities 
2. Focusing on Projects vs. Focusing on the Big Picture
3. Top-Down Communication Prioritization and Follow Through

Below, I explore these challenges and the solutions to fix them.

1. Not Understanding Internal Partner Priorities 

Every marketing organization supports internal teams. Marketing is responsible for understanding their partner’s priorities and delivering on key objectives. However, marketing often fails their internal clients by either communicating the wrong things (think marketing vanity metrics that are meaningless to the company’s bottom line) or by not communicating the basics such as program release timing, external communication content or collateral status. 

FIX: Create regular meetings between marketing and internal partners. Check-ins keep marketing aligned with company/team priorities and become a forum for planning, prioritization, feedback and review of key metrics. For a deeper dive, I’ve identified 10 best practices  that will lead to better communication.

• Focusing on Projects vs. Focusing on the Big Picture

Marketing teams face intense pressure to prioritize and complete individual projects, often losing sight of the overall company mission as they quickly move from one assignment to the next. Focusing on immediate tasks can lead to missed opportunities for strategic communication. To stay aligned with the company’s mission, it’s crucial for marketing to view each project in the broader context, aligned with the brand mission, vision and values (MVV), ensuring all efforts contribute to these overarching goals and communicate the right messages.

FIX: Zoom out. The collected works of marketing should help define the company’s MVV. By understanding and focusing on the big picture, individual contributors can come to view each project not as a stand-alone assignment, but as an important piece of the larger puzzle. Having that broader vision allows team members to see what types of internal communications are critical to stakeholders and why. This understanding can have the added benefit of turning junior marketing staff into future marketing leaders.

• Top-Down Communication Prioritization and Follow Through

If marketing team members have difficulty managing communications with their internal partners, marketing leaders may be partly to blame. CMOs and marketing VPs are under pressure to manage leadership expectations and deliver on ROI, digital transformation, brand management, customer experience and more. If marketing leaders aren’t effectively conveying the big picture and articulating and prioritizing partner needs to their teams, how can the frontline contributors succeed?

FIX: Using the MVV model above, marketing leaders should frame their team’s role within the organization and define individual responsibilities as it relates to internal team collaboration and communication. 

1. Standardize communications vehicles by team. Each team marketing supports may work differently and thus needs communication tools appropriate to their way of working. Get agreement in writing from each team to ensure everyone is on the same page about communication vehicles to be used along with the types and cadence of communications required.
   1. Teamwork and collaboration. Improving communication will be an ongoing and evolutionary effort. Work with your partners to continually assess what’s working and what’s not.  Agree on the best ways to communicate, but don’t be afraid to change as shifts take place.  This feedback loop will help all stakeholders optimize the process to ensure ongoing success.

Marketing leaders must set the tone for the team’s internal communications success by first aligning marketing’s priorities with those of the of the business. Keeping the big picture in mind, marketing must prioritize internal partner needs then create communication frameworks that align with their needs. Consistency of communication and ongoing collaboration will ensure success.

With these simple tools marketing can dramatically improve internal communications and earn themselves an A+ from the organization.