EPISODE 175 | Guest: Jennifer Razzano, director of internal communications for 84.51˚
There is no single secret sauce for effective internal communications. Because your audience and messages are varied, your strategy must be too. A successful multi-channel communications approach means using the right channel for the right purpose, ensuring employees know where to go for specific information and how to engage. This involves creating a clear purpose for each platform – from email and intranets to instant messaging and digital signage – and making them work together seamlessly.
This episode breaks down practical steps for creating a robust, tiered communications plan. It’s not just about pushing information out; it’s about fostering two-way dialogue, building community and strengthening company culture.
- Learn why a single-channel approach fails and a multi-channel strategy succeeds.
- Discover how to define a specific purpose for each of your communication channels.
- Understand the power of two-way channels for boosting engagement and community.
- Explore how to coordinate channels for major events and story-driven campaigns.
- Get tips for securing leadership buy-in by connecting culture to the bottom line.
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Transcript
Derek DeWitt: There’s a lot of advice out there for people in charge of internal communications about this method and that method and try this, or this is the new way or the new secret sauce. But the truth of the matter is, is that there is no one way to do things. Partly this is because your communications are varied. Partly it’s because all sorts of different organizations are different from one another. And your audience is varied as well; it’s made up of individual people. And so, there is talk these days of multi-channel comm strategies or sometimes what’s called a tiered approach to communications of all types.
Today we’re gonna talk about that in regards to internal communications with Jennifer Razanno. She is the director of internal communications for 84.51˚. Thanks for coming back on the podcast, Jenny.
Jennifer Razanno: Yeah, thanks Derek. It’s good to be here.
Derek DeWitt: Indeed. Good to have you. And thank you everybody out there for listening to this episode of Digital Signage Done Right. I remind you that you can subscribe and like, and share and all that jazz, and you can follow along with a transcript on the Visix website.
So, multi-comms strategy, tiered approaches with all sorts of nice buzzwords like “straight pull through” and “layering on” and whatnot. Let’s talk about this idea, which I think is, actually, is the right answer. I mean, this only makes sense to me. There can’t be just one catch-all fits-all-situations strategy towards communications. Doesn’t make any sense.
Jennifer Razanno: Right. Having a multi-channel approach and purpose for each of your channels, and then communicating that to your employees, is so important, so they know what to expect in each channel, where to go for each and how to engage with them. And then also, if they have a program that they need to communicate out or initiative to communicate about, they have a better sense of, you know, what is at my disposal? How can I reach my audiences? So, it’s both for the internal comms team to understand and to be really intentional about. And then working with, you know, the business teams on how to get their information out.
It starts with, like I said, just having a clear purpose of what each channel is for. But in your internal comms role, it’s not really to give your stakeholders like a drive through order menu. We don’t want them to come through and just be like, I want an email, I want an all-company meeting, you know? It’s really to understand, you know, what the best approach is for each one, and then making sure that they, like, feed off of each other.
So, if you have a reoccurring email newsletter, you’re always driving traffic back to your website where the content will live longer term. Emails definitely, you know, more focused content, probably quicker hits on, you know, if you do it weekly, they’re, you know, have a reliable cadence and contain essential information.
But then again, if you’re driving them back to your internet site for, you know, click here for more, you can go into deeper, longer form on an initiative where email, again, might just be a quick hit. But then if you have something stored then longer term on your internet site, it’s searchable, it’s findable. You may not be able to remember which email, you know, that was in when you’re digging through tons of emails every week, but you can always hopefully rely up upon the fact that, oh, yeah, that did drag me back, you know, to our internet where it’ll live on, you know, and not to make that just the dead end repository, but to make it, you know, searchable and again, like intentional.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. it’s interesting. You mentioned email. I came across a channel matrix for multi-channel comms from a company called Workshop who says they are the first email-first communications platform. So of course they have email at the very top of that, but I think that’s kind of true. I think a lot of people, certainly people 50 and over, years of age, they still think of things in terms of email first.
Jennifer Razanno: Yeah, it’s still pretty king. It’s kind of surprising in a way, in some ways, with all the other channels that are out there. But I do think it is, you know, unfortunately where you spend a lot of your time. I know that some companies, you know, rely more upon the instant messaging like a Slack or Microsoft Teams. We’re Microsoft heavy at our company, so we have Teams, and that can be used for more of like the quick messaging back and forth or within, like, project teams. It has more of a short shelf life. But we also set aside a Teams with a capital T site, which is like, kind of within the Microsoft Teams world, and we’ll do what we call like engagement posts out there. So, we’re using that to have more two-way communication.
And that’s another big goal of having a multi-channel approach is making sure you have two-way channels, too. A way for your audience to comment back or ask questions, you know. And sometimes, well, all times usually, with email, it’s kind of a one way. You’re sending it, it’s landing in the box, you know, you’ll have a “contact us” and they can email you back. But you know, if you’re opening up another channel where it is, two-way, other people peer-to-peer can see, oh, they’re asking about that. I had that same question, but I was afraid to ask, or I didn’t feel like putting it out there, you know? Like, if one person has the question and brings it up, it’s a good indicator that probably 10 others have the same one.
So, working in a two-way channel in your communication strategy is really important, too. And we’ll use that for what we call like engagement posts, too, so it’s not just like company news or project updates. We’ll do a monthly post on like, you know, what was your favorite summer read? You know, and we’ll have like, people just weigh in, like, oh my God, that was like our most popular one. And it just allows for a little bit more like levity and also, you know, engagement and people kind of like, hey, I have an extra copy of this, I just finished, you wanna borrow it, you know? And just kind of builds a little more community within that channel too.
But again, we also use that for company information, but we found the engagement posts have really allowed for a nice two-way. It also kind of allows for, like, democratization of communication in other subsets of those Team sites. Like we have one dedicated to what we call Care. It’s kind of a branded thing that goes in, anyways, it’s a long story, but people can put things out there where they’re fundraising for their kid’s band’s trying to get to the Rose Bowl parade, you know. And they can put that out there, you know, if someone’s sick and they wanna, you know, say, here, send flowers. And so that’s another way to like democratize.
And then we have one that’s strictly called like Water Cooler and that got spun up during COVID. And it was exactly what it sounds like. Hey, we’re not in the office able to shoot the you-know-what next to a coffee pot. Like, so we’re all, you know, virtual, we’re not feeling connected, so we created this Water Cooler site. And it’s just as it sounds, it’s just goofy stuff or recommendations, or did you see this new restaurant pop up, you know; our Chicago office, you know, real, real big foodies.
Derek DeWitt: Why did Daenerys freak out and have the dragon burn King’s Landing? Honestly! You know, are we all genetically pre-programmed? Let’s discuss, you know? Yeah.
Jennifer Razanno: Yeah, it’s a great space. It’s, you know, even, it’s even like, I don’t know, I think the last one I saw was like, I’m comparing a Subaru and a Honda like, you know? And it’s, you know, not something that obviously we’re in the mix of like, you know, moderating or anything. You know, everybody’s profile comes up, so it’s not like this anonymous Reddit situation, but it’s a chance for people just to connect.
So that’s part of our strategy, too, and communicating what each one of those things is for is where it’s just crucial because you’re not necessarily out to just saturate all of them. You’re trying to use them all strategically to push and pull in different places.
Derek DeWitt: I know that these sort of engagement posts, like you said, they’re not specifically about company news, they’re about other things. It’s an attempt to create a sense of belonging and community, and especially as we all work more sometimes remotely, but even, even if not, you know, you may have a company that’s on five or six different floors. I don’t see all the people on a floor that’s not my floor. I don’t even see the people that are on my floor most of the time. I’m at my little desk doing my thing. So, it is a way to kinda connect to people.
I wonder if there are still, there must still be some companies out there where the boss is like, I don’t care about any of this. If it isn’t specifically about making me money, I don’t care. And what do you do if you are an internal comms communications professional? You’re in charge of it and you’ve been told, Hey, we gotta make this, like, it’s gotta be amazing, and you know that this is the way forward. We have to do this. I know you think it’s frivolous. I know you think it’s fluffy. I know you think it’s about feelings or whatever. And yet studies, hard studies, show this is a good idea. How do you get the boss on board?
Jennifer Razanno: Yeah. In a case like that, I think you really try to point out that it’s about the culture. You know, it’s about improving culture or strengthening culture, whatever the bigger purpose of those things are. There are studies that show that that does end up hitting bottom line. You know, if you have a stronger connection among people, there’s, I don’t know, an old Gallup poll of something like, I have a friend at work, I think it used to be a best friend, now it’s like just a friend, so it’s like if you, you know, connect with people might have just a commonality with them. It goes beyond frivolous, and it starts to really create a stronger fabric of connection among people.
You could also compare it to people expect the channels that they use in their daily lives to be somewhat mirrored at work. They expect the same, you know, level, unfortunately, sometimes, because we don’t have video producers on our team. But, you know, if you’re doing multi-channel in your real, in your own life, which you totally are, you’ve got a million different places you’re going for media or, you know, updates or news, on and on, they expect the same, somewhat same, level inside your company.
So, if you don’t have a place like this, then there are some cases where people are gonna spin up their own, and then you aren’t privy necessarily to see what they’re saying. And that’s a worse place to be. You want to be able to see kind of what the pulse is. Feel the pulse. I know on the more engagement posts, you know, that’s not a hard hitting, you know, thing, but you can kind of get a sense of, oh, this person comments every time, and that might be a person that really is a big connector. And if you see, you know, that person or, you know, couple, five people doing that, you can then go to them later and be like, hey, you seem to be pretty well connected. What do you think of this? So like, you could, I don’t wanna say use them. You can see, like, where some of the influencers are in your company and, you know, just through these non-business topics and connection type posts.
So there’s a lot of different angles to work that. And I’m not saying we do that every week, you know, like, I don’t think there’d be a problem to do an engagement post every week, but we try to limit it to monthly just to, you know, keep it fresh and not be annoying to people, you know, because there is a barrage of information any given week coming out. So, it’s not over the top. But I would definitely, if I had to make the case for a leader who’s, you know, grumpy about something like that, I would again, like hit on culture, connections and then, you know, identifying your internal influencers, because you may wanna tap them for when something big does go down.
Derek DeWitt: Well, like at Visix, for example, my wife, Debbie, runs the intranet, and she uses it as kind of, not just as a repository, but also in this engagement way. Like, every Wednesday she puts up a Question Time post. And it could be something like, hey, what’s your favorite card game? Or it could be, you know, if you could travel in time, would you go a hundred years to the future or a hundred years to the past? Or Batman or Superman? And then you can kind of see the responses that you get, you know? Some of them you get three comments, some of them you get 15 comments, you’re like, oh! Sometimes you get comments, and then comments on the comments. And so you see this sort of thing. I mean, people love this, and she does make sure that it’s every Wednesday, so it’s predictable. And people have told her they know this and they look forward to it.
Jennifer Razanno: Yeah. The cadence is important. That’s a perfect example of it’s always gonna be in the same place, she’s not gonna email it one week or, you know, put it over here another week. It’s like, you know, you have that familiarity and cadence is really important. So, it’s great.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. So, when we’re talking about multi-channel, we’re talking about utilizing different tech tools, really. Email is still used. It’s actually very good for certain kinds of things, maybe not so good for other kinds of things. SMS notifications, I know some companies use them. They often integrate them into their alert systems so that, you know, like, hey, there’s a fire. Oh, I got a text; that’s unusual.
I do know that some universities and a few other types of organizations sometimes have tried to make SMS messages to people’s phones a normal part of their communications. I believe that generally people don’t dig it. I might be projecting simply because I kind of feel like, hey, that’s my phone, you know? Obviously, you’ve got an intranet, you’ve got these IM things on Teams and Slack, and video conferencing, town hall meetings, face-to-face meetings. You’ve got all these different ways.
I do wonder though, if different ones don’t carry different let me call them response expectations. And by what I mean by that is if the company, or if I send out an email, I don’t expect a response in the next day, even. But I have noticed, when using something that uses instant messaging, like Teams, you know, and sometimes I’m away, I’m doing stuff, I’m busy, and just like with email, I’ll get to it when I get to it. I don’t check it constantly. But there’s a weird expectation for a lot of people that I sent you a Teams message, 20 minutes later you haven’t responded. So, when I do check in, I have the initial message and then a bunch of, did you get this message? Why haven’t you responded? Speculation about the question I asked you. You know you’re just like, well, you’re like a needy girlfriend or boyfriend. Like what, why are there these disconnects in expectation of response?
Jennifer Razanno: Yeah, I don’t really know why. I guess under the umbrella of instant message or, you know, a ping or things like that, I know sometimes we have, within our own team, chatted about like, do we have team principles on those type of situations? You know, do we say, you know, 24 hours or, you know, what are the expectations? We haven’t gone that far, but I think for that, it might just be a personal thing where, you know, you could even say like, hey, I’m not always checking this so. I prefer this channel, or whatever, you know?
It’s interesting how those dynamics play out. And for ours within Teams, I’m sure it’s similar with Slack and others, but you can see when, you know, you’re green, you’re online; you’re yellow, you’re away; you know, you’re red, you’re in a meeting, you know, so that’s a little bit helpful. But then sometimes even when you’re not in meetings and you’re trying to work, it can be really disruptive. It’s intrusive in a way that sometimes, I think, really hinders our focus.
But that also might be generational. You know, that might be where different generations are used to just sliding over to different channels and, you know, responding or reaching out. It could be something where you do establish some light, I know principles sounds like a big word, but just, you know, guidance or, you know, some kind of preference and just, you know, put it out there and see, you know, if that helps. ‘Cause I think with everything, you know, clear is kind, right? You know, just clarity is important. And if you all have that same understanding, that could help.
Derek DeWitt: Now when you’re, say, building up towards some kind of a larger event like a town hall, which could be people in person, it could also include people, you know, dialing in remotely, or some kind of all hands meeting or whatever, I know that sometimes, I’ve been in companies where sometimes it’s been announced, okay, we’re gonna have, this isn’t a normal thing, or once a month or every two months we do this meeting. The big boss has called an all-hands meeting. And then there’s no other information except date, time, location. And speculation runs rife, and people start freaking out and rumors and da, da, da, da, da, da.
And so I recently came across the advice that what you should do is kind of set the stage for it, pre-event, you know, use your other channels to say, hey, these are some of the things we’re gonna be covering, this is the main purpose of this if you want to participate. So, what’s the wisdom of using those other channels to sort of pregame the situation and then after the event to kind of follow up and reinforce the highlights and things like this? Are people doing this more often?
Jennifer Razanno: Yeah. We have monthly all company meetings and just bring the whole group together. And, you know, we just think the cadence builds trust and culture. And we’ve been using, to your point, the pregame, you know, definitely on a quarterly basis. So, we have a monthly, but people know quarterly to expect the results, how we did last quarter. So, they know on those months that’s what’s gonna be covered, so that’s kind of a built-in cadence.
We don’t necessarily communicate the full agenda just because sometimes it’s up to the hour and things are changing. And you know, that’s another thing if you guys, your audience feels real solid on the, yeah, this is our, these are our topics, we’re not strained from this. That’s another way to just kind of set expectations. Here’s your agenda.
The other way that we’ve been pre-gaming is, hey, we have this meeting coming up, what questions do you have for our president? So, we’re not doing them really live, just because sometimes that gets a little squirrely for everyone, and our president wants to hit on, like I said before, more of, like, the pulse. What are more people wondering about versus the random guy who’s like, is our parking increasing, you know, and everybody else is like, I don’t care. You know? So sometimes you’re really rolling the dice. I mean, I know that has a great optics, it looks great to just, you know, end all questions live, but sometimes you’re just not getting to the source of what a lot of people are wondering.
So, each month we say like, hey, ask him anything, or whatever. And we kind of tee it up that way. And we tell people, too, then, hey, this is gonna be more about themes than, you know, every single question’s gonna be answered. So, people’s expectations are set and they’re not like, hey, I asked that, you know, two meetings ago and it never came up. So, that’s our part of our pre-game too.
And it really helps make it see, like, you know, the old school, like must-see TV. You know, if there’s enough of those questions, you know, he’s addressing them right then and there, and that’s really worth gold just to have that, you know, versus having a big written explanation of something. Like he’s a great communicator, just handles things very straightforwardly and sometimes even has good amount of humor with it, which is helpful.
So, we do that every month now and kind of have a standing agenda where he’s covering that off at the end. And so it kind of keeps people, like, tuned in, you know? But then to your point of follow up, we post the presentation on our intranet, and then in our newsletter we say, you know, hey, it was a great meeting, you know, for the resources go here. So, we link people right to those.
Derek DeWitt: And this is an internal newsletter?
Jennifer Razanno: Yes. Uh huh. A weekly one. And then, excuse me, we run a survey after each meeting, throw up the QR code at the very end, which sometimes gets lost just because people are leaving. So then we use our digital screens and say, you know, what did you think of this meeting? We have the QR code on the screen just with a headline, like, you know, what do you wanna hear next time or whatever, remind people where the resources are for that meeting. But then, you know, the, the headline is, give us your feedback. It could be rolled into the next.
So, we try to have this kind of rolling channel approach each time, and we really do hit most all of them with before, you know, during, which is the all company meeting channel, and then after, which are the screens, the email follow up, and then the posting on our intranet.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, I was gonna say digital signage, to me, seems like an easy way to both pre- and post-game these sorts of things, you know? Because, here, it’s simple, here are three main bullet points that we’re gonna talk about. Here’s a QR code.
QR code already addresses one of the issues. And I know this is an issue for a lot of communicators out there, is like, hey, it’s hard enough tracking engagement, and now you want me to track engagement across what, six, seven different channels? How am I supposed to do this? Well, something like a QR code is simple. Stick it everywhere. Create a dedicated webpage that’s just for that specific QR code. And the tracking’s built in, it’s already there.
So, you’re using those digital signs. You’re putting it up repeatedly without being intrusive. ‘Cause if you send me Teams messages every day, don’t forget there’s a meeting. Here’s a link if you want to, you know, ask questions or you send me more emails ’cause I’m just not gonna read them. I’m gonna put them in a folder and go, I’ll read them later and then I’ll forget. And if you send me SMSs, I’m just gonna get annoyed. Digital signs are perfect. I’m walking along and I go, oh, oh, yeah, that’s right. I’m glad that reminded me of this. I forgot. And a QR code, boom. I just do it right there. I got my phone in my pocket. Bam!
Jennifer Razanno: Yeah, we have ours set up strategically in many places throughout the building, but then I’ve seen the most traction for our screens, or digital displays, right next to the line of the cafe. So our, you’re just sitting there, you’re waiting, you know, you’re looking at the lunch menu, but you know, you usually have your favorites in mind and you’re just kind of zoning and you know, that’s cycling through. And, and that’s a great, I think, somewhat captive audience. ‘Cause our cafe line can be kind of slow.
Derek DeWitt: Not to cap on the employees. They are doing their best!
Jennifer Razanno: It’s all grace given to them. But that’s a great place for us to just be like, yeah, there’s some, there’s some billboard stuff to stare at while you’re waiting for your panini.
Derek DeWitt: Another thing that I think it’s also good at doing, because it repeats and it’s, you might encounter it several times throughout the day and the week is, you know, we talk about story-driven content and creating, sometimes they’re called campaigns, or just narratives or just kind of longer things. Like, hey, here’s a big complicated thing. Maybe it’s an upcoming meeting. We’re gonna talk about 12 things. Well, we’re not sticking all that on one screen at once. Here are three of them. Here are three more. Here’s another message with another three, and then a fourth one with the final three. And you kinda link them together into this kind of, they make sense the way they flow, there’s a sense of narrative and story there.
And we all know that that’s easier to remember, actually. I mean, that’s one of the old memory tricks is create a story. If I start reading off capital cities and I read off 20 capital cities, you’ll never remember them. But if you create a story using the first letter of each one, then there’s a better chance you will remember it. Because that’s just how our brains are wired. Do you have any experience using a multi-channel approach towards story-driven content?
Jennifer Razanno: Yes. We have an annual all-employee event every year. And that is our biggest opportunity for, like, a theme to be worked in throughout that meeting. And then that theme carries through, you know, at least the next quarter, into the next year. Like, this is coming up in October for us, and we just had our 10-year anniversary, so, you know, we’re working through the narrative construct of like chasing the horizon. So like, what’s next? You know, and then as we know, you never really get to that horizon, but how are you going after the future? So, we do have a lot of storytelling through that. It’s, in some cases, at least in this one.
And really, I guess with all of these bigger annual events, you do reflect on the year past or where you’ve come, you know, so that’s a big storytelling device, you know, where have we come and where are we going and what are we conquering next? And what are the barriers that are out there that we need to overcome? And, you know, who’s the hero of the story? You know, it’s us and helping our customers. And so, we definitely use that construct for the annual meeting.
I’m not trying to say it’s not in top of mind for other things, too, but it really allows like a big broader arc. The meeting itself is pretty involved and there’s other meetings that follow that, that are more team based. So then, you know, you’ve got the big story and then the individual, what’s this mean to our team? And then when we turn the page, ’cause it’s always usually in the fall, it’s carried over into the start of the next year. It’s like, you know, hey, remember when we did this and we were talking about these barriers and now that’s why our strategy looks like this to overcome that. And so we use that device pretty often.
Derek DeWitt: Well, Jenny, stimulating stuff. It’s super interesting to talk about this stuff with you. And so thank you for coming on the podcast.
Jennifer Razanno: Yeah, it’s my pleasure. Thanks.
Derek DeWitt: I’ve been talking with Jennifer Razanno, director of internal communications for 84.51˚, about using a multi-channel approach to internal communications. And a couple of things that she mentioned in there actually do tie into an earlier conversation she and I had back in July about the high cost of poor communications. Because as she said in there, it does kind of ultimately, even if it seems fluffy or about feelings or whatever, it does affect the bottom line because your company is not a thing all by itself. It’s made up of people, right?
Jennifer Razanno: Yep. Preach!
Derek DeWitt: Preach. Yeah. Right.
And of course, I remind all of you listeners that there is a transcript of everything that Jennifer and I just talked about on the Visix website under resources/podcasts, and you’ll find lots of helpful links there as well.