In Part 1, we explored why internal branding is the foundation for building iconic brands and driving business growth. We discussed how great storytelling begins at home, empowering employees to become authentic brand ambassadors by connecting them to the company's vision, values, and purpose. Now in Part 2, we'll dive deeper into the how. We'll show you how to build a cohesive internal branding strategy that creates alignment, inspires belief, and ultimately fuels external impact.
Let's take the next step in creating a brand that thrives from the inside out...
INTERNAL BRANDING: A CORNERSTONE OF STORY BUILDING
At Hyperquake, stories have always been a driving force of our work to elevate brands. For years we’ve helped clients bring greater clarity to their brand narrative and critical stories, delved deeper with audiences who knew brands by name only but not their story, and created opportunities to introduce target audiences to brands they didn’t know existed. Capturing the imagination of external audiences requires stories of purpose and value – and the same is true for internal audiences.
The stories we’ve shaped that fueled Executive Briefing Centers as clients reached out to targeted B2B opportunities also have adjacent relevance to internal audiences. For many clients the reality, and often the prioritized budget, has dictated delivering on the immediate opportunity first. Afterward the potential to unpack stories told to the customer and position them to tell more detailed and nuanced internal stories becomes clear.
This requires a rethinking of strategic branding priorities. By starting with internal branding as the cornerstone of brand storytelling, and connecting the dots across vision, purpose, values, distinctiveness and stories, you can accelerate any customized storytelling to targeted external audiences. It also ensures consistency and continuity in the stories being shared.
THE BUILDING BLOCKS FOR INTERNAL BRANDING
You don’t need to be a Fortune 100 brand to have an effective internal branding effort. Every growth-minded brand has an origin story, a set of guiding principles that helped foster growth, and a team of people who will tell the stories they know – whether they are accurate or not. Therefore, clarifying those stories for everyone should be a top business priority.
Here are some of the foundational building blocks to begin creating effective internal branding efforts:
Capturing compelling stories. Discover the stories that matter to the company. The origin story, growth stories, stories of trial, adversity, failure and the learnings that followed. This often requires conducting interviews, digging deep into company history, understanding the economic climate of the time, and so on. Remember that every great story has conflict, otherwise it isn’t a compelling story.
Identifying credible storytellers. This includes the founders, the innovators, and the charismatic leaders who earned trust and respect in the organization. Whether it’s for credibility, for firsthand knowledge and experience, or for the sake of likability, considering who delivers what stories can make or break your efforts. Coaching these individuals in a methodology on how to tell a story convincingly, present it verbally, and deliver it with slides and visual cues becomes essential.
Leveraging multiple mediums. The ways in which people absorb stories are vast, and it requires a blend of strategies to reach them. Having a captive audience for internal meetings might seem ideal, but isn’t always effective for knowledge retention. Leverage the tools you have at your disposal – videos, screens, in-person events, presentations, intranets, apps with storytelling content and approaches that stick. This includes everything from the fully baked TED talk presentation to a 15-second reel or screen shot of key points, and considering every tactic in between.
Prioritizing frequency. Think of storytelling as loyalty-building or at minimum, loyalty seed-planting. It’s about playing the long game, but also playing it continuously. It is the non-gimmicky reason to believe and be all in. Every customer touchpoint and the overall user experience needs to connect back to people they trust (your internal people) and a story that moves them to action (compelling, on-brand stories and marketing). Win the internal audience by consistently telling your story, even as it evolves, pivots and changes, and they’ll help you earn the external audiences.
Connecting daily work to a bigger purpose. Historic stories aren’t the only ones that count. Help internal audiences see the role they play in the story right now by connecting the work that is currently unfolding to historical touch points and the company’s larger purpose.
Building Inside-out credibility. As value propositions and marketing campaigns get implemented, share them with your internal people. Having knowledge of how the company shows up to outside audiences is important. Further, when they understand you value employees first, then customers by way of actions, it cultivates belonging and a stronger internal culture.
At some point, most driven business leaders and innovators have their Field of Dreams moment – that unshakable belief and intuition that “if you build it, they will come.” It is a deep longing for game-changing results. While calculated risk-taking is important and necessary, there is one risk-free, business-changing effort that awaits: helping your internal team believe in your brand.
What sounds like an easy ask requires deliberate implementation. It is still work. But for those who are dialed in and have reason to believe, their belief serves to enhance the work, and it shows up in all the right metrics helping to accelerate brands to new and previously unimaginable heights.
