The Pitney Bowes Intanet Case Study

Internal Marketing: Engaging
Employees Through Transformation
Manager, Internal Digital Strategy

“The single biggest problem in
communication is the illusion
that it has taken place.”
George Bernard Shaw
Irish Playwright
Pitney Bowes | Internal Marketing: Engaging Employees Through Transformation 2

Objective:
State-of-the-art internal
communications function
to drive productivity and
positive change
Solution:
A responsive, efficient
communication
ecosystem built around
employee needs

Building the Plan to Market to Employees
Understand Our
Audience
Deep dive into the
needs and
behaviors of our
audience(s)
Create personas to
help tell better
stories using the
right channels
Evaluate Current
Vehicles
Perform channel
audit of existing
internal
communications
Distill key insights
and define channel
roles and KPIs
Tell Important
Stories
Establish high-level
content strategy for
major initiatives
Develop editorial
calendar
Turn Plan Into
Action
Define editorial
roles and
responsibilities
Recommend
editorial workflow

Personas are storytelling tools
that help us understand our
audience’s goals and desires
through composites of real
people.
They serve as the basis for
communications planning.

Personas Identified
Corporate
Sales
Digital Commerce
Engineering
Service Management
Presort

Persona: Joanne in Corporate
Joanne is always thinking about how she can do more with her time –
and add value to the company in more useful ways.
The most consistent thing about Joanne’s day is that she gets in early so
she can be prepared for the day ahead. She needs some time to get
ready because she could be starting the day off with a meeting or
presentation, and she feels more comfortable with preparation.
Sometimes Joanne might spend her morning focusing on responding to
emails and coordinating efforts with her colleagues that way. Most of the
time she’s on her computer and mobile device because so much of her
work is done through using Microsoft Office applications and through
email, which means that she is never far from her laptop.
Being able to work wherever and whenever is helpful because Joanne
tends to multitask in the many meetings that she also attends throughout
the day. She values face time as it breaks up a lot of the time that she
spends in front of a computer, which is constant. At the same time, she
also feels compelled to at least check email even after work hours.
Joanne wants to be successful in her career and needs to feel that the
company she works her is also doing the same. She looks forward to any
news and information about company performance, and expects to know
about what’s happening as soon as it happens. If she can’t find the
company news that expects on internal channels, she’ll look wherever
she can to be informed.
Joanne’s Goals
• Develop professionally and improve
her group’s performance and
reputation.
• Find the information she needs on her
own time and through her means.
• Avoid spending more time on laptop or
phone that feels unnecessary.
• Understand the company’s
performance, personnel and
organizational shifts.

How We Talk to Joanne
Increase the transparency quotient.
Knowledge workers tend to be closer to what is happening in the
company at-large, but they want confirmation of what they’ve been
hearing and to be acknowledged quickly.
Provide new ways to connect with and understand
other employees.
Corporate employees are more likely to browse and search for
company news on their own, but will only do so if there’s optimal
content and experience.
Utilize external news sources to add value and
build legitimacy.
These employees are more likely to be information junkies and
discover what external people are saying about the company.
Leverage external news sources to make corporate
communications feel more trusted.
KEY INTERNAL CHANNELS
KEY EXTERNAL CHANNELS
email intranet manager
LinkedIn web/magazines mobile

Persona: Sam in Sales
Sam is what you would call a go-getter. He’s up and working before many
people even wake up to get prepared for the long day ahead
of him.
Sam spends a few hours a day with clients on his laptop and mobile phone,
so he’s always engaged. Reacting quickly to messages and acting swiftly with
clients is critical to achieving success as a sales rep, so he’s always on
Outlook and Salesforce while using other sites like LinkedIn or Hoover’s.
Success is not only about meeting sales quotas but exceeding them. Sam
feels secure in his job, but still feels the need for a healthy dose of competition
to keep him going. He wants to remain one of the company’s top salespeople,
and likes to know how much sales is contributing to company wins.
Sam is comfortable with technology but feels that it could be easier for him to
get product and service information when he needs it. Outside of sales team
meetings, Sam doesn’t interact that much with the rest of the company.
Most of the company news he gets is through his manager or email from
people he already knows. He understands that it’s important to know what’s
going on with the company, but doesn’t have the time to go through a lot of
messages that may not be relevant to what he needs to do his job.
Sam’s Goals
• Achieve high success in sales by not
only meeting quotas but exceeding
them.
• Easily access and wayfind all the
information he needs to work with
clients, feel confident it’s up to date.
• Receive corporate communications
tailored to the sales team in the places
where they spend the most time.
• Access the same level of information
across all devices seamlessly and
instantly.

KEY INTERNAL CHANNELS
KEY EXTERNAL CHANNELS
email manager
LinkedIn mobile
How We Talk to Sam
Focus on targeted content that highlights the role
of sales to the larger company.
Since the sales team is results focused, they do not have much
bandwidth for messaging that doesn’t feel like a value add to their
daily activities.
Celebrate and recognize individual impact.
Sales teams are motivated not only by results measured in
revenue, but in the opportunity to be recognized and tell their story
to the rest of the company.
Enable better peer connections for more effective
sales.
Communicate why greater participation in a more collaborative,
interconnected work culture can generate better sales results.
Salesforce

A Note on Personas
Personas are tools that can be used to more
effectively create any targeted communication or
campaign.
Through storytelling, personas help generate
empathy in the person creating the
communication.
Persona communication guidelines serve as a
useful baseline for identifying the right approach
and channel opportunities.

Evaluating Current Vehicles

Taking a Closer Look
Taking the key channels
identified by our personas,
let’s take a closer look at
their current state.

Analysis Using Three Key Attributes
Usefulness
• Does the audience find the communication valuable?
• Does the communication serve the purpose we wanted
it to achieve?
Engagement
• Does our audience remain engaged with the
communication?
• Is the communication presented in a way that is
consistently memorable?
Accessibility
• Can our audience successfully access the
communication in the channel they find most suitable?
• Is the communication accessible in all of the most
useful channels?

Email Channel Analysis
Usefulness
Email is the primary way users are currently engaging
with internal communications and how they want to
engage moving forward. It remains the most useful form
of direct messaging provided engagement and
accessibility can be improved.
Engagement
Most employees feel inundated by email throughout their
work day. Employees would get more value from emails
that more clearly identify content through clear and
engaging subject lines, and organization of text.
Accessibility
Many users are accessing email messages across
multiple devices. Ensure that email designs are optimized
for all devices and make the length of emails more
digestible on mobile devices.
Key Takeaways
Email is still the path to internal communications for most
users, but optimizing and improving the experience is
needed.
Accessibility
Engagement
Usefulness

Intranet Channel Analysis
Usefulness
Inside PB is valued very differently among different
groups of users. There is at least an overall perception
that Inside PB should and could serve as an important
source for information, though it has so far not lived up to
its potential.
Engagement
Current engagement is relatively low. Employees have
remarked about the lack of comprehensive content and
unreliable search capabilities that prevent deeper
engagement.
Accessibility
Employees have incompatibility issues or poor
experiences with various browsers and devices. There is
also difficulty with overall wayfinding.
Key Takeaways
The new InsidePB has great potential to quickly become
the primary source for information if the user experience
and content approach delivers on the ambitions of the
site.
Accessibility
Engagement
Usefulness

Manager Channel Analysis
Usefulness
When they deliver information about the company,
manager communication feels trusted, valuable and
useful for most employees – especially presort.
Engagement
Quality of engagement varies depending on the business
unit as well as the availability and working styles of
individual managers. When managers do communicate,
employees are highly engaged.
Accessibility
Level of accessibility also varies on a case-by-case basis.
Providing tools and resources to make manager
communication easier could be valuable.
Key Takeaways
Managers are one of the most important channels for
internal communication with ample opportunity to be
utilized in more creative and effective ways.
Accessibility
Engagement
Usefulness

It’s also worth keeping in
mind how employees utilize
external channels for future
communication opportunities.

External Channel Considerations
Mobile plays a key role in how employees communicate in all BUs – from
sales to presort. Besides optimizing all experiences for mobile, a dedicated
company app could create an additional layer of value for communications.
LinkedIn is a highly utilized channel for many employees for both
professional and personal uses. While opportunities for internal
communications are limited, taking advantage of advanced features on the
platform such as blogging and social following can help create positive
perception of the company.
Salesforce is as ubiquitous as email for sales and digital commerce teams.
Given the overwhelming volume of email received, using the Salesforce
Chatter platform for company messaging could prove useful and direct.
YouTube is one of the most popular platforms in the world, which means
that it’s highly shareable. Company videos hosted on YouTube can bridge
conversation between internal employees and external partners, potentially
boosting brand equity and EVP.

Mapping Priority Channels to Personas
PERSONA INTERNAL CHANNELS EXTERNAL CHANNELS
Corporate
Sales
Digital Commerce
Engineering
Service
Management
Presort

InsidePB:

Digital Signage: Drive to Web

Managers as Communicators
15 sessions (3 general;
2 for each function)
~ 50 general and role-specific
information documents
Role-specific ambassadors, armed
with consistent responses to FAQs
IMPACT IQ to validate manager
communication and engage employees
Manager’s workspace with resources
and customizable content
Robust IMPACT workspace on
InsidePB for all employees

We will measure the
success of the vehicle as
well as overall campaigns.

Key Internal Channel Roles and KPIs
CHANNEL ROLE KPI
Email creates buzz and participation around company news and
initiatives and drives traffic to InsidePB.
Email opens, click throughs, click-
to-open rate, task completion rate.
Intranet engages users as a destination for all internal comms and
becomes a destination for work productivity, self-serve information and
employee benefits.
Unique visits, organic visits, time
spent on site, reduction in IT and
HR support.
Managers deliver sensitive or confidential information to employees
and encourage participation for CTAs.
Overall attendance.
Town Halls serve as an opportunity for revealing company vision and
garnering employee feedback and encourage team building and
camaraderie.
Yammer activity.
Print provides core company messaging for presort and serves as
campaign extension for all other employees.
Task completion rate.
Digital Signage provides core company messaging where available,
extends campaign messaging and delivers contextual and localized
messaging and CTAs.
Overall impressions, click throughs,
task completion rate, perception,
understanding, accuracy.

At the program level, internal
comms success will be reflected
in changes from baseline in
engagement survey questions like:
“Pitney Bowes does an excellent
job keeping employees informed
about our products and services.”

Turning Plan into Action

Roles and Responsibilities Map
Internal Team Collaborators
editor-in-chief
• manages and approves all
internal comms content
• establishes editorial
processes and guidelines
• develops editorial calendar
and content agenda
community manager
• manages and publishes all
InsidePB stories
• engages with InsidePB
users, drives participation
• shares, responds to user
feedback
managing editor
• manages writers, content
development and
production
• ensures editorial processes
and guidelines are
consistent
writer / editor
• develops, pitches and
writes stories
• establishes collaborative
relationships with BU and
regional communicators
• maintains brand
consistency
data analyst
• gathers and analyzes user
engagement metrics
• provides audience insights
writer
• develops, pitches and
writes stories
• collaborates with other
writers and editors
designer / creative
• creates graphics and other
visual elements
BU communicator
• manages and approves
content intended only for
BU audience
• works with managing editor
to surface BU stories
company-wide
regional
communicator
• manages and approves
content intended only for
regional audience
• works with managing editor
to surface regional stories
company-wide

Responsible for disseminating top
level, enterprise wide messaging to
all areas of the business, corporate
must relay all information regarding
the company at large including
major news, branding, vision, and
global issues.

InsidePB

Questions?

Thank you

The Pitney Bowes Intanet Case Study

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