Do you advertise to your employees? Wait, what?

You advertise because customers are “consumers of information”, right? They actively seek, evaluate and internalize your brand and promotional messages, ultimately embracing the most timely and relevant ones. You seek to influence behavior with your advertising, especially in the store, where more than 50% of buying decisions are ultimately made.

What is interesting is that while most retailers will agree with the truism I state above, many fail to view their employees in this light. Yet, retail employees are likely the most “ravenous consumers of information” when it comes to their brand and employer. Why? Because what you say to them matters a lot!

In fact, there is great value in communicating with your employees in this fashion because they care more about what you have to say than the average consumer. More importantly, your team is very open to messages that are intended to make them more successful and enhance the in-store experience for all.

So let’s take a look at one way that you can better communicate with your retail teams – by using a digital bulletin board and implementing tried and true consumer advertising strategies. Here are some ideas to consider:

Forget Paper – Long gone are the days of consumers looking through coupon racks at the store, or retailers posting the circulars so consumers can view specials. Today, digital signage delivers all of this information in an “impossible to ignore” format for consumers visiting stores. For store associates however, the disconnect is real. Most employers rely on overcrowded and outdated bulletin boards to share information. If this communication methodology is ineffective for consumers, why would you use it to communicate with your employees? A digital bulletin board allows you to keep your messages fresh, relevant, timely and interesting, and lets you repeat them frequently to achieve the desired level of awareness within your employee base.
Simple is Powerful – Successful digital advertising is designed to be “ingested” by the consumer in less than 10 seconds (and with very little reading, I might add…). Typically, a powerful but simple value proposition is paired with a relevant and impactful visual, and repeated at least 3 times during a customer’s store visit to create awareness. Employee digital messaging can easily follow this formula, and a playlist of short “ads” highlighting new products, key messages, meetings, training reminders, actions items, benefits – you name it, and raising awareness of these messages through effective repetition.
One Voice – Critical information is sometimes relegated to emails sent to store managers for them to verbally disseminate to their teams, putting the store manager (read: extremely busy person) in the role of delivering and interpreting the messages for their team. Centrally generated digital messages can deliver uniform messaging across your stores’ network, allowing managers to support the messages without having to interpret them (and also saving valuable time for the store manager.)

Influencing your employees behavior by sharing timely and relevant in-store messages that allow them to do a better job with consumers, helps retailers to build consumer loyalty and create revisits, but also reduces employee turnover. When employees embrace their employer’s brand as part of their own personal identity, they commit to mutual goals for personal and professional advancement. Not only is the value of this type of messaging self-evident to most retailers, the results are highly measurable.

A digital bulletin board is a simple but powerful solution. With the right partner, you can implement it quickly and cost effectively, giving you a measurable advantage over your competitors. Abierto can help you to upgrade your employee in-store communications, making them “impossible to ignore” with a digital bulletin board fit for your needs. Interested but have questions? Please visit our website at www.ab-net.us/kiosk/, or connect with me via LinkedIn – I’d love to hear from you!