Optimizing an intranet for marketing departments might not be on your mind, but your marketers can benefit from stronger connections with the rest of your corporation.
“Until recently, we communicated through email. This was to share patient information and… not much else. There was little in the way of engaging employees, celebrating achievements, or keeping in touch,”
said Christi Krizman, Director of Development and Training at Promises Behavioral Health. The company now has a 70% average engagement rate on Blink.
The health organization shares personal anecdotes and success stories and communicates with different branches and departments easily.
Best of all, with a smart intranet, your marketing team members can use these interactions and stories as marketing collateral.
The intranet for marketing means taking advantage of features other departments will be excited about — like your company social networking feed — and using them to ease your marketers’ workload.
Must-have features for your marketing intranet
Intranets have been associated with HR or IT for a long time. But these departments aren’t the only ones who benefit from a way to connect to the rest of your organization.
With the right features, your marketing department can both source materials and share upcoming campaigns with ease.
You need to be able to share different media content on your intranet. And you want to be able to share the latest marketing strategies with frontline staff and receive pictures, videos, and feedback from them. It should be simple for everyone to publish their own content too.
An intranet with different permission settings will help make sure only certain teams or people have approval to see specific documents or market research. That makes it easier to share information confidently in the digital workplace.
The best intranet platforms for marketers should integrate with other apps like Slack or Microsoft 365, so your team can continue to use the tools they feel comfortable with.
Surveys will help marketing gain feedback from different departments without hassle. They can then check the built-in analytics to see how engaged employees are with the content they’re posting.
5 ways to use your intranet for marketing
Now you know what features to look for in a marketing intranet, it’s time to go over how you can use those tools productively.
1. Share marketing initiatives
Sometimes employees don’t know about new deals or offers unless they get notifications from management. An intranet keeps everyone on the same page.
2. Create a sharable photo album
Make an album where staff can upload pictures or video clips that marketing can use. Having one place where a photo of a staff celebration can be quickly uploaded to the company intranet reduces the strain on all of your workers.
When it’s easier for people to share their content, they’re more likely to.
3. Collect social media content
Not only pictures but quotes, examples of good work by frontline workers, and even share job vacancies at specific locations. Social media is becoming less curated, and more authentic content is resonating with users.
Sharing digital marketing materials with actual workers instead of models can help you achieve that genuine feel.
4. Promote your company blog
Share posts that staff are likely to be interested in and learn from. 89% of marketers use blogs in their content strategies, but do your workers know about it? Don't just send them to your homepage — share case studies, white papers, and press releases they might care about.
5. Share marketing materials that others need
Have a folder or feed for current sales strategy and brand assets, so if an employee needs to reference them, they’ll always have easy access to the promotions.
Get your marketing team on board
A social intranet is only as good as the contributions from its users.
You need to get your marketing department engaged with a new platform, or they won’t see the benefits from the workspace.
Multiple experts at the Content Marketing Institute expect video content to grow in 2022, but your department might not have the resources to create all of this content themselves.
By leaning into your company’s intranet software, your team can source photos, videos, success stories, milestones, and other materials from frontline workers and other departments as they create them.
Marketing will be able to access this information quickly — and in most cases, directly. 23% of marketers surveyed by HubSpot said just finding the ideas for new content was their biggest challenge for 2022.
If your marketing team is able to improve internal communications with other branches, they can access new information and learn what’s trending in stores now.
They can also use employee-generated content as a springboard or incorporate it directly into new marketing efforts.
The best way to have marketing get on board with an intranet is to have them try it out for free and see how they like it.
Final thoughts: marketing intranet — using an intranet to transform marketing
An intranet for marketing can streamline the entire department and lessen their workload.
Having your entire company help generate content yields a more authentic message that improves employee engagement and means less time spent hunting for a good photo or story.
Communicating and defining the roles helps keep everyone on the same page.
But make sure the intranet solution you choose has the features your organization needs for each department.
Your employees need to be able to access the intranet easily, and a mobile solution will help more workers connect and engage.
Help cut down on the work your marketing department is facing with a fast, company-wide intranet like Blink today.
