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Now that you have an action plan for implementing your business purpose, it’s time to communicate that purpose to others within your organization.
In the focus on external marketing, many businesses forget the importance of strong internal communications. An internal emphasis on your purpose has the power to motivate your employees, inspire great work, and turn the actions it spurs into operational habits.
As we covered last week, your employees must understand what your purpose looks like in practice so that they can make this mission part of their daily work. Communicating your purpose is not trivial. A 2013 study by The Energy Project and the Harvard Business Review found that employees who feel “connected to a higher purpose at work” show higher levels of engagement, loyalty and job satisfaction at work, and report lower levels of stress. In turn, engagement at work correlates with improved corporate performance.
Try these strategies for communicating your purpose internally:
Get Employees Involved
Ask for employee feedback on your organization’s purpose. Make sure that all of your team members feel connected to the purpose by seeking employee ideas on how to act on it. For example, if your corporate social responsibility goals include charitable support, you may find that many of your employees already have connections to worthy causes. In asking, you’ll remind your employees of the organization’s purpose, and learn more about what your people value.
Moreover, getting employees involved opens up opportunities to put your purpose into practice in different ways. If your business is committed to environmental sustainability, add value to your purpose by arranging an employee-led recycling program or a weekend cleanup initiative. Ask employees for their ideas for these activities, and let them take control of creating their own programs. This not only engages employees in your purpose, but also allows them to help shape it and own it.
Celebrate Success
When your company achieves a significant goal related to your purpose, take advantage of the chance to reinvigorate your employees. Host a company lunch or happy hour to celebrate your success, and be sure to give credit to the hardworking employees involved with the project. Use the opportunity to remind everyone in your organization why you do what you do, refocusing attention on your purpose.
Achievements can also be acknowledged on internal online communications channels, such as internal social media or an employee newsletter, and via external channels like a company blog (bonus points for having your employees write the posts!).
What other techniques do you use to promote your purpose internally?
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After a business purpose statement is written, how can you ensure that it is actionable and meaningful?
As you work to communicate and operationalize your brand’s purpose, you must craft short- and long-term goals to translate your purpose statement into practice. These goals must be specific, measurable, and achievable.
Short-Term Goals
By setting short-term goals at regular intervals, your organization can divide long-term objectives into manageable tasks. Use project management software or online tools to map out the steps your business needs to take, and to organize and allocate work. These goals must be specific and measurable. Avoid vague benchmarks.
Short-term goals should be meaningful, but not too far out of reach. Think of each accomplishment as a stepping stone toward a long-term goal. Don’t underestimate the importance of these small steps. A regular stream of short-term achievements can boost both employee morale and public opinion, and set your business well on its way to achieving major purpose-driven objectives.
Long-Term Goals
Long-term goals are at the heart of your business purpose. These goals may relate to corporate social responsibility, economic growth or the launch of a new product or service. Many brands have long-term goals in each of these areas and more. When drafting your long-term objectives, make sure that each one proceeds from your stated purpose.
Like short-term goals, long-term targets must be precise. Employees, stakeholders and the public want to see quantifiable progress in line with your purpose. Give your business a concrete goal: how many jobs will you create? How much will you reduce your supply chain’s carbon footprint?
Long-term goals should stretch your organization to accomplish something meaningful, but they should also be within the realm of possibility. Highlight your progress toward these goals in marketing materials such as whitepapers and blog posts. Some goals may even lend themselves to marketing events. For example, the achievement of one of your organization’s major goals around corporate purpose may be an opportunity to host a panel discussion on further progress that can be made by socially conscious companies in your field or others.
Every organization needs to set goals. The specifics of your short- and long-term goals must be unique to your business, and grounded in your purpose. Remember, the short-term achievements are what keep your business moving forward, but the long-term, purpose-driven goals are what bring your employees back day after day.
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The last few months have been a time of great change at Movéo. Between our work on aligning our operations to increase our focus on data and insights to some of the great thought leadership we’ve been churning out, there’s no doubt that things are moving and shaking at the Movéo office. Now, we’ve got another piece of news to announce: Movéo is moving!
We’re shutting the doors of our Oakbrook Terrace headquarters and moving the entire team to our downtown Chicago office at 190 S. LaSalle St. in The Loop. The Chicago team couldn’t be happier to welcome their Oakbrook Terrace counterparts, and as a firm we’re looking forward to the increased communication, efficiency, and innovation that having everyone in one central location will bring.
Angela Costanzi, Vice President, Creative Technology, is overseeing the move and the process of making our new office feel like home. Under her supervision, we’re packing up our things and preparing to transition to Chicago with some great March activities. We had a clearance event at Oakbrook last week, where we auctioned off some iMacs, gave away swag bags of office supplies (including those toolboxes the Movéo employees are so excited about in the picture on the right!), and celebrated all of our accomplishments and memories in Oakbrook Terrace with a pizza party.
What can you expect as we change locations? Our operations will continue to run as they always have. We will still be diving into the the data and running the analytics necessary to constantly improve our marketing. On the blog, we will continue to talk about how B2B and healthcare marketing is improved through data- and purpose-centered operations, and you can still expect to see articles from our leadership around the internet. If anything, you’ll simply notice that our new, centralized location allows us to communicate, collaborate and create better than ever before.
We will be officially moved into our new Chicago headquarters on March 28. Stay tuned for further updates on our blog and on Facebook!
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We’ve been talking a lot about purpose in marketing for the last few months, and while we’ve made it clear how purpose can help build marketing success, there’s a lingering issue that savvy marketers have probably noticed: how do you measure purpose? Today, we’ll discuss how analytics can be used to measure customer and employee value and impact, and wrap up the lessons we’ve learned in our February blog posts.
Social Return on Investment (SROI)
You know about your ROI, but how do you figure out your SROI? Figuring out your net social impact requires blending traditional qualitative measures with quantitative representation.
Measuring SROI is more difficult compared to figuring out traditional ROI because it requires bringing together social, financial, and environmental value. It attempts to measure value outside of the venture itself, and it’s challenging to choose which of the endless factors are the right ones to measure. Moreover, SROI depends on a business’s context: as Anshula Chowdhury, founder of SAM, points out, “Creating housing opportunities in Toronto versus in the slums of India would result in completely different social and environmental impact and need to be evaluated differently.”
So how do you do it? It depends on who you are. If you’re committed to a smarter planet, look at new patents, levels of publishing and dollars invested in R&D to start determining your purpose performance. That’s the easy way: the hard way is to try and quantify the impact of your purpose. That could mean answering questions like, “What do we define as our impact?” “How many impactful products do we sell, and who buys them?” “What do those products cost to develop?” “To what extent are we making money from products that make an impact today vs. those that will make an impact in the future?” and on and on until you have a series of metrics that will determine your impact.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Another way to measure your purpose is through your Net Promoter Score (NPS) which measures customer loyalty to a product. As we’ve already discussed, purpose is inextricably tied to customer loyalty since customers identify most strongly with brands whose purpose they can buy into. A higher NPS can correlate to a better communication of purpose to customers.
It’s easy to wave away business purpose as a marketing catchphrase or fluffy motivational buzzword that doesn’t actually amount to any business profit. But as we’ve learned on the blog this month, the exact opposite is true: today’s consumers are looking for purposeful companies to buy from and buy into, which makes purpose a leading driver of profit. Moreover, a strong purpose creates better employee satisfaction and a better world for all of us.
If you’re still unsure of how to implement your purpose into your operations and start measuring how it affects your bottom line, contact us for more on how to create a strong business purpose, calculate your Net Promoter Score, or create a purpose and data-driven marketing strategy!
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Having a business purpose doesn’t end with writing a statement of purpose. The next step is putting it into practice. As you begin operationalizing your purpose, keep these factors in mind:
You Must Usher Your Purpose From Vision to Practice
It’s crucial that your employees understand what your purpose looks like in practice and can apply it to their daily work. Any brand can have a purpose on paper, but it takes hard work to incorporate that purpose into the everyday actions of a business.
Get to know your employees. Are they working just for their paychecks, or are they invested in the mission and future of your organization? Statistics show that employees crave work at organizations that share their values and make a positive difference in the world. Help your employees both understand your organization’s purpose and feel emotionally invested in it.
One way to keep your employees up-to-date on the positive impact of your business is through internal celebration of your successes. Consider using an employee newsletter to showcase clients who used your product or service to build an impactful business of their own. You might also set aside a few days a year for employee training and team-building incorporating a focus on your purpose. At those sessions, try having employees brainstorm new ways to put your vision into action. Or, if your purpose includes a charitable aspect, consider giving your employees some time off to volunteer with a partner organization or matching their charitable contributions.
When your employees are directly involved in shaping and pursuing your brand’s purpose-driven goals, they will feel a sense of ownership and connection to your purpose.
Your Marketing Strategy Should Be Developed With Your Purpose in Mind
In addition to communicating your purpose internally, you must convey it to the outside world. To do so, build a true partnership between your purpose and your marketing: use strong marketing to get the word out about your purpose, and use your purpose to drive your marketing.
To get you started, here are a couple impactful approaches you can try:
- Use statistics to show the concrete impact of your efforts; consider creating and sharing infographics and impact reports
- Highlight successful social good partnerships, especially with well known and respected organizations
- Let employees share their investment in your brand purpose, especially on your company blog or social media accounts
- Develop a reputation for thought leadership in your field
- Lead online or event-based conversations about the issues your organization cares about
What other ways does your brand convey your purpose internally and externally? To become a truly purpose-driven organization, make sure you make your purpose known.
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Once you have a strong sense of your organization’s purpose and have put it into practice, it’s time to start communicating that purpose to your employees, customers and the wider world. There are many different methods for sharing your purpose. For the best results, employ a variety of tactics to make your message heard.
Convey Your Purpose in Advertising
Effective advertising does more than sell a product or service: it positions your brand in a way that puts your brand values front and center. The approach you employ will shift from campaign to campaign, but the core messaging should remain the same, and your purpose should underlie all you say and do.
Develop a Reputation for Thought Leadership
Does your organization have a smart and well spoken CEO? Take advantage of the many opportunities that exist to have your CEO, or another member of your leadership team, spread the word about your purpose. The key here is to avoid simply creating advertisements by another name. Instead, create content about the issues that matter to your brand and add value to your target’s life. For example, the CEO of a B2B company dedicated to helping small businesses streamline their paperwork might write a regular column with tips that small business owners can use to overcome organization and time management issues and publish it in a business publication like Forbes or your company blog.
Contribute to the Social Conversation
Share your purpose on social media, every day. No, this doesn’t mean reposting your mission statement daily on Twitter. Instead, take your purpose into account as you engage with like-minded individuals and other brands online. Get involved in Twitter chats on topics important to your business and start discussions about your purpose when natural opportunities arise. Plan out your regularly scheduled social posts with your purpose in mind, perhaps dedicating each month to sharing items related to one aspect of that purpose.
Ultimately, every internal and public-facing communication is a chance to convey your organization’s purpose. Stay on message. Distill your purpose into a few key points and strive to make them heard in every media opportunity and public event, as well as through channels like social media and your blog. Communicate your purpose well, and you’ll give your employees, customers and other stakeholders a compelling reason to support your work.
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As Kevin Randall says in our forthcoming whitepaper, “A Higher Purpose Means Higher Profit,” “[a] company’s leadership should work in an inclusive way across the organization to craft a purpose statement that is credible, authentic and compelling for COR stakeholders.” While many businesses have mission or vision statements, it’s in any company’s interest to have a strong purpose statement that communicates their soul to their customers, organization, and the rest of the world. Today, we’ll discuss what makes a great purpose statement and how to create one for your business.
What is a purpose statement?
It’s easy to confuse mission statements and purpose statements, but the two are quite different. While a mission statement should be a broad statement of how your business seeks to impact its community, the purpose statement should focus primarily on the short message that guides your company in how it formulates its business practices and procedures.
Take, for example, Procter & Gamble’s purpose:
“We will provide branded products and services of superior quality and value that improve the lives of the world’s consumers, now and for generations to come. As a result, consumers will reward us with leadership sales, profit and value creation, allowing our people, our shareholders and the communities in which we live and work to prosper.”
This statement provides a simple, straightforward articulation of Procter & Gamble’s reason for being: it explains how the company endeavors to impact the world, and how both the company as a whole and the individual employee are essential to this provess. Note that the statement shows how their everyday activities are shaped by the will to provide products of “superior quality” that “improve the lives of the world’s consumers.” This helps Procter & Gamble’s employees, stakeholders and communities to prosper.
How do you create a great purpose statement?
Procter & Gamble’s example combines the three elements needed for a great purpose statement: concision, attainability, and focus. Let’s look more deeply into each:
- Concision: A purpose statement should be short and to-the-point; an articulation of what your purpose is, how it impacts your business, and why that positively impacts the greater good. In the example above, it’s easy to see each element and how they work together.
- Attainability: While a vision statement is often lofty and unattainable, a purpose statement should state a goal that is achievable. The Procter & Gamble example clearly states how their operations will allow for prosperity, making that goal more attainable.
- Focus: A vague purpose statement is useless for your business. Focus the statement with specific language that explains how your business will become successful and contribute to the greater good.
A great purpose statement won’t come to you quickly. It’s a difficult task to quantify exactly what purpose drives your business–and even more difficult to explain this purpose in a simple, understandable statement. But it’s so worth it!
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Purpose-driven companies must operate on the principles of “shared value,” what Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer defined as “creating economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges.” Businesses should integrate external social value into their core offering, and employees should be given incentives to make a difference in their communities.
Our upcoming whitepaper is titled “A Higher Purpose Means Higher Profits” for a reason. Businesses that look beyond their own bottom lines inspire their employees and impress their customers. Ultimately, business growth is fueled through the long-term view that takes social good into account.
If your organization is just beginning to focus on corporate social responsibility, take some time to explore the many different ways organizations have chosen to give back. There are many approaches to corporate purpose. Some companies give to nonprofits in the form of monetary or in-kind donations while others focus on improving the social and environmental impacts of their supply chains. If you are looking for inspiration, read through our past blog posts for ideas on how your organization can work toward the greater good.
While purpose-driven B2C companies get the most attention, B2B businesses have the potential to create positive impact in the supply chain of each of their clients. With commitment to social good increasingly key to a company’s public perception, communicating your organization’s shared valued approach is important. For the rest of the month, we’ll share tips on spreading the word, from crafting a powerful statement of purpose to quantifying your organization’s impact.
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As discussed in our whitepaper, “A Higher Purpose Means Higher Profits,” companies that actively engage their employees through a singular purpose are often those that are most successful.
The following three companies are able to share their purpose with their employees in a meaningful way. Does your organization do the same?
Zappos founder Tony Hsieh has made “delivering happiness” central to the business. This means providing top-notch customer service, even when it means losing a sale in the service of building a relationship. The company’s real dedication to pleasing customers has inspired employees, and Hsieh has also made a priority of employee fit and happiness. Each new employee is offered a full month’s salary to quit their job. Employees who aren’t enthusiastic about their work can leave happily, and those who stay do so knowing their company cares about their happiness and wellbeing.
BlueGrace was recently featured in a Forbes column on B2B business and company culture. Why? BlueGrace is focused on its employees in a way that few B2B or B2C companies are. Every new employee is paired with a mentor for their first six months, and employees can award each other $50 bonuses (paid by the company) as a form of peer recognition. CEO Bobby Harris requests weekly anonymous feedback to keep the business focused on employee needs. And in keeping with what we’ve learned this month about social employees, BlueGrace recognizes that employee engagement on social media helps to create a “customer serving culture.”
Etsy, the online marketplace for handmade goods, entered the B2B world with a recent policy change allowing sellers to outsource production to assistants or manufacturing teams. This change both allowed Etsy sellers to grow their businesses and made the site a wholesale source for outside retailers. At the same time, Etsy has been ramping up its programs for employee wellbeing, including an extracurricular class program that lets employees share their talents with each other. At a time when many companies have cut down on employee training, Etsy also invested in sending a group of women to coding school, and hired several of them at the end of the course.
Each of the above companies uses different methods to communicate their purpose, but they all reach the same conclusion: their employees, customers, and stakeholders all are aware of their purpose and will to benefit the rest of the world. As a result of this, they are well-respected and known within their fields for the good they do, and this drives new customers and new profit.
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When we tell business leaders to focus on their purpose, the common response it “but how will it help us with customers?” Purpose may help a business improve its image and reach new clients, but when it comes to actually influencing a potential customer’s buying decision, how helpful is it?
As Movèo notes in their white paper, customers “value brand authenticity and want purpose to be intrinsic to the organization and operation, not merely part of a ‘giving back’ program.” Today’s customers care deeply about purpose. They want to support a business’s vision and align themselves with that purpose in meaningful ways. In this post, we’ll take a deeper look at the ways companies can demonstrate the intrinsic nature of their purpose and its influence on customer buying decisions.
A Changing Customer Base
There’s a new group of customers who value purposeful products and businesses: millennials. Born between 1982 and 2003, millennials have growing purchasing power due to their large numbers (there are about 3 million more millennials than baby boomers) and high level of education. Socially liberal, tech-savvy, and deeply connected to the world around them, millennials are the group to reach with modern marketing.
Millennials care more about who they buy from and do business with than other generations. They value brand authenticity and an open commitment to bettering the world around them. In short, millennials are more likely to invest their money in a brand that has a clear and strong purpose.
New Marketing Opportunities
The growth of the millennial customer base means that a business purpose is not just about having a corporate social responsibility initiative. Purpose needs to be ingrained in everything you do. Marketing should be used to align a company’s purpose with that of its customers, creating a bond between the two that makes a customer feel part of the company’s larger mission.
Take TOMS, one of the most successful companies to leverage their business purpose to reach customers. Their simple mission statement, “to make life more comfortable” engages customers by bringing them into their larger purpose: to provide shoes and eyewear for people around the globe who are in need. For every pair of TOMS purchased, a pair of shoes or eyeglasses are donated–making the customer integral to the purpose of the company and allowing them to feel not only comfortable in their new shoes, but comfortable in the knowledge that they’ve made a meaningful contribution to a great purpose.
