External messages start with internal engagement

If employees aren't aware of the messages that are being shared about your company, how can they reinforce them? Begin every marketing effort by engaging employees internally first--advice from Donna Smith, director of marketing and communications at Forum Energy Technologies.

Robin: Hello and welcome to this edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies. I’m Robin Tooms, vice president of strategy at Savage Brands, and my guest again today is Donna Smith, director of marketing and communications at Forum Energy Technologies. So, Donna, welcome back to Brandonomics.

Donna: It’s good to be here again, Robin.

Robin: Donna, I loved talking with you about how you’re communicating the Forum brand to your customers. And I want to hear more about how you’re helping communicate that internally to employees.

Donna: Well, it’s all little things that make a big difference. We have an intranet. We have an employee newsletter, and in fact, one of the first things I did after I joined Forum was to hold an employee newsletter naming contest. And that helped to get everybody on board with it. Our message is really “come and help us grow; you’re part of Forum.”

Robin: That’s a great way to communicate that. So you’re using that to help them instill the brand. How are you gauging how they feel about the brand itself, how they’re internalizing that?

Donna: Well, we’ve seen really good involvement in the It’s Your Forum ad campaign. I’ve gotten employees sending in stories of how they worked with the customer to solve their problem, and that’s exactly the kind of thing we’re looking for. I’ve always felt that your employees are your best brand ambassadors. If you don’t engage your employees and let them know the messages you’re sending out to the marketplace, how can they reinforce it? They’re out there living and breathing the brand every day, not those of us who are sitting in the corporate office. It’s the people out there engaging with our customers.

Robin: And that’s the important thing here.

Donna: That is.

Robin: Well, thank you for sharing that. This has been another edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies.

 

Forum Energy Technologies is a global oilfield products company, formed in a five-way merger between leading technology companies and serving the subsea, drilling, completion, production and infrastructure sectors of the oil and natural gas industry. Its legacy brands represent some of the best known in the business.

https://www.f-e-t.com/