Advertising is a one-way street: outward. It talks at us not with us. Memos and surveys at work are one-way communication. There is no conversation. There is no engagement. Because to build engagement, especially in safety, requires a relationship.
I see a Realtor's face on bus benches everywhere in my neighborhood. The ad on the radio said that the business was "conveniently located" but it's forty-five minutes across the city - not convenient. TV late night infomercials bombard with, "but wait - there's more."
TV stations in smaller markets are going off the air. The newspaper I read on my iPad no longer publishes on Sunday. Radio has become an experiment in survival through audience segmentation and fragmentation which is why I tune in either my iPod or Internet radio or Satellite radio.
YouTube is getting over a billion viewers each month. Facebook hit over a billion users in Fall of 2012. Twitter handles over 1.6 billion search queries per day.
Newspapers, TV, direct mail, radio, outdoor advertising and even Google sell advertising based on the numbers of people exposed to their ads: impressions. But really, it doesn't matter how many people are exposed to your message. What counts is converting them from passive impressions to buyers.
Millions Spent On Outside Marketing
Many companies will spend millions on outside marketing strategies to convert readers/viewers/visitors into buyers. They will build interactive web sites for outside clients, develop social media campaigns and hire social media staff to answer queries from outside clients. They will open and staff call centres, engage traditional media advertising, become involved in charities and sponsorships and will be highly visible in their own outside marketing strategy.
Get Rid Of One-Way Communication
Employers and safety managers need to grasp that their inside "customer" (employee) is in many ways far more important than their outside customer. Sending a memo once is like a single tweet on Twitter: some will see it, most won't. And of those who do see it, most will do nothing and just move onto the next message. However, there is a good chance your message will get noticed only if it provides some sort of value or you have developed a history of engaging people. Yet, they still expect that a single memo and maybe a meeting will be enough to engage their inside customers - their employees.
Engage In Building Relationships For Safety
Are you building relationships with the people who are already building relationships on your behalf: your employees? Your employees MUST become your primary market for communication. And you can not stop ever sending your safety communication messages to them for fear that in your silence, you allow a competing message to dominate their attention.
All of the money spent on marketing to raise your prominence to your outside customers, and all of the goodwill you may have developed as a result of your charitable and/or sponsorship work can be wiped out with a single fatal incident in which a company is found lacking in safety. Look after the people who look after your outside customers. Safety is not only a program you offer in your workplace, it is the goodwill and care that you show your inside customers - your people.
How ZeroSpeak Can Help
ZeroSpeak is a marketing initiative to help you engage and sell the idea of safety to your employees. As a safety speaker and safety communications consultant, I have worked with companies that employ this philosophy of building relationships with their employees to engage them in safety. It works. Download the e-book 7 Nuts 'n Bolts Strategies For Safety Communication.
