‘I Love My Staff’ may not sound as grand as ‘I Love New York’, but it carries the same sentiment of caring, valuing and pride. So when Healthcare Cash Benefits Plan provider, Paycare, needed a strategy to market their B2B ‘4work’ plans we saw a natural match. Smart employers, or managers, love their staff for a very practical reason; it’s a humane response and a canny investment that pays dividends.

So now we had the idea. But how did we develop it and create a managed, integrated process to give brand value to the product, achieve that all important stand-out and reach the corporate decision makers? Firstly we sat down with the client to work out where the current communication blocks were and, between us, devise a structured 7-step approach plan.

1. Tangibles.

We started by emulating the original ‘I Love New York’ campaign. More than just a slogan, the campaign was tangible in that it appeared on objects – cups and T-shirts. We had ‘I Love My Staff’ badges that would be sent to company bosses and Human Resource Managers.

2. List

We recommended that the client commission a reputable telemarketing company manage an appointments system – putting a structure in place to manage the contact process. They started by selecting a careful chosen group of companies over a particular geographic area. Once this was done we could start to target those companies with Direct Mail.

3. Direct Mail

The chosen companies received a personalised letter, a mailer and attached badge that touched on the benefits to the employer of ‘loving their staff’ the productivity gains of a healthy workforce, the decrease in absenteeism and the unfairness of staff having to make hard choices – fix their teeth or buy new shoes for their kids. We simply asked them ‘could you wear this badge with pride’. The letter finished with a promise of a phone call within two days.

4. Telemarketing

The follow up call found out if the letter had been received, who the company decision maker actually was and, if there was an indication of interest, whether they would like an email presentation with more detail.

5. email

If they agreed to this a personalised six-page email presentation was sent, giving more details about the benefits to staff and company. The ‘I Love My Staff’ badge featured prominently. The final page had FAQ sections and the call for action was a simple make an appointment reply button – for a 15 minute face-to-face presentation.

6. Visit

A corporate policy specialist would then visit, deliver a 15 minute presentation and answer any questions.

7. Talking Head

If even more information was required, or the decision had to go to a group or Board level, then the Paycare rep would leave behind a branded USB Stick multi-page, interactive, ‘talking head’ presentation.

This YouTube video is the nearest we could get to the user-controlled, fully-interactive presentation we went to so much trouble to create. The YouTube version tends to run together, but at least it gives a flavour of the original presentation.

This might seem like an overly complicated procedure, but experience has shown that this softly-softly approach, of drip-feeding information into an organisation, is the best way to cut through the natural blocks that businesses erect to shield their decision makers.

We know, from email campaigns featuring the ‘I Love My Staff’ badges, that this is having an effect. The replies and comments tend to be along the lines of staff expecting their bosses to be ‘wearing the badge next time they see them’. We’ll keep you posted as the results come in, but I have a feeling that this dry subject could just become a little bit moist.

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