No matter what size a business might be, it’s critical for its leaders to build a strong culture that provides employees with a sense of belonging, brings the company’s core values to life and clarifies “how things are done.” However, while culture flows from the top down, C-suite and senior leaders can’t build and maintain it on their own, and the marketing team often plays a role in communicating cultural expectations and establishing norms both internally and externally.
Highlighting a vibrant and thriving company culture not only creates goodwill and interest among the public at large but can also help a business recruit and retain top talent. The key is to ensure messaging around culture is consistent and compelling no matter who the audience is. Here, members of Forbes Agency Council explore different ways companies can market their culture internally and externally to become industry leaders as well as thought leaders in this area.
Forbes Agency Council members explore smart ways to market company culture internally and externally.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Let Your Core Values Drive External Messaging And Internal Recognitions
Our brand is built around people and culture. Defining our core values was critical in articulating this internally and externally. We recruited a small team of employees to lead this initiative, and now our values are an important part of our marketing, social media, recruiting and sales, as well as our internal recognition of reviews, promotions, employee awards and accolades. – Jean Serra, V2 Communications
2. Express Your Culture In All Communications To Ensure Client Fit
We portray ourselves as part of our client’s team, not as a service provider, so we make sure to express our culture in one-on-one conversations, our website content, blog posts, podcasts and so on. When we get inbound requests, we make sure there is a strong cultural fit; otherwise, we know it will not work in the long term. – Jordi Marca, Gotoclient
3. Bring Culture To Life Through Actions And In The Work You Do
We believe in people—yours and ours—and that what companies do is more important than what they say. Meaningful relationships, growth and lasting cultural relevance aren’t built through talk; they’re built through actions. Our team brings culture to life daily, based on our core principles, which bring a unique and inspiring perspective to the work we produce on behalf of our partners. – Joey Hodges, Demonstrate
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4. Inspire People To Nurture The Culture With Every Interaction
Company culture is vital to success in business. Employers must shape their culture into something that people want to be a part of and help nurture. It begins in the physical workplace, but it also has to be present with those who work remotely. The values of a healthy company culture should be ever-present and expressed in all communications and interactions and in the actions of leadership. – Henry Kurkowski, One WiFi
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5. Highlight A Team Member Every Month In Blog And Social Posts
A company is more than just names on a website or in an email. Each staff member brings personal experiences and interests that contribute to the company’s overall success and culture. To showcase everyone’s personality and the more human side of our company, we highlight a different team member each month on our blog and social accounts. – Valerie Chan, Plat4orm PR
6. Let Team Members Show Who They Are Online And At Events
We do this in a variety of ways, from our team guest-posting and blogging on the website and sharing their antics and shenanigans on social media to turning up in force at industry events. For me, it’s really about letting them show up as who they are, then celebrating and acknowledging all of our little victories. – Phil White, Grounded
7. Enhance The Employee Experience To Create Cultural Ambassadors
In a service-oriented industry such as PR, people are our greatest resource. Our firm invests in people’s growth and promotes an open, inclusive culture that celebrates diversity. Happy employees serve as the best ambassadors for company culture as they interact with external stakeholders across the value chain. Hence, we constantly work to enhance engagement and the employee experience. – Lars Voedisch, PRecious Communications
8. Make A Daily All-Hands Meeting A Culture-Focusing Event
I believe that culture is what you do, and what we do is grow our clients’ businesses. We’ve been focusing on that culture since March 2020 with a daily all-hands meeting at 9:15 a.m. where team leads spend no more than three minutes letting everyone else know what we’re doing to grow our clients’ business. I can’t imagine running our business without this daily culture-focusing event. – Brook Shepard, Mason Interactive
9. Share Photos Of Employee Experiences
We highlight our company culture by sharing photos of employee experiences on social media and business networking sites, as well as on our homepage, which helps to illustrate our company culture. – Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, Hawthorne LLC
10. Focus On Culture With New Staff And Recognize ‘Culture Heroes’
Culture is critical to success in every organization. We discuss our cultural values every month in our all-staff meetings, and we have an intensive, three-month onboarding process to help new staff members understand the culture and how they fit. We also recognize staff members as “culture heroes” when they live our values and have quarterly check-ins with every team member to help reinforce them. – Jason Wilson, Strategy, LLC
11. Base Employee And Client Fit On Cultural Alignment
Our company culture is based on our core values. We don’t necessarily market them as much as we live by them. Meaning, we interview and hire based on those core values. We take on clients whose companies function in parallel to our core values. And we end relationships when a person or an organization is no longer aligned with our core values. – Roger Hurni, Off Madison Ave
12. Partake In Clients’ Services As Team-Building Exercises
As a small team, built during times of uncertainty, company culture has been of huge importance for us. We regularly partake in team-building exercises that allow us to connect on an intrapersonal level, usually while also partaking in one of our client’s services, such as yoga, boxing, facials and more. We keep it human. We hold space for each other and show up fairly candidly. – Logan Rae, Argon Agency
13. Connect With Clients By Giving Them A Glimpse Into Your Culture
Connecting with clients on a personal level is important to us. Every year, we send personalized holiday cards, and we regularly update our social media accounts. Our Instagram is used to spotlight our employees and share images of recent events, such as birthdays and company outings. Doing so gives clients a glimpse into our office culture. – Hannah Trivette, NUVEW Web Solutions
14. ‘Shout Out’ Client Successes And Team Wins Internally
Our culture is part of our overall marketing mix. Our social content has a variety of native content, case studies and company announcements, as well as team-member spotlights. Internally, we strive to “shout out” every client success and every team member’s performance “win” to the company. We are constantly testing new ways to maximize the positive impact of these kudos on our teams and overall culture. – Bernard May, National Positions
