CMOs have long understood the need for developing and delivering a clear, consistent, compelling corporate message that crystalizes the position the business desires to own in the mind of their target audience.

But do you know who doesn’t fully grasp the importance of this?

The rest of your company.

According to Gallup, 91 percent of frontline workers are unable to articulate what their company stands for and what differentiates it from the competition. So, while the CMO and his or her C-suite peers may know how to articulate what the organization does, the value it delivers and what differentiates the company in the marketplace — all those employees who are engaging online and in daily conversations with prospects and customers — can’t. As a result, your customers are consuming a disconnected story throughout their journey with your company … and you are not delivering a differentiated customer experience.

Here are five ways marketing can drive consistent messaging throughout the customer journey.

  1. Develop a Corporate Messaging Platform. This process must involve key internal stakeholders, including C-suite and senior leadership. This messaging platform becomes the foundation for effectively infusing your corporate story into the hearts and minds of employees.
  2. Launch an organizational change initiative that includes disciplined internal communication, training and education programs that make an emotional and cognitive connection between employees and your corporate message.
  3. Make the message easy to access and activate. Create the content and tools that will meet the needs of all internal stakeholders. The sales team will have different requirements than the customer care department or the IT organization. Ensure these communication resources are available whenever and however employees need to access them.
  4. Make training engaging and entertaining. Whether live online, in-person, or on-demand — deploy formal training programs that introduce employees to your corporate story and help every employee internalize and personalize your messaging so they can bring it to life in daily work activities.
  5. Reinforce, measure and optimize. Changing employee mindsets and behaviors is not a one-time event. It takes repetition to fully infuse messaging into the hearts and minds of your organization. Give managers toolkits to help their teams activate key messages in the daily connections with customers, and metrics to understand how the corporate story impacts performance in their specific area of the business.

Delivering a clear, compelling and consistent corporate story requires unwavering commitment from the entire leadership team. Executives must understand that this is a journey … not a destination. To cultivate lasting change, CMOs must work in collaboration with functional leaders across the business to ensure the story they want to tell is in fact … the story that is being shared throughout the customer experience.