Many internal comms teams only have access to small budgets. What kinds of creative solutions or content development methods are there to allow internal communicators to achieve success?

Leia Farnan, internal communications officer, Royal Holloway, University of London

We use cost effective platforms for our online channels, for example using MailChimp for email newsletters. MailChimp is not too expensive, enables us to segment our audiences into groups, and provides insightful analytics. By giving students and staff a voice through new newsletter takeovers, we have seen enhanced engagement, and the insights indicate that our audiences are increasingly connecting and talking about both our college messages and their own stories too.

Social media is an important channel for the Royal Holloway internal communications team too. We use it to reach our audiences, in particular, students. Using new and innovative features on social media, such as Facebook live and Snapchat, keeps us up to date and it’s free and easy to use. Video is a popular way to connect with your audiences. Following multimedia trends in the world around us, we use video weekly to share important messages and to communicate more personally. Video content can be used across channels and is accessible on all devices.

Often it’s assumed that videos are an expensive or difficult, but this isn’t the case. All it takes is initial investment in video editing software and some training, and you can generate great video content to share throughout your organisation. There will, of course, always be more significant videos that you can invest more in when you need to.

When putting budget towards generating content, we aim for material that can be used in a variety of ways. We also try to share content throughout our department, as someone else will always find use of it. Thinking long-term is also important, so whenever there is a big event taking place we aim to snap lots of photos and take videos whenever we can. These can then be repurposed for other events or the same event if it happens the following year.

We always test the big campaign ideas, one off events and collateral with our audience and key stakeholders before we go live, especially if they will require a funding investment. The planning stage is important when the budget is limited; however there are still many low cost activities, messages, angles
or approaches that you can try on social media, for example, that cost very little, if anything.

Rachel Miller, director, All Things IC communication consultancy

Internal communicators are known for their tenacity. We deal with all sorts of obstacles and adapt to changing environments to survive. When budgets are low, creativity goes high. Lack of cash does not equal lack of comms. We just need to be smarter when investing money, time and effort. Here are some tip tips to help you maximise output even if your budget is zero or seriously reduced.

First is user generated content. If you can’t afford a professional photographer or film crew, help is at hand. The majority of people have a smartphone in their pockets. Create ways for your employees to contribute to the conversations in your organisation by encouraging user generated content. I call this #wonkycomms. It’s raw, authentic and incredibly engaging.

Second, pool resources. Some organisations have started cross-charging departments for comms. When working with other departments, see how you can stretch efforts and budgets.

Third, cast your mind back to what you have done before. Can you reuse an image or dig out what you did last year and benefit from a previous campaign?

Finally, find the freebies. There are all sorts of free resources online, from award entry case studies packed with ideas to awesome websites like Canva to help you create compelling visual comms. I’ve collated lots via the ‘Free Stuff’ page on my blog.

Don’t despair if you’re grappling with a low budget. Some of the best campaigns I’ve seen have been done on zero or low budget by charities and public sector organisations. You can do it.