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April 12, 2006
What can you learn from All You
Can a magazine that sells for $1.97 in Wal-Mart teach us how to improve our employee communication vehicles? I think so because, like all effective consumer magazines, All You exemplifies service journalism—its purpose is to help the audience solve a problem or accomplish an objective.
Unfortunately, too many internal publications (and intranet sites and other vehicles) aren’t designed to help employees do anything. They exist to give executives a channel to communicate their perspectives—so the vehicles are all about what senior management wants to say, not what employees want to hear or know. At their worst, these vehicles are nothing more than vanity press for top execs.
Contrast that with All You’s mission to “speak directly to value-conscious American women like you. In each issue, you'll get helpful articles on taking care of yourself, healthy and fast ways to feed your family, clothes you can wear and afford, do-it-yourself home repair projects, relationship advice from real women, and easy-to-make decorating ideas. And you'll get all this in a beautiful, affordable magazine that truly speaks your language.” (See this and more at www.allyou.com)
Isn’t that great? As if that weren’t service-oriented enough, in the May 2006 issue, Editor Bella Price features the “All You pledge”: “We’re dedicated to making your life easier and more enjoyable every single day. So we promise that each issue of All You will give you:
- Diet and fitness advice that fits your busy lifestyle
- Products available in stores near you, by phone or online
- Simple recipes made with ingredients that are easy to find
- Tips you can really use
- Real-life advice from real women just like you
- Great value on every single page, in every single issue
Before you say, “But we don’t publish diet and fitness advice,” think about this: How service-oriented is your publications or employee communication vehicle? Are you helping employees find out what they need to navigate the company or do their jobs better? Is your vehicle giving the information they want to know? Are you confident that employees want to pick up your publication because it relates to what they care about?
If not, take a trip to Wal-Mart, spend $1.97 and learn from the masters at All You.
Posted by Alison Davis at April 12, 2006 11:17 AM