You’re about to make a big program debut to employees. You’ve done weeks, possibly months, of campaign planning and you’ve addressed many important essentials — you’ve carefully crafted your message, deliberated about when to make the delivery and designed the pieces you’ll use to grab your audience’s attention. But have you considered what else you might need for a successful employee-facing campaign that isn’t necessarily employee-facing? To make for the optimal employee experience, here are some tips.

Tip #1: Connect with your ‘boots on the ground’

Employees often seek out their HR representatives and people leaders as their first and most trusted source for information. Think about who would benefit from advance notice of an employee communication — because nobody wants to be approached about an initiative they know nothing about, right? When these intrinsic messengers get a sneak peek, they feel more confident when directing employees and can quickly become your unsolicited advocates. But don’t try to make them the experts — you’ll just generate confusion and naysayers, plus you have websites and service centers to take care of that. A simple yet engaging one-pager with key facts or talking points is a best practice.

Tip #2: Know when you’re not the priority

We can all appreciate that employees get a hefty dose of daily messaging from places far and wide. Yet when we pick the date to send our message, many of us quickly turn to what syncs with our desired timeline. Some might even use analytics to know that more employees read their email on a particular day or time. While all of that is useful, do your research to find out what else is going on in your organization to avoid your message becoming white noise. Zoom out to discover what might need to take priority first so that you have a captive audience when it’s your turn. For example, if it’s earnings release day, employees will be focusing on what corporate leadership is saying about performance rather than concentrating on the latest HR-sponsored activity.

Tip #3: Look at the how, not just the what

From graphic selection to word choice, we tend to become laser-focused on the elements of the pieces going to the employee. While extremely important, don’t overlook the other aspects of the experience. Instead, take time to go through the end-to-end experience from the vantage point of the employee. For instance, do you have direct hyperlinks wherever possible, and are they working? Are your vendor partners’ sites and services centers equipped to address the information employees will be seeking? If there is a part of the experience that is remotely frustrating, the employee is more likely to stop and move on to the next thing. Ask someone unfamiliar with your campaign to do a quick trial run.

Don’t risk letting all of your hard work slip away! A little extra planning can help you gain a lot of traction.