Delivering seamless change communications to support Informa’s growth acceleration

The client

Informa plc is a FTSE 100 globally recognised leader in events, digital services and academic publishing operating in over 30 countries, with more than 12,000 employees. When Informa set out to accelerate digitisation as part of its strategic growth plan, and re-platform its media sites, Bright was chosen as the programme’s change communications partner.

The task was ambitious. Informa’s numerous media brands were hosted on disparate platforms at different stages of their life cycle. This project would see them all migrated onto a single, modern Content Management System (CMS) platform. As a result of this migration, the brands benefit from more flexibility in content delivery, improving UX and audience engagement whilst streamlining the management of the media sites’ technology stacks.

The challenge

The approach

In phase one, we set out a three-stage approach to define, design and deliver an internal change communications programme that would engage stakeholders and unify project teams behind a common goal and vision:

1. Define stakeholder needs and what ‘good looks like’, establishing ways of working and how we could measure performance. This included:

• Stakeholder mapping and persona development
• Establishing clear KPIs and reporting
• Embedding an agile approach to change communications, supporting iterative development as the programme passed each milestone

2. Design a recognisable, consistent brand and develop a communications and content plan. This involved:

• Developing engaging communication and content to inform, educate and excite users around the potential of SCM
• Developing a foundations playbook to provide an overview of the SCM platform, what to expect and how to migrate to the new platform

3. Deliver a central hub and consistent cadence of information to maintain momentum. This saw Bright:

• Build and launch a central information hub on Informa’s intranet with training, tools, FAQs and templates to support team’s understanding and adoption of the new technology
• Identify and establish a team of superusers across the business to drive engagement and adoption

As the programme gained maturity and developed, phase two saw us move into ongoing communications support to ensure phase one was implemented sustainably and learnings from early migrations were carried across to subsequent project teams. We did this through an omni-channel approach:

• Creating a monthly SCM Bulletin: Delivering the right information to the right people, sharing updates on progress, barriers and key learnings. SCM Bulletin open rates were tracked monthly and achieved an average 59% open rate (compared to the industry average of 29.10%¹). With an emphasis on agile methodologies, we adapted the bulletin content and audience to match the project stages
• Hosting quarterly Town Halls: These virtual meetings provided the opportunity for all brands and project teams to hear from programme leaders and guest speakers directly. With updates on progress, priorities and new features, participants were able to ask questions through a live Q&A section. Despite the challenge of working across different time zones, the average attendance rate for the Town Halls was 39%, with a recording of the event shared to maximise reach
• Sharing success stories: As brands completed their migrations and results could be measured, we began crafting case studies to further share learnings and promote the positives from migrating to the SCM platform
• Intranet updates: As new sites were migrated, training and new feature content needed to be updated to remain relevant. Taking an agile approach to ensure the dedicated intranet page was still fit for purpose as the programme reaches new milestones, including reviewing its layout and structure to make it easier for users to find the materials they need, based on their role and where they are on their SCM journey.

Informa SVP Content & Media Technology, Jennifer Tattenbaum, appreciated being able to rely on Bright to support the change through consistent communications and content. “Bright has enabled us to drive the change needed to keep the programme moving at pace. Their agile approach means we can adapt as needed to keep our project teams and brands on track and aligned towards our vision”.

The results

Effective change communications and content development have played a crucial role in streamlining Informa’s SCM migration process, sharing cross-divisional updates and learnings, and supporting the business in securing further media sites to migrate to SCM.

• The first SCM site was migrated in November 2022
• As of June 2024, SCM has 30 brands on the platform, with a further 22 planned for 2024
• SCM Bulletin engagement averaged 59%
• Town Halls averaged 39% attendance
• Four SCM success stories developed and shared to encourage additional migrations
• SCM sites demonstrating significant uplift in organic search, increased page views and improved editorial efficiency.

With change communication playing an important role in streamlining and supporting successful site migrations, the cycles are now happening in shorter timeframes, with reduced delays, enabling Informa to accelerate its digitisation and reach its objective more quickly.

^{1 Email Open Rates By Industry (& Other Top Email Benchmarks), https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/average-email-open-rate-benchmark#average-email-open-rates-by-industry}