United Nations, The Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance

United Nations Mentoring Platform “together” Internal Marketing Plan

Ray Yu

Abstract

The book Peter Drucker's Five Most Important Questions: Enduring Wisdom for Today's Leaders provides a clear guideline while developing a program or a product by thinking the questions^[1]:

Question 1 What Is Our Mission?

Question 2 Who Is Our Customer?

Question 3 What Does the Customer Value?

Question 4 What Are Our Results?

Question 5 What Is Our Plan?

        Answering the five questions enables one to create a general or a detailed strategic plan for an orgranization, a department, or a particular program. In United Nations, the vision statement is “maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace.” and the Department of Management Strategy, Policy, and Compliance(DMSPC) serves the United Nations globally to drive organizational excellence through innovation, accountability, and solutions as the department mission.^[2] The DMSPC has sections supporting the United Nations by creating solutions and programs for the UN staff and faculties over 38,000 colleagues around the world to help those who require advice on policy interpretation or implementation in the areas of human resources, budgetary and financial management, supply chain management or general administration.^[3] 

         The tasks I am involved in are the programs that help the staff have access to training, networking, and engagement with the UN faculties worldwide. The programs that are under development include the Global Orientation Program(or possibly rebranded as “GO2UN”), the Buddy Program (on-boarding training), the “Together mentor, mentee, and networking program (‘together’ program),” and other platforms for online training and education. These programs are strategically targeting the UN staff, but each has unique segmentation of the target audience and strategic plan.

        While the programs are different in many aspects, the objectives of these programs are all

`supporting the department's mission, which can help the United Nations achieve the organization’s vision effectively. Strategic thinking, combined with detailed data analytics in program development and marketing, was mentioned and focused more when I joined the team. During the virtual meeting with the department director Miguel Mourato Gordo on May 7th, 2022, I raised a question about what the DMSPC's response is due to the digitalization; he answered that the department has a strategic plan for recruiting professionals specialized in data analytics, digital media, and related field to help the process, in order to make the data-driven decisions.

        Thus, my innovations in promoting the DMSPC’s internal digital platforms can be valuable for the management strategies. For the priority of my tasks, and as an example, I drafted the following plan that I advised and now is under execution as a guideline for the “together” mentoring program. It follows Peter Drucker's Five Most Important Questions, integrated with the marketing theories and data analysis.

Project Introduction:

While the United Nations has thousands of staff, consultants, and volunteers, it is challenging for the United Nations to rely on external resources globally to cover all training topics solely. During the pandemic, while most of the work and meetings were operated virtually and remotely, and the tendency for the hybrid virtual and in-person working structure is likely to continue, the demands for online training and networking increased.

The United Nations built an online platform — “Together Mentoring and Networking Programme.”   This is a platform where United Nations colleagues can register as mentors or mentees. The registered mentors can list the courses they offer, and mentees can choose their mentors with search options, including location (time zones), levels, and courses. “Together Mentoring and Networking Programme” enables staff of all levels and backgrounds to connect and learn from each other. This program is an opportunity for United Nations’ employees to provide an accessible channel for networking and reaching out for insights and advice from offices and departments globally.

As the program website states, the mission is “The Together Mentoring and Networking Programme enables staff of all levels and backgrounds to connect and learn from each other. Participants get the chance to reflect on their choices, sources of satisfaction, and how to move forward.”

The Target Audience (Who Is Our Customer):

Mentees:

• Secretariat staff of all levels (General Service through senior leaders) in all job networks
• *Non-Secretariat staff of all levels from these UN system entities: ITC, ISA, UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA, UNOPS, UN Women, UNCTAD, UNHCR, UNESCO, UNAIDS, WFP, WHO, FAO, ICAO, ILO, IAEA, UNIDO, IFAD, IOM, IMF, ITU, World Bank, UNCDF, UNV, WMO, UNFCCC, IPBES. Non-UN: Irena.

​Mentors:

• Secretariat staff of all levels (General Service through senior leaders) in all job networks
• *Non-Secretariat staff of all levels from these UN system entities: ITC, ISA, UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA, UNOPS, UN Women, UNCTAD, UNHCR, UNESCO, UNAIDS, WFP, WHO, FAO, ICAO, ILO, IAEA, UNIDO, IFAD, IOM, IMF, ITU, World Bank, UNCDF, UNV, WMO, UNFCCC, IPBES. Non-UN: Irena.

All participants must have Fixed-term, Continuing, or Permanent appointments.

In an update to the audience in 2022, the mentors’ levels are lowered in order to qualify more participants as mentors, excluding the consideration of working duration in the United Nations.  This is an updated feature and shall be a highlight for recruiting mentors.

WHAT?

A mentoring and networking program in which staff can join as mentees or mentors or in both roles.

• Mentees fill out an online questionnaire at registration.
• Mentees search for mentors who they want to learn from in a networking meeting or in a mentoring relationship. Extensive filtering by job network, level, and duty station is available to help with searching.
• Mentors receive requests and approve or decline requests.
• All levels of staff are invited to join from General Service through senior leaders.
• Mentees are responsible for scheduling meetings and coming prepared with questions and agenda topics.
• Mentors should review the video and written resources available and commit to scheduled meetings.

Marketing (What Are Our Results/What Is Our Plan):

        The “Together Mentoring and Networking Programme” is an internal platform that won the 2020 UN Secretary-General Award. Currently, the program is finished with its developing period. While the targeted audience is more than 35,000 UN colleagues globally, the current stage of participants is around 800. The participants provided valuable advice and asked questions regarding the platform.

        During the orientation webinar session with volunteers for asking questions and sharing their user experiences, participants include registered mentors and mentees. The needs from mentors are more training for mentees’ proper use of the platform and the qualification of mentors and the mentees. This aspect is more about the users’ education after the registration. Unlike mentors, mentees have more questions about the platform's features regarding how to pair with a mentor that meets their expectations.

        The features include the language options for finding a mentor being able to speak the same language as the mentee, integrating with the “Team” Calendar, and enabling a mentee or a mentor to decline the pairing are features that can be promoted as the advantage of flexibility.  A mentee is able to become a mentor, and lowered UN work level and experience can be the points for mentor recruitment.  

Communication Channels:

• Linkedin

        “Together Mentoring and Networking Programme” is a product created by the UN team and available for internal use. Thus, its marketing channels are limited. While social media is not an ideal channel, Linkedin has a post page that can only be seen by its verified employees.

• iSeek-UN

        iSeek is a UN program that also won the UN Secretary-General Award in 2019. It is an internal information-sharing website that all but only UN employees have access to. The “Together” program shares the same audience, and the iSeek team loves to write an article about the “together” program.

• Yammer (Microsoft Tool)

        Microsoft has a tool for sharing posts with the entire company. From the recent yammer posts having an impression of over 10,000 internally, it can be an excellent tool for impressions.

• Mass Email Marketing

        We have a tool enabling us to create professional email marketing campaigns, with detailed result analysis tools included. We can see the email opening rate and click-through rate. It is easier to see the data to decide on scaling.

Marketing Objectives:

User Acquisition.

 It seems obvious, but it is more than just acquiring as many participants as possible. Since a significant portion of the users are service providers, we need a dedicated solution for proper scaling. If mentors do not have sufficient mentees’ inquiries, the long-term engagement and the trust in the platform will be significantly lowered. If mentors have too many inquiries, that results in not being able to schedule all the classes for mentees, or mentees can’t find enough mentors to meet their requests, that will harm the mentees’ motivation to use the platform during the platform’s early stage.

The channel that has the most accessible control of the data is mass email marketing. Since other channels are unable to control the number of audiences who can see the message, the email marketing approach, however, can be sent to a list of email addresses, which will be an easier feature for A/B testing and not exceed the capacity of the platform.

The biggest argument is: which group shall we target as a priority for the current status?

        The total number of registrants on 04/29/2022 is 825, mentees registered are 562. As of April 22nd, roughly around 33% of the participants registered as mentors and mentees, 32% registered as mentors only, and 35% as mentees only, which is equally distributed for both sides. Since there is a complaint from mentors that they have not received enough mentees' inquiries, the data shows there is enough capacity for mentees, we can start steps as follows:

1. The first campaign can be a mentees registration-focused campaign. The mentors’ capacity is estimated as 1,044, and we have a room of over 500 more active mentees.  Currently, active pairing is 286 pairs, which is 50% of registered mentees. The mentees' campaign for current mentors' capacity can be a goal for acquiring 1,000 new mentees.

        2. Benchmark and A/B Test Calculation

The main objectives of the testing campaigns are receiving a reliable CTR rate but not exceeding the mentors’ schedule capacity.

In the most recent marketing campaign, the Unique Opening Rate is 48%, and the Unique CTR is 17.27%. Since no other email marketing benchmark is available due to the unique marketing campaign’s audience, and the result is higher than the open marketing resources ranging from 1% to 5% CTR, we can only make an assumption based on each time of our own marketing. According to MailChimp, the average open rate of all industries is around 21.8%. ^[4]

Since the Unique CTR in UN internal email is 1.2 times higher than the all-industry average’s open rate, and over 3 times higher of CTR, an estimation of higher registration rate/(Conversion Rate) will be expected. The biggest flaw is the most recent email marketing campaign is aiming towards the audience having registered on the platform for a goal of users’ retention. I am suggesting a conservatism rule for the testing period for the low confidence level of the benchmark.

Conservatism rule is not exceeding the mentors’ capacity. Instead of assuming the lower conversion and click through rate, I am choosing higher rates to securely not overwhelm the platform. The number of emails sent to the audience shall be around 5,790. For 5,790 emails, with a CTR of 17.27%, will equal to or less than 1,000 clicks to the website. The registration rate for the program is unknown, but 1,000 clicks will not be 100% converted into subscription. With an active rate of 50%, even with 1,000 subscribers, the active mentees shall be less than 500.

It is safe to assume that 5,000-6,000 emails for the current mentees oriented campaign is a good start for testing.

An A/B testing marketing campaign can be made for the 6,000 audience. When email marketing has more than 1,000 targets, Pareto principle recommends sticking to the 80/20 rule. Meaning, focus on the 20% that will bring 80% of the results. When it comes to A/B tests, this means sending one variant to 10% of the people, and the other 10% to variant B. Depending on which variant performed best, the rest of the 80% will be sent to the remaining group of subscribers.^[5]

While our email list is roughly around 35,000 audience which will be the final amount of emails after testing, each round of A/B testing for 7,000 emails is recommended according to the Pareto principle. That proves that 6,000 emails can be an appropriate number also considering the mentors’ capacity. ^[6]

      For other methods to determine sample sizes of A/B tests, using the Evan Miller sample size calculator can be considered.^[7]

     To ensure the A/B test accuracy, the sampling can be completely random toward different organizations and locations. According to the data, the US duty station has the most registrations also because of the higher number of staff in the US duty stations. The participation rate for different locations is still needed to be researched. The result can be a good insight for stations lacking interest in the program, which can be a good way to segment for further brand localization and penetration.

3. Benchmark Settling and Scaling

After the A/B Testing is finished, an email with a more efficient CTR rate shall be one of the key KPIs for email marketing. CVR (Conversion Rate) is the ultimate goal for the KPI if A/B testing for two different groups can be performed in different weeks. With a higher confidence level of data, we will have a general idea if the testing email is ready to scale, or if more rounds of testing are required to optimize the conversion rate.

A/B Testing Elements^[8]

1. Subject line (Open-Rate)

The subject line works like the headline of a newspaper headline. The more enticing it is, the better will be the open rates. It is a key element affecting the opening rate and needed to take into account the recent subject line trends and prepare two different campaigns to see what works and what doesn’t.

     Try first name personalization (if possible), numbers, or use of power words that will instantly make the recipient open the email. Also, test longer versus shorter subject lines. The results will surely unlock the key to better open rates for future emails.

2. Preview text (Open-Rate)

Besides the subject line, preview text also matters regarding email opening rates. Many marketers miss out on making prudent use of this space and end up writing something like “View this email in a browser” as preview text.

Instead, elaborate on the subject line and let the subscribers know why they should open the email. Companies love using tests of  “50% off continues” or “Avail your coupon code now” as the preview text, which would inform the subscriber about what the email is all about and prompt them to take action.

3. Email copy and design (CTR & CVR)

Email copy should be interesting enough for the subscribers and inspire them to make a decision. Using the UN brand in the designs to instill a sense of trust through the email copy and graphics.

Different body copy variants that can be tested:

• Use of bullet points or numbered list
• Question and answer format
• Plain text versus HTML email
• Minor tweaks like these in the email copy can greatly influence the email click-through rates and conversions.

        The content shall be in a “BOFU” marketing funnel that focuses on educating the benefits of the program, and the easy use of the program’s features. The following are the benefits of the program website, and updates can be done if needed.

Benefits for mentors(What Does the Customer Value):

• Supporting a mentee can be personally rewarding
• Reflect on your accomplishments
• Reduce isolation during COVID-19
• Gain new insights and perspectives
• Mentoring develops your management skills
• Increase awareness of talent in the Organization

Benefits for mentees

• Receive feedback from a more experienced colleague
• Reflect on your career goals and challenges
• Reduce isolation during COVID-19
• Learn about positions in other duty stations
• Expand your network
• Enhance confidence when interacting with more experienced colleagues

4. Call to action (CTR)

Call to action (CTA) is the ultimate driver of conversions. Hence, special attention to this element is vital. Try out first-person narrative or second-person narrative in CTA copy.

Different colors of CTA buttons and assessing their performance can be a consideration. Usually, CTAs written in all caps work better than those written in sentence cases. It is an option to test one versus multiple CTAs in email campaigns and see if there is any difference in the conversion rate.

5. Time of sending email

The time of sending an email is of paramount importance as far as the success of email campaigns is concerned. Test for the optimal time and day that works the best for the email list. While the fact that the targeted audience is located in different time zones and email addresses are all work emails, the email opening rate and click-through can be different too. Finding a time of the highest email opening and click-through rate shall be ideal to have during testing that can be beneficial for scaling.

The scaling process

After the first round of scaling the mentees' subscription, campaigns targeting mentors can follow up. The testing process and benchmarks setup can reference the mentors’ email campaign.

As the results of the A/B tests and scaling campaigns, Email Opening Rate, CTR, and CVR with high confidence levels will be obtained. It is more accurate to use these numbers for further campaigns to adjust the numbers of the mentors and mentees. There will be a fatigue rate when more conversion campaigns are executed for the interested participants enrolled.

        The further campaigns shall consider upper-funnel marketing, including brand awareness and engagement can potentially lead to conversions. These campaigns require new media elements than the previous conversion campaigns, including branding videos and UGC(from mentors and mentees), video thumbnail pictures with CTA, and maybe more events with registration CTA, as references below from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Linkedin Learning programs email campaign.

        In the final stage, while launching the brand awareness campaign, when the email campaign has been fatigued to a stage that not can attract new users, the other channels can be launched for testing and scaling, including the UN LinkedIn page iSeek page, and also yammer. An endorsement from the UN secretary-general's office and the UN secretary-general António Guterres can be an added value to the brand. iSeek’s success in brand awareness can be referenced, and the “together” program can also use the endorsement.

        Collaborating with other UN programs, including the duty station programs and on-boarding orientations (buddy program, global orientation), can benefit new user acquisition and the program's longevity.

User retention email marketing campaign

A retention email is a targeted and triggered message sent to an existing customer to increase engagement, loyalty, and satisfaction.

When the testing and scaling processes are completed, user retention email campaigns to increase the users’ engagement rate, which is for now 50%, can be launched. Or the campaigns can be launched together with the conversion campaigns when the testing and scaling process result is far from meeting the mentors’ capacity. These campaigns can be about the new features, a new development about the platform, the recommended mentors for the mentees, user surveys, or the events that satisfy and highlight the mentors and mentees’ achievement psychologically.

Landing Page Design

     The landing page should have more updated content, including videos, graphics, and texts, to ensure that further campaigns have long-term benefits. There is feedback regarding the designs of the title images that are too serious and unpleasant for their black-and-white colors, that we can use new designs focusing on the values and mission that focus on “mentoring,” “inspiration,” and “networking” and “together.”

The landing page design can be A/B tested in one of the email marketing campaigns, and a clear CTA on the landing page should be added to boost the conversions.

To integrate with the emails regarding the events and videos, a completed page with branding video, UGC videos (mentors and mentees’ highlights and achievements), and an introduction webinar can be set up for the upper-funnel objectives. A page regarding feature introductions, user tutorial videos, or related content can be used for conversions and retention.

Conclusion

        A/B testing email campaigns and scaling conversion campaigns with the control of the registration numbers at the early stage are the key objectives. After the campaigns are completed, the most valuable data of CTR and CVR will be obtained and will be the guidelines and benchmarks for further campaigns. The following steps include brand awareness, engagement, and user retention campaigns. Collaborating with other messaging channels and co-branding with other internal programs will be the approaches that we will test.