A Regiment’s Battle to Stay Connected

In late 2019, The Royal Lancers approached Enthuse for support in connecting with serving and veteran comrades using a 21st Century mindset and methodology.   

Over the past 12 months, we’ve spearheaded a revolutionary step-change in the way this Regiment engages its members and started to transform perceptions of its Regimental Association, making comrades young and old feel supported, valued and connected.  

The Client  

A cavalry regiment of the British Army, The Royal Lancers was established in 2015 as the result of an amalgamation of several Lancer regiments, boasting a heritage going back centuries, coming together to form a single entity.   

With its Garrison in Catterick, North Yorkshire, and a Home Headquarters in Grantham, Lincolnshire, The Royal Lancers has more than 400 members currently serving in active duty on front lines all over the world. Plus, a further 8- 10,000 people alive today who have served in the Regiment at some point in the last 100 years.   

The Royal Lancers Regimental Association is a body set up to promote the culture of the Regiment, maintaining and preserving its history, as well as keeping in touch with veterans and serving divisions to provide a variety of support to them and their families.   

Meanwhile, the Old Comrades’ Association is the social arm of the Regimental Association, offering veterans the opportunity to socialise and connect with each other at formal, informal and specialist events.   

The Challenge  

 When we met with the Colonel of the Regiment, The Royal Lancers was a relatively young entity steeped in centuries of history. Having joined together several Lancer Regiments in 2015, the Regimental Association was unsure how to engage with veterans. Many felt an obvious emotional attachment to their own antecedent Regiment and lacked an affinity with The Royal Lancers as a newly formed Regiment.  

Equally, many serving and veteran soldiers alike didn’t feel the Regimental Association or its Old Comrades’ Association had anything to offer them, saying it didn’t feel relevant to their lives.   

Therefore, the challenge was clear: how could we get under the skin of this newly formed Regiment and understand its members, to create a positive communications strategy that would bind different allegiances and bring serving and veteran Lancers together as one?  

The Objective  

The Royal Lancers launched a mission to achieve “Connectedness” across the entire Regiment under a project of the same name.  

The objective of the “Connectedness” project was to communicate the purpose and value of the Regimental Association. It would not only promote its services to serving and veteran Lancers, but also ensure those services met the needs of its members. The project aimed to encourage members to participate in whatever capacity felt most relevant to their lives, from socialising through to volunteering. 

As far as The Royal Lancers’ Regimental Association is concerned, once you join the Regiment, you’re a part of its family forever, whether you serve for a single day or 30 years. Therefore, the objective of the project – and of our work – was to communicate this message to all members and encourage active involvement from comrades young and old. 

The Solution  

Source: @theroyallancers on Instagram

 To launch the project, Andrea and Suze from Enthuse spent time at Home Headquarters developing an understanding of the Regiment’s history and structure. We also visited Catterick Garrison, speaking to everyone we could – from 17-year-old troopers to the Commanding Officer.  

Then, we created and rolled out an ambitious survey to garner opinions about the Regimental Association among thousands of members.   

In total, over 1,300 veterans took part in the survey, along with around 300 serving soldiers.  

Armed with such a robust data set, we were able to confidently advise on critical issues within the Regimental Association, highlight what members wanted to see and gain from it and suggest a series of updated processes and ideas on how that could be executed and managed.  

Above all, it became clear that members craved the support their Regiment could offer when transitioning out of the Army. So, we looked at how we could improve processes within the Regiment, as well as how we could inspire veterans to volunteer to help others make the transition by sharing their own experiences, offering practical advice and providing a listening ear to a comrade joining them on Civvy Street.   

To share the results and learnings of this survey widely, we organised a webinar, on behalf of the Colonel of the Regiment, aimed at communicating what members had told us and what we planned to do about it.  

The Results  

More than 170 people tuned into the webinar as we broadcasted, with more following live on Facebook and over 700 seeing it in their Facebook feed, generating lots of comments and likes: a tremendous response and a significant win for the project.  

Quickly, people’s perception of the Regimental Association changed as they now understood what it did, how they could play a vital role in its work or receive life-changing support from its volunteers or Charitable Trust.   

Our work enabled the Regimental Association to show it was open, supportive and relevant in its members’ lives, with so much to offer veterans from previously disconnected antecedent Regiments. 

Consequently, members felt motivated and engaged to become more involved with the association – whether through volunteering to run welfare and careers groups, updating their contact details to receive communications or registering their interest in attending ‘virtual’ social events – because finally, they could see themselves as a part of the organisation.   

Other Regiments have already noticed that The Royal Lancers are doing things differently. The Royal Armoured Corps reached out to the Lancers and asked representatives to share best practice and provide presentations on the methods it has employed to engage and motivate its members. Evidently, the work of Enthuse is pioneering a pivotal change and we feel we’ve only scratched the surface of what we can achieve in this realm.   

The Regimental Association loves the work we do, and we’ve received confirmation we will continue to work together in 2021.   

The Enthuse Difference   

Our ability to immerse ourselves in an organisation and turn complex information into a clear communications strategy is a vital benefit of the role we play in The Royal Lancers.  

Source: @theroyallancers on Instagram

We understood the Regiment was in the midst of an identity crisis when we stepped in. Subsequently, we were able to craft a narrative that communicated why it existed and what it could do for its members.

In doing so, a high-ranking member of the Regiment commented to the Enthuse team:

“You’ve got to know us so well…

 I now think you know this Regiment better than we do!”  

We feel privileged to be part of  The Royal Lancers’ work to offer what can be life-changing support to serving soldiers and veterans. Through insightful and strategic communications, we’re excited to continue to have a positive impact on the lives of hundreds of individuals.  

To speak to us about how you communicate within your organisation, regardless of your current situation and objectives, get in touch to see how we can help you. Call us on 07812 343310 or email andrea.law@enthuse-comms.co.uk.