It appears not only customers are kings, but arguably your employees are too. The customers pay in the money that funds your workers' luxurious salaries, so it takes nothing for you to prioritize them over your employees. But that shouldn't be the case, because when your staff are as satisfied with your brand as your customer, your business will boom. And the driver for you to achieve this is Internal Marketing.
Internal Marketing is almost similar to external marketing, the only difference is that while external marketing is about you promoting your goods and services to people who are willing to buy, you focus your communication and strategies towards your staff.
I could hear you say, where is that budget and what's the need? Especially when you are faced with the pressure of coming up with new innovations for insatiable customers. What you do not know is that cutting costs on Internal Marketing in favour of marketing to customers would only lead to the early demise of your business.
Internal marketing helps your business in several ways, one that I find is most pertinent is the consistency and alignment of your brand message and marketing strategy. Let's assume, you are a business that preaches safety for customers, how do you achieve this? You will rely on your employees to help you achieve this, so you don't become a brand that says you are something, that the customers do not experience.
The stage where you get your staff ready to give this service, in a way that comes naturally, with a sense of purpose and a sense of direction is what Internal Marketing stands for. This is because Internal marketing fosters brand advocacy and engagement among your employees, making them somewhat unofficial brand ambassadors who will spread the news of your company and its activities among their social networks.
Some employees do not have confidence in what their brand offers or can't even talk about the company's core values. This only means one thing: you won't ever become what you say you are to the customers. There will be inconsistency in the delivery of promises, and employees who are purpose or objective-driven will find the next door out.
How to Conduct Internal Marketing in Your Organization:
Generally, the Human Resource manager or your marketing team champions this initiative. It is simply passing all the information you would give a customer to your staff, so they know the problem you are solving.
I know right, you must have been pondering on the kind of eBooks, videos or whitepaper you will send to your staff as a form of Internal Marketing. However, there are a few things I would want you to note:
1) Be creative with your internal Marketing - You can literarily replace a 20-page brand guide with a beautiful wall design explaining what your company stand for. You don't want to onboard that poor intern with a thousand-minute video he would end up skipping, look for alternative ways of disseminating the messages in bits.
2) Target the right message to the right people: One way not to bore your new employees is to ensure they get messages that are relevant to their role. So take that hammer and go break that big chuck of information into pieces and segment them rightly.
Have fun building a brand that thrives. Love, Smart.
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