What is Internal Marketing?
“Internal marketing is the promotion of a company’s objectives, products and services to employees within the organisation. The purpose is to increase employee engagement with the company’s goals and fostering brand advocacy.”
We believe, put simply, Internal Marketing is about empowering your team and making them your biggest fans – creating your strongest brand ambassadors.
Imagine the difference between:
- A team member who’s a true fan and spreading positive word about your brand to their own personal network of people
- A sales team member who’s memorised and regurgitates a cold sales script
Which do you think your prospects will connect better with?
So, how do I do “Internal Marketing”?
If you haven’t done this already, map out (in simple terms) the following:
Company Overview
- Company objectives. Answer the questions:
- What is my prospects problem and what is my offered solution?
- If your prospect asked, “What’s in it for me?” how would you answer in 1 sentence?
- Company mission.
- Products and Services.
Try fitting this in one page – the faster your team can read and understand, the better!
It’s not about selling the product or service – but the feeling you leave behind.
There’s some (actually a lot of) human psychology behind all this. But, just remember this:
Create positive associations and memories.
Happy feelings = Happy customers = Positive Word of Mouth = Profit ????
Tactics you can action now.
Let’s divide the strategies into cost levels to make it easier for you!
Zero to Low Cost
Whether you have a team of 5 or 500, here are things you can do at a low cost:
- Hold an internal meeting to educate your team – invite everyone. Remember that one page Company Overview? Create a slide show, or print the one pager, better yet create fun palm cards to make it more engaging.
- Run a short survey. Allow them to provide honest feedback with confidentiality. You can do it digitally with Survey Monkey.
- Encourage and nurture conversations. Take your staff for coffee meetings to talk just about the company. But most importantly, listen.
- Give them an exclusive look to works in development so they feel like VIPs.
- Share samples they can keep
- Create a staff exclusive launch party
Medium to High Cost
Ready to make your team feel like VVIPs?
- Start an online group e.g. a private Facebook group. This will cost you time unless you’ve got a marketing or HR member to help you out.
- Have weekly discussion questions to spark conversation
- Share funny jokes or other content to put them in a happy mood
- Share team triumphs, milestones, to show appreciation
- Share something personal that your staff wouldn’t necessarily know about you – show that you are human too!
- Treat them to a fancy night out. Make them feel special!
- Encourage staff to share photos on their personal Social Media profiles. Share these on your business profile.
Share a personalised gift.
Now this is by far the most powerful tool. Showing appreciation speaks volumes both internally and to your prospects.
Here are some gift ideas even we’ve personally used:
- Does Bob in procurement love wine? Send him a Dan Murphy’s gift card. Sarah from HR love dining out? Send her a restaurant voucher.
Show them that you notice what they love and that the gift card is just for them! - Branded Merchandise. Think about what your staff needs – stationery, tech, even a jacket. As long as it’s an item they would value on a day-to-day basis, you’re on the right track.
Better yet, have their names branded onto the item!
We are true believers in helping our staff feel at home by listening to their needs. At the end of the day, without their hard work, our business would not continue to flourish!