Marketing is often seen as an outward force: the activity of sending the company message into the world and targeting potential customers with campaigns and strategies. But this is only part of the picture. Successful businesses are increasingly looking to internal marketing, in other words, marketing campaigns aimed at a business’s own employees.
An internal marketing strategy is a mixture of PR and HR. It’s designed to create happy employees with a strong understanding of company values, internal branding, and a sense of their place in a shared mission.
The benefits are many; it increases employee engagement and retention, but it also impacts many other business areas. Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of internal marketing in the modern workplace.
Understanding internal marketing
Essentially, internal marketing is a form of marketing that considers employees as internal customers worthy of the same marketing tools and initiatives as external, potential consumers.
For an employee working away in a department of a business, there is often little time to really consider what the business they are working so hard for is all about.
Internal marketing uses the principles of external marketing to really connect with employees. It promotes the business’s core values and company goals, boosts brand awareness, and encourages employee performance. Internal marketing is one of the most powerful tools for managing and motivating a workforce. It’s akin to good candidate management but for existing employees.
Internal marketing leverages employee touch points, both physical and virtual, where the workforce and business connect and interact. These could include:
- Zoom chats
- Training sessions
- Professional development
- Break out and relaxation spaces
- Updates on company news and initiatives
- Emails delivering company announcements
- Opportunities for employee feedback
- Messages to thank or reward staff for their efforts
- SMS links for quick updates and engagement
- Custom dashboards for real-time performance tracking.
All of these interfaces where staff and business connect can be used for internal marketing campaigns.
Of course, many of these touchpoints are also important for internal communication., but internal marketing is different in its approach.
Internal marketing vs. internal communications
Internal communication is very important; making sure employees are all kept in the loop and guarding against disinformation is vital for any business. However, internal marketing initiatives are more than merely communication.
Communication within a business is mainly about sharing news and updates keeping everyone informed and on board with a business’s plans and goals. Although it may use the same touch points as internal communications, internal marketing is more concerned with promoting and boosting rather than just informing.
An internal marketing team will use marketing strategies to build a strong company culture and promote its values and brand identity in the hearts and minds of its workforce. This fosters a sense of belonging and pride in employees, motivating and encouraging them to play their part in the company’s success.
You can even use dedicated internal marketing software here. As with good candidate relationship management software, the idea is to build relationships and establish a strong sense of inclusivity and value. To achieve this, marketing solutions may embed marketing messages in normal company communication. They can also design ways for employees to connect, give feedback, and interact with the business, which, in turn, boosts engagement, belonging, loyalty, and employee retention.
Benefits of internal marketing
One of the key benefits of internal marketing is that it can help unify the approach your employees take when representing your business. For example, with a call center service provider, it’s important to have all staff greeting, interacting, and serving customers in a coherent, on-brand fashion.
Providing instructions and training for call center staff is one way, of course, but internal marketing can fix the brand personality and company values in employees’ minds. As a result, they are more inclined to express the company voice naturally.
Internal marketing can achieve this by helping staff understand the goals, intentions, and ethos of the business. This information, when delivered by a marketing team rather than HR, can mean that messages hit home and that ideas and values are communicated in a compelling, creative, and engaging way.
Employees tend to feel more committed to helping a company succeed if they feel genuinely part of it. In the hands of marketing departments, this sense of belonging can be fostered and grown far more effectively than can be achieved by standard company memos and communication.
Why internal marketing matters now
According to Gallup, disengagement among the workforce is at its highest rate since before the pandemic. This is bad news for businesses striving to retain human capital and improve their employees’ mental health.
According to Gallup’s survey, disgruntled workers largely feel the way they do because their needs are not being met in the workplace. Sore points include a lack of clarity about expectations, not enough opportunities to develop, and their opinions not being valued. The benefit of internal marketing is that it can address these issues by engaging with, listening to, and actively including employees in the business they work for.
Internal marketing, in short, improves employee satisfaction, which can only benefit the business as a whole. Now more than ever, it’s worth putting time and effort into internal marketing rather than only focusing on winning external customers.
Part of keeping workers engaged and loyal is about asking for and valuing their input and opinions. This kind of data collection should form part of a successful internal marketing campaign, as it would with external marketing strategies such as surveys and feedback. It’s worth looking at tools that can ingest streaming data to capture and use this information. In short, treat your employee’s opinions as valuable insights, just as you would with your external customers.
A continuous process
We’ve talked about the various benefits of internal marketing, but it’s important to constantly review and evaluate how your marketing team is performing in this area. Just as there are trends and new innovations with marketing in general, internal marketing should be varied and changed as and when new ideas come along.
Also, a word of warning. Just because your employees have something in common, being colleagues at the same business, never forget they are individuals. Some may prefer not to receive marketing material on their phones; some may dislike or not respond to contact by email because they are busy focusing on work. Just as customers prefer personalization and choice, employees are no different. Tailor and refine your internal marketing. Never let it be a poor copy of external marketing. Done right, it can benefit your business by ensuring your staff are loyal and committed.
