Internal Marketing, why bother?

Throughout University, and many modules of different marketing formats, one area that has never been covered, is internal marketing, and the benefit it can have on the both motivation and communication given to your employees. Whilst I agree that external marketing will always have monetary gains, from experience, I believe that this is dependent upon the Industry you are in, and that in some industry’s, especially the heavily manufacturing industry, internal marketing could be as/if not more important.

When I refer to internal marketing, I believe it can be summarised as: an employee motivational tool to effectively satisfy its customers. So it is not just about displaying information about the business, or about news and events that are happening (although they do play an important role), it is about providing your employees with information that will focus their judgments and decisions on customer satisfaction. Having the recognition and therefore the motivation to go beyond your day-to-day duty, could change the perspective a customer has of your organisation. If this can be achieved through simple recognition, and a greater emphasis on pushing key information to your employees, then this should be facilitated within your organisation. As identified by ‘thesocialworkplace’, employee recognition is not just about employee motivation, or working harder, but could also give an increased employee retention, which is now very hard to sustain within the UK’s ‘itchy feet’ culture.

So does your organisation focus heavily on external marketing? Does it not do any marketing at all? Would you, as an employee feel more wanted and valued if you had access to up to date information or are you in a position to offer greater information to your employees? Internal marketing will only create a more informed workforce, and the time and resources to manage such a project, are far smaller than the potential ROI that it could have.

It’s not a complicated topic, but it is one that I think is often overlooked because it is not seen as a physical or monetary gain, and this is a real shame.

James

Ps. I’m as shocked as you are about how serious I was just then. My comical genius will be back soon, but just then, for five minutes, I enjoyed being serious.