internal marketing: the missing link in strategy implementation

Internal Marketing: The Missing Link in Strategy

Implementation

Paul BuschTexas A&M University System Regents Professor

Professor of Marketing

July 14, 2012

Overview

1. Internal Marketing: What is It?

2. Meet my friend Howard Downer

3. Reading: “Don’t Neglect Internal Branding”

4. Application Exercise: Internal Marketing Mini-Audit

5. Discussion/Conclusion

Organization

Employees Customers

Internal

Marketing

External

Marketing

Interactive Marketing

Marketing Triangle

“Enabling the promise”

“Making the

promise”

“Delivering the promise”

Internal Marketing

External Marketing

Definitions

“The ongoing process whereby an organization aligns, motivates, and empowers employees at all levels to consistently deliver a positive customer experience that helps achieve business objectives.” Forum for People Performance Management and Measurement, Research Study, “Internal Marketing Best Practice Study,” 3, www.performanceforum.org as found in Stershic 2007 page 11.

Internal Marketing is defined as:

Meet My Friend Howard Downer

ABT Brand Experience Commercial

Examples of Internal Marketing

“Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.”

Simon CooperPresident and CEO

(2001-2010)

Examples of Internal Marketing

Employees as “cast members”

Examples of Internal Marketing

• Do you have any examples from your own experience of good or bad internal marketing?

Handout

• Reading: “Don’t Neglect Internal Branding”

• Internal Marketing Mini-Audit

• Internal Marketing Resources

Reading

“Don’t Neglect Internal Branding”

by Steve McKee

Internal Marketing Mini Audit

Taking Care of the People who Matter Most.

A Guide to Customer Care.

By Sybil F. Stershic

Internal Marketing Mini-Audit

Instructions:

To see how your organization stacks up, complete the following internal marketing mini-audit. Circle the number that best applies to each statement, and be as candid as possible. (For best results, I recommend you conduct and review this audit with others in your organization ranging from front-line staff to executive management. This will provide you with different perspectives on the need for internal marketing within your organization.)

Internal Marketing Mini-Audit

Please Note: To make your answers to the mini-audit more meaningful, you may want to consider the specific unit (department, division, or branch) within your organization in which you have the most experience.

Internal Marketing Mini-Audit

Based on the scale outlined above, to what extent:

1. Do employees know what is expected of them in helping your organization achieve its goals?

2. Do employees really know and understand your customers?

3. Are employees given the tools they need to perform effectively (information, training, equipment, etc.)?

4. Does management proactively reinforce the importance of customers?

Internal Marketing Mini-Audit

5. Do all employees (not just those with direct customer contact) understand their impact on customers?

6. Is customer information shared throughout your organization (customer wants, needs, expectations, and perceptions)?

7. Are employees involved in improving customer satisfaction?

Internal Marketing Mini-Audit

8. Are employee’s efforts to take care of customer recognized?

9. Does your organization recognized “internal” customers (i.e., employees)?

10. Does communication flow openly throughout your organization (top-down, bottom-up, laterally)?

Conclusion

1. Use internal marketing to improve external marketing

2. Recognize the cost effectiveness of internal marketing

3. Treat employees as customers

Final Thought on Internal Marketing

Somebody

Nobody

Anybody

Everybody