The Marketer's Handbook: Reassessing Marketing Techniques for Modern Business

INTERNAL MARKETING

Application: Services Marketing, Marketing Communication, Employee Motivation, Achievement of Strategic Goals

The Concept

One of the main communication channels to customers is via the employees of the firm, service firms in particular. If a company has 10,000 employees talking to three customers a day on average, there are 30,000 opportunities through which marketing can communicate with customers every day. Communications planning should therefore take into account the views of employees when preparing any external communications. At the very least, employees should be told about any campaign before it is released, so that they can explain it to their contacts. However, effectiveness is dramatically improved if employees are drawn into the campaign and enthused to talk to customers about it.

Internal engagement and motivation are particularly important in a service industry. As service offers frequently involve the direct engagement of human beings, it is not surprising that, with the rise of the service economies in the West, marketers have created internal marketing functions. Used in some of the leading service businesses with increasing sophistication, these aim to communicate with the internal audience as professionally as the firm communicates with its external audiences. They set up internal communication media, which can range from simple management briefings ...