The Organizational Importance of Internal Marketing

This blog post was written by? Charles Lindsey , associate professor of marketing,?in October 2022 as part of our?52 Weeks of Leadership Program.

Before we get into the importance of marketing inside or within a firm we need to understand that marketing is a vast area. Within most large firms, marketing typically controls pricing, the product (features, configuration, etc., based on marketing research), distribution channels, and advertising/promotion. When we talk about marketing within a firm, we are primarily referring to the last element, that is, promoting the firm’s mission, brands, and initiatives to its managers and employees.

In a recent Harvard Business Review article published earlier this year, entitled “Selling the Brand Inside,” Colin Mitchell points out that when people (even managers within a firm) think of marketing, they focus on customers and clients. Yet, there is an equally important constituency group that is often overlooked when it comes to the need for marketing – a firm’s employees. Indeed, if employees do not feel an emotional connection to/are not vested in the firm, the very people responsible for enthusiastically communicating a firm’s value proposition, become either lukewarm ambassadors (at best) or saboteurs (at worst). In essence, a rather vicious “agency” problem.

Back in 2017, I wrote an article in Fortune Magazine on a horrific customer service incident. Many of you will recall, in that same year, Dr. David Dao was literally dragged off a plane so that an airline employee could have a seat and make their layover connection. In the article, I outlined a number of steps the airline in question would need to take going forward to ensure that such incidents do not repeat themselves. One of the prescriptive measures I suggested also plays a key role in internal marketing. Although companies frequently engage in formal marketing research when it comes to customers (e.g., surveys/interviews, A-B testing, etc.), they are far less likely to conduct this type of formalized, rigorous research with their employees.

Marketing managers spend significant time formally researching which promotional touchpoints drive desired customer behavior. Similarly, it is vital that firms rigorously research what motivates employees to “live the brand. A few years ago, I did some corporate training for a large insurance company. One of the modules they requested was something on “internal” marketing. Specifically, they were focused on maximizing employee “buy-in” and minimizing the likelihood of employees not actively promoting programs and initiatives central to the firm’s current growth strategies or (worse yet) actively criticizing those programs to clients/customers.

So, where do we begin? Pulse surveys can be a good starting point for understanding how a firm’s mission, value proposition, brands, and initiatives are resonating with employees (and how that sentiment is changing over time). In terms of a key performance indicator (KPI) at the dashboard level of analysis, Customer Net Promoter Score (c-NPS) is a marketing and operational KPI, that many firms are now starting to use internally in the form of an Employee Net Promoter Score (e-NPS).

Once we have a data-driven understanding of how our employees and managers feel about various aspects of the organization, from “all-in” to points of confusion/misunderstanding to pain points, we can begin to develop branding communication strategies with multiple touchpoints in order to gain “buy-in” and “rally the troops.” In some cases, certain programs and initiatives may need to be tweaked or even reconsidered. A working knowledge of branding communication strategy and of influencer marketing (who are the influencers within the firm and how do we get them on board) is critical to leveraging the full force and power of the gatekeepers of the brand – a firm’s employees.?

Learn more about the University at Buffalo School of Management’s?Center for?Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness.