Don't Forget About Internal Marketing

Management tends to spend a lot of time and a lot of money on external marketing.  Advertising, promotion, public relations, sales and other marketing activities is the focus.  Too often, there is a lack of focus on internal marketing.  But, if your own staff is disaffected or uninformed, all of that effort on external marketing can be wasted. 

Effective internal marketing comes down to motivating and informing your people ... and aligning their activities with your brand.  One easy way to think about doing this is the "3 Rs" of internal marketing:

• Respect
• Reward
• Reinforce

Treating your staff - especially your front line staff - with respect is too often ignored.  I've heard staff describe themselves as "mushrooms" ... kept in the dark and knee deep in manure.  Respect them enough to communicate with them and share meaningful information about the company and its direction and you'll go a long way toward increasing productivity.

Try to catch people doing right.  When I worked at Hawaii Pizza Hut, the CEO would visit the restaurants with a stash of $20 dollar bills in his wallet.  When he saw examples of great customer service or excellent teamwork, he would hand the employee a $20 bill as a cash reward on the spot.  It ended up being a couple thousand dollars in the marketing budget for the year, but it was a great investment for employee morale.

Don't expect that a single training session or employee bulletin will result in effective communication.  Reinforce your message by repeating it ... and delivering it different formats.

There are great books written on this subject so there's no excuse for ignoring this powerful concept. 

Too bad that internal marketing often takes a back seat to "sexier" external marketing activities.