Frontline Perspectives

Over the past two years, I’ve had more and more marketing managers ask me about ways to improve communication with their employees. This focus on internal engagement tactics is an important marketing element in a down economy. (Keep valued employees focused and feeling valued at a time when uncertainty abounds.) But as the economy rebounds, these efforts will become even more important in employee retention, recruiting and training efforts.

The “care and feeding” of the corporate culture often falls to the HR team. After all, they’re the ones generally responsible for recruiting, onboarding, and answering the questions that come up from what employees “need.” Sometimes the HR team works with the marketing team, but many times we see these two groups operate without any idea of how to leverage the corporate brand message for their corporate culture.

This is a missed opportunity in our minds. Your employees are customers, and the more you  can do to educate and engage with them, the faster your organization can grow. For some organizations (like ours) every employee is considered a sales person for the company. We feel that every time our employees (internal customers) connect with our external customers, there is an opportunity to increase revenue or profits. Making sure they are educated and comfortable with our brand message and strategy is central to making sure every interaction is a positive one.

Some ideas for engaging your internal customers:

1. Maintain regular communication between management and staff.
2. Keep up with cross-departmental training.
3. Communicate new customer “wins” to everyone.
4. Ask for input on ways to improve service to external customers.
5. Introduce a variety of team members as you take customers on company tours.
6. Share marketing plans and tactics with all company members.
7. Offer incentives for referrals (both on new recruits and new customers).
8. Find opportunities to give public recognition to great team work and extra efforts.

A lot of time and effort (and money) is spent on engaging with external customers. Companies would also benefit greatly from focusing some concentrated effort on their internal customers. Creating a company filled with “brand advocates” at every level will create a powerful work environment for your employees, and radiate a positive energy to prospects and customers.

If anyone has ideas on other ways to develop your internal brand “cheerleaders,” I’d love to hear them.