Internal marketing

What is internal marketing about? Internal marketing views the employees in your organisation as internal customers. As customers, they have needs that must be fulfilled, just like your external customers, so that they can and will carry out their responsibilities to the highest standard.

The core objectives of internal marketing are attracting, developing, motivating and retaining qualified employees (Berry and Parasuraman, 1992).

Employees within your organisation are:

• the service;
• the organisation in the Customer's eyes;
• the brand; and
• the marketers.

Do you see now that it makes sense to look after your employees' needs, so that their delivery of the above four aspects is optimised? How many unhappy employees do you think provide a high level of service and promote your brand?

There are two additional core principles of internal marketing:

• Your employees are both the providers and users of internal services. Naturally, there is no choice of provider for them, but nonetheless it is important that delivery of service to your internal customers (employees) receives as much attention as external services receive.
• Companies that successfully provide high levels of customer service or high quality products achieve this by ensuring their employees all work together to achieve a common goal. To have a common goal there needs to be a clear statement and ownership of the Company's aims, together with an appreciation by your employees of how their work contributes to those aims, and a recognition that all employees are responsible for ensuring customer satisfaction. This is how every employee in the Company is a 'part-time' marketer, not just your marketing team if you have one.

The ingredients for a successful internal marketing programme are similar to those that you'd expect to find in an external marketing programme. They include:

• Information gathering and research - like any marketing programme, you need to understand the attitudes, values and norms of your employees as customers.
• Segmentation and targeting - this involves grouping your employees that have similar characteristics - for example, their needs, wants, tasks and attitudes. These can be based, for example, on observation, surveys/interviews and appraisals.
• Effective communication - newsletters and magazines written for your employees as well as intranets are all popular ways for companies to communicate with their employees. They are a great opportunity to build awareness, provide information and reenforce key messages, values and focus. It is crucial not to assume employee wants to hear what you as a manager would want to hear. Non-management employees are in a very different position to managers and have a different frame of reference, different concerns and different interests. Hence the use of the word 'effective' for this point - you need to work with employee representatives to deliver a message that is appealing to those who will receive it.
• Product/service development - just as your business develops services and products for its external customers, the same happens for your employees as internal customers. These must be developed to meet the needs of segments - for example, you may develop policies, services and benefits that help the segment of your employees that are working and have children.
• Understanding and building relationships - one of the biggest reasons for employees not working together, as well as lack of ability or willingness to deliver a high quality service to your external customers, is lack of teamwork. Through internal marketing you can identify key relationships that exist or need building/strengthening and encourage collaboration between functions, reducing interdepartmental conflict.
  
  

If you're interested in the subject of internal marketing and you want to read more, here are some recommended articles and journals that you will find helpful:

• Ahmed, P.K., Rafiq, M. and Saad, N.M. (2003) ‘Internal marketing and the mediating role of organisational competencies’, European Journal of Marketing,
  vol. 37, no. 9, pp. 1221–41
• Ballantyne, D. (1997) ‘Internal Networks for Internal marketing’, Journal of Marketing Management, vol. 13, no. 13, pp. 343–66.
• Foreman, S.K. and Money, A.H. (1995) ‘Internal marketing: concepts, measurement and application’, Journal of Marketing Management, vol. 11, no.
  8, pp. 755–68.
• George, W.R. (1990) ‘Internal marketing and organisational behaviour: A partnership in developing customer-conscious employees at every level’, Journal
  of Business Research, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 63–70
• Helman, D. and Payne, A. (1995) ‘Internal marketing: Myth versus reality’, in Payne, A. (ed.), Advances in relationship marketing, London, Kogan Page.
• Lings, I.N. and Greenley, G.E. (2005) ‘Measuring internal marketing orientation’, Journal of Service Research, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 290–305.
• Pitt, L.F. and Foreman, S.K. (1999) ‘Internal marketing’s role in organizations: a transaction cost perspective’, Journal of Business Research, vol. 44, no. 1,
  pp. 15–36.
• Rafiq, M. and Ahmed, P.K. (1993) ‘The scope of internal marketing: defining the boundary between marketing and human resource management’, Journal of
  Marketing Management, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 219–32.
• Thomson, K. (1990) The employee revolution: The rise of corporate internal marketing, London, Pitman Publishing
• Varey, R. and Lewis, B. (1999) ‘A broadened conception of internal marketing’, European Journal of Marketing, vol. 33, issue 9/10, pp. 926–44.

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