THE INTERNAL
MARKETER
Art & Science of Internal Communications
@ItsAJThomas #YPSummitHR

AJ Thomas
Head of Employee Engagement & Development, Nimble Storage
Founder & Executive Director, Infuse Program Foundation
@ItsAJThomas
Mom, foodie, passionate about education and technology.

Employee morale is
affected by how much
we know about the
company’s plans.
“
98% of employees agree.

Why are they communicating?
Where does it fit within an organization’s strategic plans?
Who should do it -- marketing, HR, public relations?
What can these organizations learn from each other?
Key Questions Regarding Internal Marketing

 Selling the company to its employees (Grönroos, 1981)
 The process of attracting, developing, motivating, and retaining qualified employees through
job-products that satisfy their needs (Berry & Parasuraman 1991)
 Building customer orientation among employees by training and motivating both customer
contact and support staff to work as a team (Kotler & Armstrong 1991)
 A process by which employee satisfaction is leveraged to positively impact the bottom line.
Satisfied employees strengthen relationships among all critical stakeholders. (Williams, Business &
Economic Review, 1997)
How is Internal Marketing Defined?
@ItsAJThomas #YPSummitHR

Effective internal
marketing responds to
employee needs as it
advances the
organization’s mission
and goals.
“The application of marketing, human resources
management, and allied theories, techniques, and
principles to motivate, mobilize, co-opt and
manage employees at all levels of the
organization to continuously improve the way they
serve external customers and each other.
(Joseph W.B. 1996 Cleveland State University )
ɪ̀ntə́rnəl márkətɪŋ (n.)

 Customer- and employee-focused
 It demands an integrative approach
 Internal customers -- the idea that organizational departments serve each other
 It encompasses all employees
What Does It Need to Succeed
ɪ̀ntə́rnəl márkətɪŋ (n.)

Influencing Employees
look
act
talk
interact with each other

The Art & Science
@ItsAJThomas #YPSummitHR
 Recruiting the right people
 Training them
 Motivating them
 Communicating with them
 Co-opting them (getting them to buy into the organization and its plans)

Changing Workforce
 Employees viewed as
assets, not costs
 People will have 4-6 careers
in lifetime
 More than half of women
with babies are working
 More women are starting
and running their own
businesses

Where Internal Communications Fail
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 Few companies develop a strategy
 Failure in over 80% of cases involving announced change
 Biggest symptom of failure - lots of inaccurate, negative rumors
 Second symptom - learning about change from press

How It Affects Employee Engagement
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 Employees are insulted when a less ‘rich’ channel is used
 Management does not adapt message to different groups
 Employees react negatively to use of buzzwords
 Great differences between literal meaning, intention and effect of
overly positive messages

Implications of Not Doing Enough
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 Employees don’t believe what management says.
 Are not sufficiently informed.
 Change not communicated well.
 Management does a bad job of explaining reasons behind decisions.
 Communication is not timely.

Don’t have time
Haven’t gotten information self
Fear reactions, leaks, uproar
Won’t give away power
Not evaluated on their communication
Get no rewards for communicating
Don’t see how it is useful
Under-evaluate employee’s information needs

What Employees Want Leaders to Do
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 Inform them ahead of time
 Care about how they really feel
 Give their managers enough authority to get job done
 Make a strong commitment to serve the customer
 Have the ability to solve major organization problems
 Run a socially responsible organization
 Provide new products and services to meet competition
 Place more emphasis on quality than quantity

Communication Obligations
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 Speak at meetings
 Negotiate
 Give feedback, criticism and praise
 Speak personally with staff
 Solve conflicts
 Set demands
 Explain and defend unpopular decisions
 Carry out periodic evaluations of
employees
 Carry information from Sr. Management
 Explain
 Listen
 Get feedback from employees
 Take information from‘down’to ‘up’
 Active role in spreading information
 Sell ideas
 Motivate, inspire and encourage personal
development

INSTRUCTIVE

INFORMATIVE

ADVISING

CONTRIBUTIVE

PARTICIPATIVE

What is size and nature of company?
What do employees think of organization?
How satisfied are employees?
What employee communications exist?
How effective are communications tools?
Are there special employee relationship
programs?
Assess the
Organizational
Landscape

Communication Objectives
@ItsAJThomas #YPSummitHR
 Increase employees’ knowledge
 Enhance favorable attitudes toward employer
 Get more adoption by employees of behavior desired by management
 Make employees spokespersons for organization in community
 Receive more employee feedback

Prescriptions for The Internal Marketer
• Face-to-face: non-routine and difficult communications
• Memos: routine, simple communications
• Discussion & Meetings: make presence felt
• Rich media: Implement a strategy for these types of communications
• Multiple media: critical issues and need to get message heard
• Evaluate appropriate technology and tools

Manager’s Communication Obligation
@ItsAJThomas #YPSummitHR
 Speak at meetings
 Negotiate
 Give feedback, criticism and praise
 Speak personally with staff
 Solve conflicts
 Set demands
 Explain and defend unpopular decisions
 Carry out periodic evaluations of
employees
 Carry information from Sr. Management
 Explain
 Listen
 Get feedback from employees
 Take information from‘down’to ‘up’
 Active role in spreading information
 Sell ideas
 Motivate, inspire and encourage personal
development

How to Measure Impact
@ItsAJThomas #YPSummitHR
 Communication, Retention, Acceptance of Messages
 Employee Surveys
 Focus Groups
 Talk to your employees and managers 1:1- extensive use of network
analysis and interviews
 Automation and tool metrics

What Great Companies Do
@ItsAJThomas #YPSummitHR
 Share responsibility
 Bad news/good news ratio
 Knowing customers, clients, audiences
 Employee communication strategy
 Chief executive as communication
champion
 Match between words and actions
 Commitment to 2-way communication
 Emphasis on face-to-face

Information/Lead
Generation: Gathering
Information
Lead Nurturing:
MailChimp, Constant Contact, Emma
Initiatives:
HR Programs
 Follow Up
 Corporate
Newsletter
 Drip Campaigns
with Collateral and
Event Offers
 1:1 Meetings
 Focus Groups
 Employee Surveys
 Reward & Recognition
Programs
 Intranet
Activity
 Communications
 Email
Communications
 Stakeholder
Campaigns
 Internal Advertising
 Newsletters
Awareness:
Generating Buzz
Strategic Internal Communications Campaigns Help Drive Employee Engagement
The Internal Marketer’s Roadmap

An internal marketer can develop a really hot system
to market their product, but if they have not taken
time to build in an employee communications plan,
the marketing effort is dead in the water.
Gegenheimer, C. L., “Include employees in marketing”, Advertising Age’s Business Marketing, July 1998.
“
@ItsAJThomas #YPSummitHR

La Fin
@ItsAJThomas
www.linkedin.com/angelejeanthomas