The document discusses internal marketing and its importance in strategy implementation. It defines internal marketing as aligning, motivating, and empowering employees to deliver a positive customer experience. It provides examples of good internal marketing from companies like Disney and Southwest Airlines that treat employees as internal customers. The document includes an internal marketing mini-audit for organizations to assess their internal marketing efforts and a conclusion that emphasizes using internal marketing to improve external marketing and treating employees as customers.

2. Internal Marketing: The
Missing Link in Strategy
Implementation
Paul Busch
Texas A&M University System Regents Professor
Professor of Marketing
July 14, 2012

3. Overview
1. Internal Marketing: What is It?
2. Meet my friend Howard Downer
3. Reading: “Don’t Neglect Internal
Branding”
4. Application Exercise: Internal
Marketing Mini-Audit
5. Discussion/Conclusion

4. Marketing Triangle
Organization
“Enabling “Making the
Internal External
the promise” promise”
Marketing Marketing
Employees Interactive
Marketing
Customers
“Delivering
the promise”

6. Definitions
Internal Marketing is defined as:
“The ongoing process whereby an organization aligns, motivates,
and empowers employees at all levels to consistently deliver a
positive customer experience that helps achieve business
objectives.” Forum for People Performance Management and Measurement, Research Study,
“Internal Marketing Best Practice Study,” 3, www.performanceforum.org as found in Stershic 2007 page 11.

7. Meet My Friend Howard Downer
ABT Brand Experience Commercial

8. Examples of Internal Marketing
“Ladies and gentlemen serving
ladies and gentlemen.”
Simon Cooper
President and CEO
(2001-2010)

9. Examples of Internal Marketing
Employees as
“cast members”

10. Examples of Internal Marketing
• Do you have any examples from
your own experience of good or
bad internal marketing?

11. Handout
• Reading: “Don’t Neglect Internal Branding”
• Internal Marketing Mini-Audit
• Internal Marketing Resources

12. Reading
“Don’t Neglect Internal Branding”
by Steve McKee

13. Internal Marketing Mini Audit
Taking Care of the
People who Matter Most.
A Guide to Customer Care.
By Sybil F. Stershic

14. Internal Marketing Mini-Audit
Instructions:
To see how your organization stacks up, complete the following
internal marketing mini-audit. Circle the number that best
applies to each statement, and be as candid as possible. (For
best results, I recommend you conduct and review this audit
with others in your organization ranging from front-line staff to
executive management. This will provide you with different
perspectives on the need for internal marketing within your
organization.)

15. Internal Marketing Mini-Audit
Please Note:
To make your answers to the mini-audit more meaningful, you
may want to consider the specific unit (department, division, or
branch) within your organization in which you have the most
experience.

16. Internal Marketing Mini-Audit
Based on the scale outlined above, to what extent:
1. Do employees know what is expected of them in helping your
organization achieve its goals?
2. Do employees really know and understand your customers?
3. Are employees given the tools they need to perform
effectively (information, training, equipment, etc.)?
4. Does management proactively reinforce the importance of
customers?

17. Internal Marketing Mini-Audit
5. Do all employees (not just those with direct customer
contact) understand their impact on customers?
6. Is customer information shared throughout your
organization (customer wants, needs, expectations,
and perceptions)?
7. Are employees involved in improving customer
satisfaction?

18. Internal Marketing Mini-Audit
8. Are employee’s efforts to take care of customer
recognized?
9. Does your organization recognized “internal” customers
(i.e., employees)?
10. Does communication flow openly throughout your
organization (top-down, bottom-up, laterally)?

19. Conclusion
1. Use internal marketing to improve
external marketing
2. Recognize the cost effectiveness of
internal marketing
3. Treat employees as customers

20. Final Thought on Internal Marketing
Everybody
Somebody
Anybody
Nobody