1. Internal Marketing
“Employee morale is affected by how much we know about the company’s plans.”
98 percent of employees agree.

2. Key questions regarding internal marketing
Where does it fit within an organization’s marketing plans, or within its strategic plans?
Who should do it -- marketing, human resources, public relations?
What can organizations learn from each other?
What does the diverse literature say?

3. Definitions: Selling the firm 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)

4. Definition -- (Joseph 1996)
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. Effective internal marketing responds to employee needs as it advances the organization’s mission and goals.

5. Customer- and employee-focused
It demands an integrative approach
Internal customers -- the idea that organizational departments serve each other
It encompasses all employees

6. Carlzon’s ‘moments of truth’ shaped by employees by the way they:
look
act
talk
interact with each other
including facial expression, demeanor and personality

7. Good internal marketing programs depend on:
Recruiting the right people
Training them
Motivating them
Communicating with them
Co-opting them (getting them to buy into the organization and its plans)

8. 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

9. Trends of Internal Communications
Few companies develop a strategy
Failure in over 80 percent of cases involving announced change
Biggest symptom of failure - lots of inaccurate, negative rumors
Second symptom - learning about change from press

10. Trends of Internal Communications
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

11. Time Spent by PR Department on:
Media
10%
Employees
35%
Government
25%
30%
Investors

12. Companies not doing Enough
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.

13. Management Excuses Don’t have time Haven’t gotten information self
Fear reactions, leaks, uproar
Won’t give away power
Haven’t gotten message of what’s expected of them
Are not evaluated on their communication abilities
Get no rewards for communicating
Don’t see how it is useful
Under-evaluate employee’s information needs

14. Employees Want Top Management to:
Inform them ahead of time
Care about how they really feel
Give their supervisors 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

15. Manager’s Communication Obligations
Carry information from top 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
Profile and market units
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

16. A Good Communication Climate
Instructive
Informative
Advising
Contributive
Participatory

17. Communications Strategy
Nature of
Change
Organizational
Dynamics
Employee Differences
Organizational Culture
Organizational Climate
Channel
Message
Strategy
Time
L. R. Smeltzer, An Analysis
for Announcing Organization-Wide
Change, Group & Organizational Studies,
Vol. 16, No. 1 March 1991.

18. L
Goal
E E E E E
Power Structure
Communication
Structure
Tannæs, 1992

19. Focus What is size and nature of work force?
What does the work force think of organization?
How satisfied are employees?
What employee communications exist?
How effective are communications tools?
Are there special employee relationship programs?

20. Communication Objectives
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

21. Media Capacity & Communication Characteristics
Media Richness
Capacity
Media Characteristics
Medium
Feedback Cues/Channels Intimacy Language
High
Face-to-face
Telephone
Written, addressed
(letter, memo)
Written,
unaddressed
Immediate Multiple Personal Natural
visual, audio
Fast Audio Personal Natural
Slow Limited Personal Natural/
visual Numeric
Very slow Limited Impersonal Natural/
visual Numeric
Low
From R. Daft and G. Huber, How Organizations Learn:
A communications framework, Research in the Sociology
of Organizations, Vol.. 5, 1987.

22. Prescriptions for Managers
Face-to-face: non-routine and difficult communications
Memos: routine, simple communications
Discussion & Meetings: make presence felt
Rich media: implementing strategy
Multiple media: critical issues and need to get message heard
Evaluate appropriate technology

23. Media Bulletin boards Displays and exhibits
Telephone hotlines or news lines
Inserts in paychecks
Internal television
Speakers bureaus - employees to community groups
Films
Video cassettes
Meetings
Teleconferences
Audio-visual presentations
Booklets, pamphlets, brochures

24. Evaluation Communication, Retention, Acceptance of Messages
Co-orientational Evaluations
Human Relations Audits
Communication Satisfaction
International Communications Association Audit - extensive use of network analysis and interviews

25. How Leading Companies Communicate
Chief executive as communication champion
Match between words and actions
Commitment to 2-way communication
Emphasis on face-to-face
Share responsibility
Bad news/good news ratio
Knowing customers, clients, audiences
Employee communication strategy

26. A business 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.