Category: Marketing

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Customer service Marketing

To Be Like Everyone Else, Press 1

In last week’s post, I talked about the quality of an organization’s employees as a critical differentiator.

It reminded me that sometimes it’s the little things that make a difference.

Case-in-point: I recently conducted a nonprofit marketing workshop for social service agencies.  Professionals in this sector face a growing glut of competition for resources (.e.g., clients. donors, volunteers, etc.) from other nonprofits.  They also have to compete for consumer awareness & attention from non-profits as well as for-profit firms.

So, how does your organization differentiate itself?

When I asked this question in the workshop, one attendee responded with the following anecdote.  He heard from a representative of a grant-making foundation who complimented his agency on having real people answer the phone instead of using automated voice mail.  Seems the foundation staff is finding this a point of differentiation among the social service agencies and other nonprofits they deal with.

Why sometimes you need to sweat the small stuff.

As Prophet’s Scott Davis so aptly put it in the title of his recent MarketingProfs.com article: “You’re Only as Strong as Your Weakest Brand Touchpoint.”

Categories
Customer service Engagement Marketing

The Secret to Differentiation in a Me-Too World

In a recent “Marketing Minute” segment on Trish Lambert’s Internet radio show, Real People, Really Leading, Trish talked about the challenges of maintaining a USP (unique selling proposition) in a world of basic sameness.

She is so right on.  In today’s highly commoditized world, you can stand out with the latest, greatest new product or service … for a while anyway, until someone else comes along with something better.

Putting the “People” in USP

It’s an organization’s people who make the brand’s USP really unique. Competitors can match your product, price, promotion, even place … but the one thing competitors absolutely cannot copy is the relationship your people have with your customers.

That’s the real point of differentiation.

Maybe we ought to change USP to stand for:

  • Unique & Stellar People, or
  • Uniquely Superb People, or
  • Uniquely Successful People … you get the idea.

Considering the quality of your people, would your competitors be able to stand up to your USP?

Note: You can hear Trish’s “Marketing Minute” on her radio show broadcast on Thursday afternoons (5 PM EST/2 PM PST) or listen to the archived shows found in the Content Library section.  And if you want to hear my interview on internal marketing (Marketing from the Inside Out), scroll down the content library for the March 16, 2006 show.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Business Communicator Weighs in on Internal Marketing & Branding

I love Shel Holtz’s post entitled “Employee communications is the chicken, marketing is the egg” in which he addresses communication’s critical role in effectively engaging employees in the context of internal marketing & branding.  He notes: ” … companies are putting their reputations more firmly in their employees’ hands, not only as producers of products, but as touch points for customers.”

What’s interesting to me, however, is to hear it from a business communicator’s perspective.  Shel builds his case (including citing GlaxoSmithKline’s initiative of turning its sales force into PR ambassadors) as a platform to garner management’s “renewed attention” on the importance of internal communications.

Why does management need to listen?  Because, as Shel so aptly puts it: ” … throwing employees into the public spotlight without the benefit of a strong internal communication effort is beyond risky.  It’s stupid.”

As a marketer, I’m with you 110%.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing Live, On-Air

If you want to “hear” more about internal marketing, then tune in next Thursday, March 16, 2006, at 5 PM EST/2 PM PST, to Trish Lambert’s live Internet radio show – that’s when I’ll be talking with Trish about “Marketing from the Inside Out.”

The one-hour program airs on Voice America’s Business Channel and launches Trish’s new radio show, Real People, Really Leading.

I’m thrilled that she’s chosen internal marketing as her first topic, and I’m excited to be her first interview.  I’m also a bit nervous as it’s a live show with call-in questions.

But that’s also why I’m telling you about it.  If there’s anything you want to ask me directly and in real-time (beyond communicating through this blog or e-mail), tune in and let us hear from you.

Note: For those of you in the central, mountain & pacific time zones, you can listen in at work.  This may be more of a challenge, however, for those of you on the east coast … unless you’re used to working past 5 PM (like most folks I know).  So if you can’t stay in the office to listen on-line, consider going home to tune in on your home computer.  (How’s that for an excuse to leave the office early?!)

Regardless of your time zone & situation, I do hope you’ll be able to catch the show.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Internal Branding Follow Up

My earlier post comparing the concepts of Internal Marketing and Internal Branding peaked a lot of interest with a number of mentions in the business blogosphere.

One in particular led me to Regina Miller of The Seventh Suite and her blog, HR’s Brand New Experience (which I’ve added to my Relevant Links blogroll at left).  Regina has a fascinating background that combines human resources & organizational development with internal branding & strategy alignment.  (A professional after my own heart: it all comes down to leadership & corporate culture.)

Exploring her blog, I found an interview she did with Kevin Keohane, Director of Brand Engagement of UK-based Enterprise IG, in which he describes Internal Branding as “what the employer says and does to embed the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that exemplify the brand.” (One of the briefest & best internal branding definitions I’ve heard.)

In addition, check out Christopher Hannegan’s recent post in which he cites how Dow Corning has aligned employee behavior to its brand attributes.  A company that’s committed to living its brand — what a concept!

Categories
Customer service Engagement Marketing

Invitation to a Brand Marriage & More

I forgot to mention this in my last post when I told you about Bill McEwen’s book, Married to the Brand.

At the end of the book, readers are offered a complimentary six-month trial subscription to the Gallup Management Journal.  It’s a great way to keep up with the latest in customer- and employee-engagement.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Your Invitation to a Brand Marriage

If you’re looking for a great business book, I highly recommend Married to the Brand: Why Consumers Bond with Some Brands for Life by Bill McEwen, Gallup Press.  And here’s why.

Insightful

What’s different about this book is that it looks at the emotional connections consumers have with brands from the consumer’s perspective.  McEwen uses the dating-courtship-marriage metaphor effectively without being overly schmaltzy.  He also shares the metrics used to measure both the rational & emotional aspects of “customer engagement.”

The building blocks of brand attachment leading to this type of engagement are based on:

  • “Confidence” – the degree to which consumers believe a company will deliver on its brand promise
  • “Integrity” – the degree to which consumers believe a company stands behind its brand and how it treats customers, especially when there are problems with the firm’s product or service
  • “Pride” – the extent to which consumers feel good about their use of and/or association with a brand
  • “Passion” – the extent to which consumers love (rather than like) a brand.

Making the Case

McEwen draws on extensive Gallup research across a broad range of industries to demonstrate the profitable “payoff of customer engagement.”  The research reinforces the importance of employees who create customer-brand relationships leading to engagement – or disengagement.

According to McEwen: “When it comes to building customer connections, it matters greatly how well the company’s employees are managed … Engaged employees contribute more.  They stay longer, and they’re more productive.  And, of critical importance, they also promote stronger and longer-lasting customer relationships.  Simply put, engaged employees help to produce engage customers.”

Here’s to a long & healthy relationship!

A good read

Well written, Married to the Brand provides substantive content that can easily be read in one or two sittings — my kind of book.  And one you’ll want to add to your business library.

 

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Marketing Role Models & Other Star Employees

As I’ve written lately, both Internal Marketing and Internal Branding are used to effectively engage employees for marketing and organizational success.  Managers who practice these concepts are strong proponents of the power of recognition & reinforcement — honoring employees who exemplify exceptional customer care skills and recognizing them as role models.

I have no problem with this approach, as long as it’s done sincerely and respectfully; i.e., providing support that encourages other employees to emulate the appropriate behavior without making those recognized (the “models”) uncomfortable in the process.

In terms of semantics, I’ve found a variety of labels used to describe these role models:

  • Brand Ambassadors
  • Marketing Heroes
  • Brand Builders
  • Service Stars
  • Brand Evangelists
  • Promise Keepers.

I recently discovered the term “Promise Keepers” in this context when reading Married to the Brand by Bill McEwen.  It’s a book I highly recommend, and I promise to tell you more about it in a future post.

In the meantime, do you have any additional labels to add to this list?  It would be great to hear what else is out there.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

More on Internal Marketing & Internal Branding

As a follow up to my recent post on Internal Marketing vs. Internal Branding, here’s another difference-turned-similarity between the two concepts.

Internal Marketing requires an ongoing effort for the care & feeding of customers and employees.  Most people think of applying Internal Branding, however, only when they’re launching a new brand or revitalizing an old one.

But …

According to marketing & branding consultant Debra Semans, this suggests a limited view of Internal Branding:

“Too often,” she says, “companies just do internal branding when they launch a new or changed brand and then assume everyone gets it.  But people forget, new people come on board [who weren’t exposed to the previous internal branding efforts], and then you get brand creep.  The ideal is that it becomes part of the way they do business, their culture … you have to maintain it in order to maintain delivery of the brand promise to the marketplace.”

So Debra recommends Internal Branding be included in an organization’s ongoing training program as a “refresher course” as well as part of new employee orientation.

Makes sense to me … Internal Branding, like Internal Marketing, is not just a use-it-only-when-needed tool.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing vs. Internal Branding

I’ve gotten a lot of questions lately about the difference between internal marketing and internal branding. Some folks use the terms interchangeably, but there are a number of differences beyond semantics … or so I thought until I began to clarify what these concepts mean, how they’re different, and where they overlap.

I asked my colleague Debra Semans, an Atlanta-based marketing & branding consultant, to help me with this. Debra has extensive experience with internal branding.

Exploring the Two Concepts

I define internal marketing as “the application of marketing inside an organization to instill customer-focused values.” It bridges marketing with HR (Human Resources) to attract, motivate, and retain employees, with an emphasis on getting employee commitment to marketing and organizational goals. Think of it as an umbrella concept encompassing any & all activities, events, internal public relations, etc., that reinforce the importance of customers AND the employees who take care of them.

According to Debra, internal branding is “the process of aligning day-to-day activities, business processes, job designs, and recognition & rewards with the brand identity to drive business results.” It is part of a focused brand strategy that helps employees understand and integrate brand value(s) in their respective roles to ensure they can effectively deliver on the brand promise.

Where Internal Marketing & Internal Branding Overlap

  • Both approaches recognize employees ARE the brand. As a result, both are focused on engaging employees.
  • Both are part of organizational and marketing strategy to strengthen competitive advantage.
  • Both involve leadership – i.e., neither can be effective without management commitment.

Where They Differ

  • Internal Marketing is based on the self-reinforcing relationship between employee- and customer satisfaction (“take care of the employees & they’ll take care of the customers”), whereas Internal Branding is based on making the brand part of the organization’s operations (“getting employees focused on delivering the brand promise”).
  • Unless Internal Marketing and Internal Branding are part of an organization’s culture from Day 1, their trigger points vary. The application of Internal Marketing may be in response to problems with employee- and/or customer satisfaction or turnover, whereas organizations may turn to Internal Branding when launching a new brand or revitalizing an existing one.
  • Internal Marketing focuses on organizational culture and values, whereas Internal Branding focuses primarily on brand values that are aligned and consistent with organizational values. [Hmmm … maybe this belongs with the “Overlap” list above?]

Regarding this last bullet point – as Debra describes Internal Branding’s scope: “From understanding the piece parts of the brand so that they can use it as a guide or standard for their day-to-day decision making, to communicating about the brand in ongoing internal communications vehicles, to building brand-based rewards into compensation models, Internal Branding is geared to making the Brand part of the organization’s operations – and yes, culture.”  [OK, the two concepts are similar in this context in that they both impact organizational culture.]

The Bottom Line

So the differences between Internal Marketing and Internal Branding aren’t as clear cut as I thought. Some of their tactical executions may vary, but the desired outcome is the same: engaging employees for marketing and organizational success.

As Debra says of her work and mine: “Internal branding and internal marketing aren’t all that different. Maybe the only difference is that I’ve been riding the brand wagon and you’ve been on the customer service train.”

What Do You Think?

And now, dear readers, tell me what you think of all this. Semantics aside, what do Internal Marketing and Internal Branding mean to you?  I’d love your input.

To Learn More …

For anyone who wants to learn more about either or both topics, come see Debra and me at the American Marketing Association’s Marketing Workshop this spring in Austin, TX.  On March 13, 2006, I’ll be presenting my session on Internal Marketing (“Marketing from the Inside Out: Engaging Employees for Strategic Advantage”), and Debra will be doing her session on Internal Branding (“Living the Brand – the Dimensions of Internal Branding”) on March 15, 2006.