Category: Marketing

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Employees: The Prize Inside

Echoing the importance of employee impact on the brand, NYU professor Douglas Rushkoff writes in this month’s Fast Company, ” … it’s employees who communicate a brand’s true values to customers.”

Beyond the basic concept of employees as brand ambassadors, Rushkoff emphasizes their role in product innovation.  Instead of outsourcing, he encourages companies to “treat employees as a community of people who actually like what they do and want to do it better.”  (Right on!)

A focus on employees and customers (i.e., internal marketing) is only part of his message to “Get Back in the Box.”  According to Rushkoff, too many organizations get caught up in looking for solutions outside-the-box, and they overlook the solutions that can come from within — from their employees and customers.

It’s a crackerjack message.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

“Employees First”

Just finished reading Bob Lamons’ new book The Case for B2B Branding – Pulling Away from the Business-to-Business Market.  It’s a great overview of B2B branding, complete with many informative & insightful mini-cases.

And I was glad to see Bob recognize employees as the most important audience for a company’s branding message … even before customers.

Why employees first?  According to Bob, employees must truly believe in your branding strategy for it to have a chance at success.  How can they sell it (your brand concept) or deliver it to customers if they themselves don’t buy-in to it?

Every time someone (customer or prospect) comes into contact with one of your employees, the outcome of that contact represents “a chance to build or destroy your brand.”  Makes sense, therefore, that employees be the first audience when it comes to introducing a new brand strategy or a new product, service, or program.

Employees first — sounds logical enough.  Yet I know from experience that sound logic isn’t always applied in organizations.  I’ve witnessed situations were employees were an after-thought.  (“Our new ad campaign kicks-off tomorrow.  By the way, shouldn’t someone tell our employees?”)

A good branding strategy, like charity, starts at home.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Marketing Marketing – Step 5

Now you’re ready to develop your resulting plan (building on the previous four steps).

Your ultimate plan will be reflective of your situation, corporate culture, and internal politics.  To give you an idea of what might be included in such a plan, here are some sample activities I’ve seen used to promote marketing:

  • Host a department “open house” so others within the organization can get acquainted with marketing & its resources.  (I did this in my earlier banking career, and it worked to the point that bank staff recognized the marketing department as more than “just the guys who blow up balloons at the branch openings.”)
  • Invite key people from other departments to your staff meetings to learn what marketing is doing and vice-versa.
  • Distribute an internal marketing newsletter or report to let other staff know what’s happening; e.g., share the latest on market & consumer trends, competitive analysis, product usage, customer satisfaction results, etc. (whatever is not proprietary or confidential).
  • Conduct mini-seminars or brown-bag lunches on marketing — feature subjects such as product development, pricing, understanding consumer behavior, etc.  (Better yet if you can afford it, spring for lunch or refreshments … an excellent incentive to encourage attendance!)
  • Participate in new-employee orientation.  (At the very least, make sure whoever is in charge of orientation covers the organization’s marketing/branding efforts.)

Following the five steps covered in this series can help you increase marketing’s awareness & visibility, increase your perceived value, and strengthen marketing’s relationships with others in your organization.

But what if, despite these efforts, your situation doesn’t improve?  The you can adapt this strategy to market yourself somewhere else!

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Marketing Marketing – Step 4

For this post, we build on the previous three steps: understand your product value (Step 1), identify your target markets, and establish your positioning (Steps 2 & 3).

Step 4 involves assessing your internal communications to identify opportunities to build awareness and educate your target markets about marketing’s value:

  • How are you using the top-down, bottom-up, and horizontal communication channels within your organization?
  • What are the media vehicles available within each directional channel? (e.g., intranet, staff meetings, employee newsletters, etc.)
  • Are you using the appropriate mix to reach your target audiences?

When you do this assessment, you may be surprised at the opportunities you may be missing to reach your internal targets.

Say what?

And once you identify the communications vehicles you wish to use, what do you say?  Whatever is necessary to reinforce your value and positioning (as you determined back in Step 3).

My next post will wrap up this series with the final step involved in marketing marketing.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Marketing Marketing – Steps 2-3

Continuing in this series of posts, once you’ve determined marketing’s value, you need to identify your target markets (Step 2):

  • Who are the key targets within your organization that you need to reach?
  • Who do you need support from?
  • Who’s most critical to the marketing function?

You can also segment your targets by executive level, division/department, function, etc.

Now you’re ready for Step 3

Here’s where you determine your positioning — how do you want to be perceived by your target markets:

  • a strategic player?
  • contributor to the bottom line?
  • a necessary function?
  • professional?
  • responsive?
  • not a waste of resources? etc.

Your desired positioning should tie back to your product value (see Step 1) and be relevant to your target audience.  For example, you may want to be perceived as a “creative resource” within your organization, but that may not resonate with the folks in Finance (especially if they’re eye-balling the advertising budget for potential cost-savings).  However, the accounting-types might be more receptive to marketing as “not a waste of resources” or “advocate for customer loyalty & retention” (i.e., more bottom-line oriented).

My next post will continue with Step 4 — assessing your communications opportunities.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Marketing Marketing – Step 1

Based on my last series of posts, “CPR for Marketing,” here are the five steps to effectively market marketing (or whatever your function):

  1. Understand your ‘product’ value
  2. Identify your target markets
  3. Establish your positioning
  4. Assess your communications opportunities
  5. Develop your resulting plan; then implement & monitor.

In the 1st step, you need to start with the ‘big picture’ in terms of what your value is to the organization; i.e., what is it you really bring to the table?

There are several ways you can get at this, including doing a “feature & benefits” analysis of your function or department.  But my favorite starts with exploring the question “What if … ?”

What if marketing no longer existed in the organization?  What would be the impact?  (e.g., Would we be missed?)

You gotta be kidding

Granted these questions are not easy to answer.  But you better get over your discomfort and deal with these questions before someone else does!

This is not meant to be a negative exercise.  By taking the time to explore marketing’s value, you’ll build confidence in what you have to offer.  And you’ll also get a good sense of how much (internal) marketing you need to do.

In my next post, I’ll continue with Steps 2 & 3.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

CPR for Marketing – Part 3

So what do you do if you’re in a situation where marketing gets no respect? (See my last post.)  Assuming the situation isn’t too far gone (i.e., resumes being updated & professional networks heating up), here’s what I advise.

Strategically you need to:

  • increase awareness & visibility of marketing within your organization
  • increase the perception of marketing’s value, and
  • strengthen relationships within your organization.

Think of it as internally marketing the marketing function (a different application of internal marketing as featured in this blog).

I know, I know … most people are surprised by this.  Don’t marketers automatically market themselves?

That thing about the shoemaker’s kids being barefoot

The reality is most marketers are so busy doing their jobs & whatever else has been heaped on them in this era of do-more-with-less, that it’s easy to neglect their own needs.

But just because you’re part of the organizational chart doesn’t mean that people know who you are & what you do!  So marketers sometimes forget they need to educate others within the organization as to what marketing really does.

Non-marketers: listen up!

Important note: while I’m addressing marketing here, the situation also applies to other fields as well.  Doesn’t matter if you’re in HR, IT, Finance, Operations, etc. … just substitute your function in place of marketing and read on.

I’ll continue this series of posts, but under a new name: Marketing ‘Marketing’ [or insert your particular function here] …

Categories
Marketing

CPR for Marketing? Part 1

I don’t think Harry Potter has to worry for a while … apparently Lord Voldemort & his death eaters have turned their attention to marketing.

I recently heard from two colleagues in different industries that their marketing function is at risk — primarily due to organizational changes.  In one case, the marketing staff has been placed under the control of Finance & Administration (yikes!)

In the other situation, the powers-that-be have proclaimed that brand-building and relationship marketing are no longer needed.  Their rallying cry is sales, sales, and more sales!  (Get out there & bring in new customers … Relationship & retention marketing?  We don’t need no stinkin’ marketing!)

Uh oh …

Granted there are organizational and internal cultural shifts happening here.  And while the situations are vastly different, the undercurrent is the same — why is marketing’s value in question?

I keep telling myself that it’s just a coincidence that I heard from these colleagues on the same day, just minutes apart.  Has “he-who-must-not-be-named” discovered marketing?

More to follow … (and you don’t have to wait as long as you do for the next H. Potter book!)

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing & Emotional Connections (Part 3)

The final segment in this series builds on my last post with questions that help employees feel connected to an organization through its mission.

In Gallup’s in-depth management study featured in the book First, Break All the Rules, researchers Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman discovered 12 key questions that measure an organization’s strength.  Many of the questions relate directly to employee engagement.  For example:

  • Do I know what is expected of me at work?
  • At work, do I have the opportunity to be what I do best every day?
  • Does my supervisor seem to care about me as a person?
  • At work, do my opinions seem to count?
  • Does the company mission make me feel my job is important?

Employee who can respond positively to these questions are likely to feel a strong connection to their organization (including their co-workers and customers).

Can you feel the love now?

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing & Emotional Connections (Part 2)

As a follow up to my last post on connecting with employees, here is how you can convey the message that your employees are part of something meaningful.

You need to be able to answer these questions:

  • What is your organization’s mission and purpose?
  • How can employees contribute to fulfilling the mission?
  • And how can they be made to feel part of something special?

If you need a model for this, just ask the people who work in nonprofit organizations.  They’re usually passionate about what they do, and it’s not for the money (especially since nonprofits don’t usually pay much.)  Most likely they are there for the mission.

Like nonprofits, some for-profits are able to effectively address these questions.  Otherwise, corporate America would have a lot of vacancies to fill!

So mission-fit and values are critical parts of the “big picture” in helping employees understand how & where they can find meaning in an organization (regardless of whether it’s in a nonprofit or for-profit).

More to come in my next post …