Internal marketing as employee motivation

Consumer attitudes toward a particular brand are based on the consumer’s overall experience with the company. This includes any contact with employees who are company representatives. The term internal marketing refers to marketing directed at employees who are treated as internal customers.

The goal of internal marketing is to coordinate all aspects of the organization’s internal affairs in order to select, motivate and retain the best employees. The target group of internal marketing are employees and communication takes place between managers and employees. The purpose of internal marketing is for employees to understand that cooperation is necessary for the development of the organization, that is, for satisfying the wishes and needs of consumers. Internal marketing is aimed at motivating employees to be oriented toward creating satisfied and loyal consumers.

Internal marketing strategies

Some of the strategies that can contribute:

• enabling employees to understand the organization’s goals and strive to achieve those goals
• open communication with employees
• encouraging employees to present their ideas
• advancement opportunities
• education and support

Every organization should develop its own plan for internal marketing strategy. The objectives of the strategy should be clearly defined. The goal of the internal strategy is to create an emotional bond between employees and the brand and the organization.

When interacting with consumers, employees should have in mind the vision that the organization is trying to achieve and should work following that vision.

The importance of Internal marketing

Internal marketing is important because it leads to greater employee engagement and the overall success of the organization. It refers not only to communication and internal sales, but also to effective employee management, employee involvement in processes within the company, and employee motivation.

Results of successful internal marketing:

• more efficient employees functioning
• a better understanding of the organization by employees
• creating loyal consumers
• more effective teamwork
• efficient cooperation of different departments
• improvement of the business culture, vision and strategy of the company

Internal marketing is closely related to human resources management, as this department selects the best employees. When choosing employees, it is important to choose trustworthy people who are enthusiastic about the brand and the organization itself.

Example: Unilever & Weber Shandwick — Unmute

In the PR Week internal communication awards, the communication agency Weber Shandwick and Unilever won the internal comms campaign award for their project entitled “Unmute”, which was aimted to create awareness and engage their 150,000 workforce on the issues of domestic violence.

Unilever wanted to bring attention to the growing issue of domestic violence issue which had risen during lockdowns in the global pandemic by 20%. Domestic violence is not something that is being challenged, supported and uncovered to protect those dealing with these issues. Unilever engaged their 150,000 workforce on the issue by using the phrase ‘Unmute: End the silence against domestic violence’, that had the campaign hook similar to the Zoom common phrase, “You’re on mute.” Unilever CEO Alan Jope held a virtual townhall meeting for the entire workforce worldwide with #MeToo movement founder Tarana Burke to provide the essential guidance and tools to managers and staff with how to deal with the issues. Training policies on the conversation were also released externally to continue the discussion and highlight the important topic.

The result of the campaign showed that a record 6,000 employees actively engaged in the townhall with 200 employees utilising the Unilever domestic violence services within the first month of the launch for more support or training. Unilever had the mission that even if one person was protected by this campaign, then the discussion had enabled us to uncover and support the cause to end domestic violence.