To often, those of us who work in marketing spend forget that we have an internal audience as well as our external one. We focus on getting our message out to our prospects. Getting our brand assets right. Creating product or services brochures to tell about what we sell. Etcetera. What we often forget is that all our colleagues are also our audience.
I hear very often from marketing teams that they don’t get any recognition for the work that is done by their team; that they are always blamed by sales for not doing anything; that management thinks that money is being wasted (which sometimes it is). For a “group” that is charged with communicating a company’s value, marketing teams are remarkably poor at communicating their value internally.
As part of a marketing team we often have the privilege of understand company strategy and direction on a broad level. We know how we are going to communicate our messages, where and when. Part of your marketing strategy and focus has got to be internal as well. How are you going to let everyone inside the company know about the next customer acquisition program? What are you doing to help them understand what the company’s social media strategy is? When are you going to tell them about your latest product in the words and positions that you are taking it to the market with.
Ultimately, the rest of the company you work for or with is you biggest supporter or your largest obstacle to success – what are you doing to market your value internally?
