Internal marketing

Internal marketing (IM) is an ongoing process that occurs strictly within a company or organization whereby the functional process aligns, motivates and empowers employees at all management levels to consistently deliver a satisfying customer experience.

Key concepts of internal marketing include:

:* IM functioning as a continual internal 'upskilling' process.:* Alignment of the organization’s purpose with employee behavior.:* Employees internalizing the core values of the organization.:* Motivation, reframing and empowerment of employee attitude.:* Inside-out management approach. :* Retaining a positive customer experience throughout the business objectives

The following are the features of an internal marketing-oriented business:

1. creating enabling culture: this is done when employees are empowered by management through allowing creativity, innovation, allowing initiatives and accountability and responsibility of their decisions.

2. Practising participative hiring: that is involving current employees in the process of hiring new employees.

3. Ensuring equitable recognition and reward: business must exercise employee recognition with reward to what employee has achieved.

4. Demonstrating fairness during hardtimes: fair treatment of employees when faced with hardtimes and difficult moments like death of the near family members. this can be achieved by setting aside emergency funds.

5. Good organisation structure that allows learning, total quality management and re-engineering.

Benefits of Internal Marketing

1. Internal Marketing encourages the internal market (Employees) to perform better.

2. Internal Marketing empowers employees and gives them Accountability and responsibility.

3. Internal Marketing creates common understanding of the business organisation.

4. Internal marketing encourages employees to offer superb service to clients by appreciating their valuable contribution to the success of the business.

5.Internal marketing helps non marketing staffs to learn and be able to perform their tasks in a marketing-like manner.

6. Internal Marketing improves customers retention and individual employee development.

7. Internal Marketing integrates business culture, structure, human resources management, vision and strategy with the employees' professional and social needs.

8. Internal marketing creates good coordination and cooperation among departments of the business.

Problems affecting successful implementation of Internal Marketing.

The following are the problems affecting effective implementation of internal Marketing.

1. Managerial Incompetence in interpersonal, technical and conceptual skills is some of the stumbling blocks against successful internal marketing.

2. Poor understanding of internal Marketing concept.

3. Individual conflict and conflict between departments makes the implementation of internal marketing difficult.

4. Rigid organisational structure coupled by bureaucratic leadership hinder success of internal Marketing.

5. Ignoring and not listening to subordinate staffs.

6. the Tendency of ignoring employees importance and treating them like any other tools of the business.

7. Unnecessary protection of information against employees.

8. Resistance to change.

References

*cite book

last = Jeff Pervaiz
authorlink = Pervaiz K. Ahmed
year = 2005
title = Internal Marketing
url = http://books.elsevier.com/marketing/?isbn=0750648384
publisher = Butterworth-Heineman, an imprint of Elsevier
id = ISBN 0-7506-4838-4 Being an employee-oriented business is one of the features of internal marketing oriented business. A business that is an employee oriented sees employee as the number one asset of the Business.