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 internal marketing
Internal marketing programs are ones where the audience is you -- your employees, your sales force, your management. We’ve broken this expansive category up into three types of programs:
Taken together, they provide you with a powerful set of tools to improve and enhance your internal marketing.
employee campaigns
what is it?
In order for your marketing to be most effective, you need to internalize it. One of the eternal, taken-as-faith laws of customer retention is that it mirrors employee retention and satisfaction. So if your external marketing is flawless, but your people don’t “buy it,” you still have some work to do. That’s where employee campaigns come into play.
what does it involve?
We plan an employee campaign the same way we would an external marketing program. We identify the goals of the campaign, the audience, the budget, etc. We develop a creative brief, just like we would if we were designing an ad campaign for you. We lay out the campaign schedule and determine at what intervals we will get feedback. We develop the materials, merchandising (if necessary), feedback mechanisms and reporting structure. These campaigns almost always require an internal “champion,” so we would most likely work with you to determine where s/he would fit into the campaign, and craft communications (e-mails, letters, voice mail, speeches, etc.) to be delivered during the program. At the end of the campaign, we would review the goals with you and see what worked well, what could be improved next time, and what didn’t cut the mustard.
why do this?
Your employees are your most important resource. When you market to them clearly, in a planned and organized way, the campaign alone communicates how serious you are about their participation. The messages you send, the feedback you share and the input you solicit will help you help them become stars in their respective roles. Great marketing can get customers excited about products as commonplace as shampoo and shoes. How much more effective would your employees be if you got them excited about your new company strategy, an upcoming merger or a new set of goals?
why do it with sanestorm?
We really like marketing. And we believe that it is not a tool for “tricking” people into believing something farfetched. It is not a tool for “spinning” a message into something it’s not. Marketing is the application of analytical and creative tools to a business situation. We like to say that good marketing “minimizes friction” in an economic process. By focusing great marketing strategy and techniques on your employees, by communicating to them clearly and effectively, you will improve your greatest economic investment. When your people are excited and knowledgeable about company goals and programs, you’ll see amazing results. We want your employees to be as excited about their jobs as we are about ours.
department/personnel review
what is it?
Maybe you came in as a marketing director or vp and inherited an entire department. Maybe you come from a non-marketing background and have recently been charged with a new marketing role. Maybe you've moved from a different office and have a whole new gang of people to manage. Whatever the reason, if you need help evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of your marketing department, we can help.
what does it involve?
- Needs analysis – Like most Sanestorm activities, we start with an investigation into what your department's goals are. We can't tell if you're optimized without knowing what it is you want to accomplish.
- Goal-to-task weighting – If you tell us that PR is the most important function for your department, but you've only got one PR person on a staff of twelve… that's an unbalanced goal-to-task ratio. That's obviously a very simple example, but it makes the point. This portion of the review program reminds us of matching the ingredients specified in a cookbook to the supplies at hand in your kitchen. You may know what you need, and you may be good at what you do – but if what you do isn't what you need, that's another type of imbalance.
- 360 degree review – We usually start by talking to the marketing management structure. But we always encourage – strongly encourage, to the point of insistence – a review process that encompasses all levels of marketing personnel, if not everyone entirely. Marketing is a team sport, and you need to know what the players on the field think, as well as the coaches and managers.
- Spot analysis – This is where we point out specifically those strengths that you need to grow, and/or those areas where you may be over leveraged. To continue with the cooking metaphor (I know, we switched to sports… sorry… we're back to cooking again), we'll let you know if you need to shop for more powdered sugar, or if you have enough baking powder on hand to last you three-hundred years.
- Recommendations – You know your people; we aren't here to tell you "Leonard has got to go." What we'll tell you is where and how your skill sets can be improved, and we'll make suggestions about how to do so. We are not corporate head cutters – dramatic cuts in marketing staff are rarely a good idea, since marketing is the learning organ of a company. That's like trying to lose weight by scooping out half your brain. We will suggest ideas for growth, cross-training, stretch assignments, etc. We won't shy away from telling you when someone on staff simply doesn't meet the needs you've identified, but that shouldn't be your main objective.
why do this?
Just as marketing programs grow and change over time, so do departments. We live in an age of mergers and acquisitions. People change jobs more often now than ever before. Industries change and requirements change and goals change. There are many, many reasons why you may need to evaluate both your overall marketing personnel needs, and the specific strengths and weaknesses of your existing staff.
Let's be clear about one thing, though – it is always better to identify personnel changes through a proactive, thoughtful process. The alternative is to do so when compelled. When urgent, absolute market or business changes force your hand. And that's usually a very bad time to make changes. You end up gutting your strongest assets when you need them most. As one of our marketing heroes once said, "Change before you have to."
why do it with sanestorm?
We are thoughtful, creative, personable marketing people. We like other marketing people. They are our tribe. That being said, we are businesspeople first and foremost. We bring an appropriate blend of sensitivity and practicality to this process. Some consultants feel that unless they suggest massive, sweeping changes, they haven't done their job. There's also an element of "lots of smoke, not much fire" in that method. Big changes often have the appearance of big improvements. "Newer" often feels like "better"… for awhile. We want your improvement process to be as efficient as possible. If that can be accomplished with a few simple, gentle changes, that's all for the better.
candidate search
what is it?
You know you need an internal marketing resource. At least you think you know you do. You have an idea about what you’d like them to accomplish. But it’s hard to translate into a describable job function. If your best effort involves searching the internet for a job description that’s similar to what you think you might need, you could use some help with your candidate search.
what does it involve?
Like most of our services, we’ve got a process for this, too. It involves:
- Needs analysis -- what is it you want this new position to accomplish? Is it something that could be done with current resources? Or have you identified a real need to be filled? We’ll help you specify and describe the goals of this position.
- Internal customer/supplier review -- Who else in your organization will rely on this position? And from whom will s/he require resources? At this stage we often find it helpful to interview the employees who will be peers of the new position in order to get a feel for how this new player will fit into your team.
- Skill set -- moving from a description of what needs to be done to the skills required to accomplish those goals can be tricky. We’ll help you formulate a skills and experience list that will best match up candidates to your needs.
- Position description -- The final position description should give a clear idea of what the position will be expected to accomplish, what skills and job history is required, and what the general level of the position will be, i.e., coordinator, manager, director, etc.
- Position posting -- we will either work with your HR department, or post the position ourselves on both general job boards and those that specialize in marketing personnel.
- Response review -- again, either working with your HR department or independently, we will review all submitted resumes and identify those that have a close match.
- Interviewing -- we can perform the initial, wider set of interviews for you so that the candidates you see will be pre-qualified. We can also help you script an interview questionnaire and check list to make sure that all your bases are covered.
- Final recommendation -- hiring a new employee is a very personal, particular activity for any organization. We will rank all the candidates we’ve been involved with and make a recommendation as to those we feel are best qualified for your position(s). At that point, though, the final decision must be left to you -- sometimes a personality or “feel” issue is what tips the scale among several similarly qualified candidates, and that’s an important consideration, too.
why do this?
Adding marketing staff can be tricky for an organization that does not have a well-developed marketing department, plan, strategy and track record. It’s ironic that what you need most when building a department is that which you don’t have -- experienced help. In that instance, filling a position without the assistance of an outside coach or counselor is, to put it bluntly, asking for trouble. Your new hire won’t have a solid sense of what s/he is meant to accomplish, and you won’t have a good way of evaluating or improving performance.
why do it with sanestorm?
- We have extensive experience working with many different types of marketing personnel.
- We know what we look for when we want to partner with outside help.
- We know how to design outcome-based position descriptions.
- We have been involved in the hiring of dozens of marketing personnel.
- We will help you think about this position in reference to your overall marketing goals.
- We can help you be objective but fair, avoiding the “I think they’re nice” syndrome.
- We can position the new hire for success by providing him/her with the metrics by which they will be assessed.
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