Internal vs External Brand. Have you ever wondered whether there is a difference between these two? Read on.
Firms all over the world allocate a huge budget and use many resources each year for external branding, and they are supposed to do so. Different companies do this for different reasons ranging from networking, enhancing brand awareness levels, maintaining loyal clients and many more reasons.
On the other hand, why internal brand? Most people will tell you the external brand is more vital than the inner one. A firm’s internal brand should work with the outside brand, but it needs to have a different goal.
It should create a culture in a business where workers are engaged and motivated to work and achieve the goal and mission of the business. Such a culture grows in each employee working at the company. Everyone has to like its trust in it, and when they do, they will work together to achieve the mission.
An awesome brand will cultivate a culture in your business where workers have made the brand part of them. They will transfer this energy to their clients.
“Less than half of employees believe in the brand idea of their firm, and less than that number is trained to deliver on the idea,” this is according to one Forbes article. Should this mean something to you?
Yes, it should. Despite how strong a company’s external brand is, less than half of the workers are not engaged, which means most workers are not familiar with it. Some don’t know what it is and cannot relate to it so the company should not require them to deliver on that brand.
Focusing on one will not cater to all. It is worth knowing that the company has two different audiences, an inner and an outside one. This means you should have two distinct messages. The outside brand needs not to perform the tasks of the inner brand and vice versa.
Most companies do not understand this for several reasons. When you align both of them, it is a great choice towards fulfilling the firm’s promise and will also propel it forward.
This idea works quite well in stores such as Apple, and Starbucks. Internal branding makes employees live in the culture of the company, which improves their relationship with the consumers. The customer service agents will treat all consumers with respect and in a professional and friendly manner.
This is the same scenario as You.i TV. This is a small startup in Ottawa. Three years ago, the number of employees was 30, but it is now above 150. Their mission then was to re-brand the company and come up with a new look and voice that would take it to the highest level in the industry. Ask any employee there, it is not a smooth job, but everyone believes they have done it.
The mission and culture of the company keep evolving, and every employee works hard, markets and promotes the brand, goes beyond his means, treats the firm like their own, and more. However, what’s the reason for this? It is the culture and inside the brand. It might be perfect, but it’s easy to learn and helps propel every employee to put in enough effort to achieve a specific goal.
Every person at the company has done an awesome task of discussing objectives, goals, having a straightforward path for everyone to understand. All employees are happy with their contributions to the company’s growth. To them, it’s been fun creating a brand and witness its success.
Everyone believes in it and breaths it. The company has added departments, more employees and structures but it still believes in internal branding!
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