Internal communication: A strategic marketing communication framework

Twenty first century leaders in all sectors, private, public and not-profit, are declaring and emphasising the role of effective and strategic internal communication to the success of the organisation. This paper briefly positions internal communication and within its scope, analyses the marketing, advertising and public relations components of marketing communication towards an integrated framework for strategic internal marketing communication. The paper reviews strategy frameworks in marketing, advertising and public relations and chooses a combination of relevant aspects towards the design of a marketing communication strategy. The following are considered in the development of the structure: analyzing the situation (formative evaluative research), setting the aim, goals (process and outcome goals) and objectives (informational and motivational objectives) and identifying the target groups (primary, secondary and tertiary groups), designing the message, managing the resources and implementing and evaluating the strategy (summative evaluative research). The considerations in each step are not exhaustive, but give an indication what may be included in the considerations under each. Internal communication Gronroos (1990:223) defines internal marketing as “a unifying concept for more effectively managing a variety of interfunctional, and frequently well-established activities, as part of an overall framework aiming at a common objective.” Kotler and Armstrong (1999:665) focus internal marketing on the relationship between the organisation and the customer, but emphasise “it is not enough to have a marketing department doing traditional marketing while the rest of the company goes its own way. Marketers also must get everyone else in the organisation to practice marketing. In fact, internal marketing must precede external marketing.” More recently, Varey suggests that the “integrated value-making system requires that people are seen not simply as factors of production, but as marketing resources. Clearly, production and provision requires coordinated effort. At the start of the process, market-sensing requires connectedness” (2005:213). In implementing internal marketing, Kaye (1999:1) explains the role of internal communication and points out that it is “(t)he process of creating, packaging and distributing a company’s critical business marketing messages within its organisation, then directly to customers and prospects through the company’s sales channel using personal communications”. Common to all definitions is the importance of internal integration and strategic communication. Why is internal marketing communication important? The chronological development of the concepts of internal marketing, employee relations and internal communication show strong evidence of a shift from basic instructional and top-down managerial communication to participative management, internal integration and today to primary stakeholder status. Until recently employees were considered mainly as staff hired and trained to serve the customer well. Current thinking espouses that employees, in their own right, must now be perceived as an equally important target group in the stakeholder network of any organisation.