By Daniel Murray

Internal marketing is a vastly underrated skill. But when you grasp the psychology behind selling, you unlock a world of potential.

As a teenager, Vanessa was obsessed with advertising, but a job at Ogilvy wasn’t everything she thought it would be. Find out how she found academia and her dream role.

Daniel and Vanessa get into her early days in advertising, how market research became a passion, and how it lead her back to university and writing her book: You Have More Influence Than You Think.

You’ll also hear Vanessa’s takes on how to be more influential in the workplace, why saying ‘no’ isn’t a bad thing, and why people actually like you more than you think.

And if you’re losing time and money with customers who don’t show up for booked calls, you need Chili Piper. With their cutting edge platform they’re helping companies like Airbnb achieve more demos and calls, prevent call drop-outs and boost conversion rates. Head to www.chilipiper.com/millennials for a demo.

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Marketing Psychology: Influencing in The Workplace

Internal marketing is a hot topic right now, with good reason: Its effectiveness at reaching your employees and other stakeholders directly.  However, many companies struggle to market successfully. Let’s take a look at why that is and how you can use internal marketing more effectively as an organization. 

What is Internal Marketing?

Internal marketing is the process of creating and promoting content and activities that encourage positive engagement with your company and brand, with the goal of having employees act as brand ambassadors. 

That said, internal marketing can also be used to motivate employees and keep them happy during times of rapid change, new initiatives, and/or layoffs. The key to effective internal marketing is understanding that employees are people, and therefore respond better to engagement methods besides traditional marketing techniques.

Vanessa Bohns knows better than most how psychology and marketing go hand-in-hand. Her work as an assistant professor of organizational behavior led to her hugely popular book: You Have More Influence Than You Think. 

How to be More Effective With Internal Marketing

Internal marketing is a process, not an event. So while you might have a grand event planned, it’s the regular actions and initiatives that will increase engagement over time.Here’s how:

1.  Define your goals. Before you can determine what you need to do to engage with your employees, you need to know what you want to accomplish. As with any marketing psychology, it’s important to have goals that are SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. 

1.  Be authentic. You can’t engage with employees if they don’t like you or your brand. In order to be authentic, you need to understand who you are as an organization. This is one reason why you should regularly conduct employee surveys. 

1.  Be consistent. Engagement isn’t a one-time burst of activity. Rather, it’s a consistent series of positive interactions with your employees. You can do this in a variety of ways, including effective content creation. The best way to engage employees with your company and brand is to create content. Not only does this build trust and positive associations, it also gives employees a way to engage with your brand if they don’t have an opportunity to interact with leaders. 

1. Organize events: Holding events is another excellent way to engage with employees. Events can be anything from a weekly happy hour to a yearly conference to a sporting event. 

1. Provide recognition: Recognition can be simple or grand, public or private, but it’s an important way to celebrate and acknowledge your employees.

 The Bottom Line

Internal marketing is more than a one-time event. In order to build trust, loyalty, and engagement with employees, you need to create a culture that values their contributions and recognizes their efforts. This can be achieved through consistent communication and collaboration, hosting regular events, and providing recognition and appreciation where it’s deserved.

Psychology and marketing aren’t tools to trick your teams, but to help you understand and engage with them in a far more authentic way, creating an organic brand loyalty that helps your team to become brand ambassadors.