So what is the definition of internal branding? The internal branding meaning is about connecting your employees to the company’s external brand, showing them what the brand means and to ensure they both understand and are committed to the company’s mission. This includes ensuring employees are aligned with and understand organization’s vision – that they know how and why this branding has been adopted.
External branding is the parts of your company that the public can see. It’s represented in things like your logo, your corporate colors, your website, brochures, social media and print designs. The visual aspects of your brand are combined with the values you espouse and the experience you aim to deliver to your customers and stakeholders when they interact with your organization.
Internal employer branding helps you to define the attributes of your brand so that your employees can deliver your products and services in a persuasive way, and in a way that differentiates your company from your competitors.
Internal branding helps to strengthen your company’s overall brand by encouraging your employees to embrace your company’s values. In doing this, it will translate to the way your employees interact with your customers and stakeholders.
Your internal branding campaign should reflect what you are doing outside of the organization, and this includes the stylistic elements of your branding as well as the overall way in which your company represents itself.
Not only will this keep your employees familiar with the brand identity, but incorporating it in your internal efforts will also help to ensure that the brand is authentic – not just something you put on “for show” for the outside world.
Your internal branding strategy should be every employee’s priority and they should live the brand. When your employees are emotionally invested in your brand it’s likely they will be more loyal to the company, be more productive and inspired and be motivated and innovative.
A strong internal brand will help you to attract employees that align with your company beliefs and values.
According to the Edelman Trust Barometer 2022, 60% of people choose a workplace that aligns with their own values and beliefs.
This also helps transform your employees into “brand ambassadors” - not only are they the public face of your organization, but they represent the brand in all aspects of their life. When they believe in the brand they’re more likely to advocate for the brand, share the company’s successes on social media and refer business to the company.
A Neilson study found that 84% of people trust recommendations when they come from their friends, family members and colleagues compared with other types of marketing.
If you want to project your organization as having a strong environmental ethos, for example, your employees planting trees and undertaking to cut the carbon footprint of the organization is a good way to get them on board to live your brand values.
Some of the world’s most successful companies have a strong internal branding process and are able to take their employees along on the journey with them. They do this in the following ways:
Your internal branding strategy should set out a clear company vision and purpose. Your senior management team should be involved in developing this and be committed to putting the words into action and modeling your ideal values and behaviors.
Other things that should be included in the strategy are:
Based on the actions that you outline in your internal branding strategy, you can now deliver internal branding campaigns. These processes should be followed to ensure maximum benefits.
These are the aspects of your internal branding campaign that should be utilized to ensure your employees become more focussed on customer outcomes and are committed to developing your brand’s culture:
There are many ways that an internal branding strategy can benefit your business. This includes:
The ultimate goal is to have elements of your branding translate into behaviors modeled by your staff. This will also help you to attract and retain the types of employees that display the characteristics and attributes that are synonymous with your brand identity.
By creating brand awareness, your employees will understand your brand and how your clients view it, and will become its custodians. Your employees in effect become an extension of your brand. Internal branding and employee engagement go hand in hand: when you build a strong workplace culture as part of your internal brand, your levels of employee engagement will rise, which has overall positive benefits for your company.
It’s important that your employees hear the same messages inside the organization that you are sharing with the outside world. Unfortunately the reality is often the opposite in many companies - a failing in brand awareness. When employees hear you say one thing to the outside world and another thing internally, they can feel jaded and cynical and develop a mistrust in the integrity of your company.
Strategies can look great on paper, but when it comes to putting them into practice they might not always translate. When you get your branding right it will sync well internally and ill be an idea that your employees want to see succeed.
Word of mouth is one of the most powerful ways to market your products or services. What better way than to have your own employees advocate for your company because they identify with and believe in the brand?
When your employees completely understand the ethos of your brand, the way they interact with customers will become part of the brand’s identity. When they are emotionally connected with the brand they can then connect with people on the outside of the organization.
Strong internal brand management will cement your reputation and the unique aspects of your organization that make it attractive to both internal and external clients.
Content that reflects your internal branding campaign can be sent via DeskAlerts in the form of corporate wallpapers, corporate screensavers, corporate lockscreens and digital signage. Essentially you can turn any screens in your organization into professional looking digital billboards reflecting your corporate branding.
DeskAlerts offers customisation options for internal branding in the form of custom skins and a skin editor. Custom skins for message templates can be created by the DeskAlerts team to reflect align with your corporate branding to ensure a consistent look and feel. The skin editor is an add-on feature that will allow you to create, edit and send many template skins as you like that are made in accordance with your design guidelines.
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Internal branding processes can take a while to figure out and implement, but are worth the time and effort and will help you to have a cohesive, high-performing team and make you stand out as an employer of choice.
Internal branding helps to strengthen the branding the company uses with external audiences, and helps to boost your internal culture.
An example of internal branding is when you actively turn your employees – not just those in customer-facing roles - into brand ambassadors who will champion your company.
A good brand campaign is one that helps to tell your company’s story and get its message across to an audience in a way that is aimed at increasing brand awareness.
Internal brand culture is where the external brand of your company influences the culture within the company so that values are aligned.