What is endomarketing and how to apply it to your routine

Does your company invest in endomarketing? Has this effort started out from a need, or were there such actions from the start?

The answer to these questions can make all the difference in keeping a team happy, productive and with little turnover.

It is common for small and new companies to focus their marketing efforts on building brand awareness, advertising services, products and launches. It is even more common that such efforts never undergo too many changes over time.

Investing in these strategies is paramount for the growth of any venture.

The problem is that investments in endomarketing is almost never considered from the outset and this makes the implementation of a culture and an effective internal communication take a lot more time and money.

The good news is that it is never too late to start applying endomarketing strategies to your business!

In this text, we will mention a few of the vital points to obtain great results in your internal actions, which are:

What is endomarketing?

Endomarketing is not an internal bulletin hung on a mural in the breakroom or any other common area of the company.

Nor is it that e-mail marketing congratulating employees for their profession’s international day.

Endomarketing is relationship. And when a relationship is healthy, strong and very well nurtured, everyone involved is happy.

When you create marketing strategies, you are selling something; or, at the very least, creating the purchasing necessity for what you are selling.

Endomarketing is the same thing, except that instead of a product or service, your team must “buy” the company’s set of goals, values and pillars.

The main causes for endomarketing well done are:

• A happy and productive team;
• Employees constantly seeking the company’s improvement and growth;
• People recommending excellent professionals to join the team;
• Internalization of the organizational culture;
• Every employee becomes a brand evangelist.

Decreased turnover, increased productivity and excellent professionals wanting to be part of your team. It seems fantastic, and it is.

To this day, we still haven’t come across any negative points in an endomarketing process that is well done.

But how to do it correctly?

This rule is unbreakable, immutable, and non-negotiable. Everything that comes after this first step will be thrown into the trash if it isn’t respected.

The owner of the bakery near your company is likely to know more about it than one of your partners.

The chances of an employee, or even an outsourced worker, not knowing the reality of your enterprise is almost nil.

Companies usually have ups and downs in every aspect, from financial to the environment among employees.

Look, telling the truth doesn’t mean exposing everything. It means not trying to hide anything or at least, pretending that things aren’t what they really are.

For example:

The company doesn’t have any more funds to celebrate the monthly birthdays because they lost a client or a contract.

What not to do:

• Say that you are thinking about your employees’ health;
• Inform that parties do not bring results to the working environment;
• Not say why the celebration parties have stopped.

What to do:

• Inform, in broad brushstrokes, why the contract was lost;
• Show what are the immediate actions to win new customers;
• Propose that the birthday parties be financed collectively, or that each one contribute something to eat and/or drink.

The last solution can even create a very healthy culture (in every way) for employees.

This solution shows confidence in the team as well as transparency. It is also a way to create empathy and strengthen the sense of belonging.

Always remember, the first step for a healthy relationship with your team is to be transparent.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at more practical tips on how to improve your endomarketing strategies:

1 – Discover (or create) the “problem”

In order to discover the “problems” that your endomarketing can solve, listen.

Keep your ear to the ground and talk to key people in your company. It is during the coffee break that you can discover you team’s major pains.

In order to “create” a problem, one must have sensitivity to notice certain behaviors and the work environment.

When I was part of the communications department of a large event company, we had a serious working environment problem. In short, people didn’t like each other and there was increasingly more friction among the teams and sectors. New people were fought over by the various cliques, and no one thought twice about pulling the rug from under someone.

The company, with plans for a super party and year-end campaign to celebrate the best performance in its history, wanted to show how much those people together, made everything happen.

It turns out that “together” was far from being true. The problem we had was: how to make people respect each other.

We reached the conclusion that in order to respect a person, you must first know his/her story. It’s very hard to have reasons to dislike someone when you know where they came from.

We told people’s stories and this completely changed the company’s environment. People began to greet each other by name, we had increasingly less complaints about the working environment and everyone felt less stressful.

2 – Align expectations

Only promise great things when you can actually meet the expectations.

It is very common for small companies to try to motivate goals with rewards and bonuses.

Often, expectation is a monster that can cause various problems if it is fed in the wrong manner.

So if you’re going to reward your team for their performance, always make it clear what the bonus will be, so that the expectation isn’t broken.

3 – Don’t motivate with words, motivate with actions

Using motivational quotes to cheer up your team makes as much difference in their productivity as chewing gum helped you solve math problems in high school.

Do you know what motivates a team?

Fulfilled promises, salaries, fair bonuses and benefits that are consistent with the level of demands of their positions, expectations aligned and a good environment.

Throw out the phrases and marketing emails for the commemorative dates. Instead, carry out effective actions that solve the problems you have encountered.

Communicating these actions and why they are done causes a much greater effect than generic congratulations or boring phrases.

4 – Measure results

Conduct work environment surveys, polls and questions regularly for the entire team.

After each action, ask what they thought. Any change based directly on such surveys show that the company listens to its employees. This makes all the difference in the world.

Problems exist and will always exist. The secret is how, when and why we are attacking this problem.

At the end of the fourth step, repeat the process.

It is certain that, after actions and surveys, you will know increasingly more about what to do and which direction to follow with your endomarketing.

Just don’t break the first rule. Never. Healthy relationships are built with trust. Your team devotes a third of their day to contribute to your mission, which means that you already have the best type of “buyer”, those who are loyal.

It’s never too late to start applying these strategies and no team is too small to be won over.

If you wish to learn more about strategies to keep your company stronger and more promising, make sure you check out our post with tips to have a more harmonious and productive team.