Marketing is not just external; it's internal too. What's Internal Marketing?

Internal Marketing means employees are treated as “internal customers” who must be convinced of a company's vision and worth just as aggressively as “external customers.” The goal of internal marketing is to align every aspect of a company’s internal operations to ensure they are as capable as possible of providing value to customers. 

Internal marketing is based on the idea that customers’ attitudes toward a company are based on their entire experience with that company, and not just their experience with the company’s products. Any time a customer interacts with an employee, it affects their overall satisfaction. Everyone from a sales clerk to an over-the-phone tech support specialist helps to shape that customer's experience. Therefore, customer satisfaction is deeply dependent on the performance of a company's staff.

For example, Apple has a unique organizational culture that emphasizes innovation, creativity, and expertise. In order to promote this culture, they are highly selective when they recruit employees and extremely thorough when they train them. Apple realizes that the best way to promote the image of their brand is for every employee, particularly the ones who work with customers, to accurately represent that image. Anyone who has been to an Apple store knows that the employees are experts in the products they sell and are willing to answer an endless number of questions. They are smart, accessible, and knowledgeable, positively reflecting the company company as a whole.

Multinational corporations understand better the importance of internal marketing, but a lot of small-sized companies seem to overlook this issue, or maybe to be precise, they do not have the financial means to introduce an internal marketing program for their employees. 

Surprisingly, the marketing literature elaborates on how crucial internal marketing is, but we are lacking practical internal marketing policies for small and medium-sized businesses. Can you come up with something practical and concrete?

Regards,