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Corporate culture makes a direct impact on your marketing strategy and its effective execution. By design or default, your corporate culture directly impacts all significant company operations – including marketing.
For too many marketers, corporate culture is a “feel good” concept better left for internally focused HR and organizational development departments to ponder endlessly. Just how much can culture actually impact the externally focused marketing function? Harry Beckwith, service marketing guru and renowned author of Selling The Invisible, stresses the importance of building a great culture:
“Invest in and religiously preach integrity. It is the heart of your brand.”
Culture-building, marketing, and business success are all defined by the right value system put into action on a daily basis. The most critical element is integrity. Your employees must first believe your “yes means yes” and your “no means no” for them to earn the similar trust of your customers.
Is your business culture one of respect, clear communication, and results-driven accountability from the top down? The answer to this question has huge ramifications for your company. Similar to how a person’s identity and personality are tied-together, so too is how your employees identify themselves with your organization. Beckwith stresses before you try to satisfy the needs of “the client,” you should first understand and satisfy the needs of the person. Similarly, you should understand your employees and do your best to create a culture where they feel engaged and passionate about your company, their work, and your customers.
Culture largely determines how your organization acts, and if its actions are rooted in your values and standards. Interestingly, culture creates your environment and your environment furthers culture. With an empowering culture, your employees will deliver your products and/or customer services with a sense of commitment, care, and passion. They will achieve marketing’s end goal: a satisfied customer. But how does one establish a corporate culture based on desired standards and values?
Building the right culture starts with effective leadership. Your leadership determines values (like integrity), vision, goals, and a clearly communicated direction. Great culture fosters positive attitudes and enthused employees. On a daily basis it turns strong values into action, accountability and ultimately – results. World Class companies build empowering cultures utilized amid massive marketing action to create and maintain satisfied customers. It’s about service, service, service!
Among the most important lessons of Harry Beckwith’s expertise is that you should study each point of customer contact, and then improve each one significantly, because every act is a marketing act – make every employee a marketing person.
Be very clear about your culture, and go to great lengths to build it internally. Recruit people whose personalities fit naturally into your culture; creating an environment where your intended culture flourishes by design. Be outspoken about your culture, and use it as a marketing tool. Companies as large and successful as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and many others alike, publicly share details about their culture. Motivated employees will naturally share stories about your environment. With a great culture you can readily invite clients to participate and share in your organizational treasure. It is one of the lowest-cost marketing initiatives you can enact; but it absolutely has the highest return. So, build the right business culture… then use it to improve your marketing and increase your company’s bottom line.
* What It Takes To Be Number One: Vince Lombardi on Leadership (McGraw Hill, 2001).
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