December 26, 2004
internal/external etc.
Bob makes a salient point in the comment section of “Hughtrain Deliverables”:
I’d love to see the “deliverable” coming together before our eyes…
One thought/warning as you work on the Internal angle: companies are not used to spending money on initiatives that do not directly deliver sales. Internal marketing IS growing, but at the end of the day if there is no ROI or link to “moving cases” it’s going to be hard to rationalize the investment.
For example, I have a hard time getting clients to invest in pretty basic internal communications tools (e.g. Wiki). While a brand manager can authorize spending on the brand or external advertising, they typically wait for IT or “corporate marketing” with their limited budgets to do the inside stuff.
When you build the Internal Deliverable with ROI you’ll have the Holy Grail! Good luck!
Hmmm… I may have found a Holy Grail, then. Maybe not THE Holy Grail… but a pretty saintly grail, anyway.
Imagine the membrane the demarcates where the company begins and the the public ends, and vice versa– the company internal on one side, the company external on the other etc.
Now imagine a deliverable that is equally comfortable on both sides of the membrane…
None of this is rocket science; it’s anthropology.
i.e. Traditionally, companies that are good at internal are clueless at external, and vice versa.
But therein lies the opportunity…
Paying attention to internal culture is a Holy Grail? Hmm. Seems like that one has been around for a long time and can often be quantified in metrics that matter for the bean counters.
If you say so, Jeffrey