Most marketing is all about communicating externally. I'm working with a client who needs internal branding. In fact, I suspect that her customers hold a deeper impression of her brand by coming into her brick-and-mortar store than do her employees, who are inured to the environment.

While Paul has been blogging about marketing with emotion, I'm reminded that the brand emotion needs to be communicated internally as well. And the approach is entirely different than external marketing. We're not persuading employees to buy, but to serve customers. It's challenging to communicate a brand to employees without "singing Kumbayah" and inviting cynicism.

Volumes are being written on internal branding, but one approach that I appreciate, both as an employee and as a marketer, is honesty--in bad times as well as good.

Employees are adults, and they know that times are tough. While buyers expect to hear only good news, employees crave honest news without spin. They will reciprocate with respect for their leaders, and engagement with the brand they represent. 

I'll be helping my client to explain to her employees, in great detail, not just the cheery side of the brand, but the challenges of the industry, and how the brand positions the company against its competition. Most of all, the employees will see how their service to customers communicates the brand--more so than the logo, the web copy, or a social media campaign. Branding is about emotion--especially the emotions of employees.