Marketing is not only done by the marketing department, and to run a successful department you need to have marketing tools as well, in order for your department to flourish.

Marketing is not only produced by the marketing department, everybody does it. It is also not about conversing with the customers and finding ways to sell your products or services, departments in any given organisation do it too.

The problem is that they take the procedures, or activities created as granted without attributing them as being part of the concept I like to call “Departmental Marketing”.

Departments such as human resources, purchasing, and accounting are usually viewed as functional, not directly contributing towards the profit of the organisation. Other departments such as sales, marketing, and/or operations are viewed as the main generators of profit within any organisation and thus are much more valued and appreciated especially if they have high returns on investment.

However, there are ways to market a given department in the organisation (especially if it is profit consuming) in order to create a new organisational perspective towards their activities and get their fair share of appraisals, bonuses, and the share of equity.

Be Part of the Success

Functional departments such as human resources and/or purchasing have a minimal role towards the contribution of profit generation, but this role is limited as to their job descriptions. HR is responsible to hire, give bonuses, deduct salaries, count days of employee’s presence, and fire.

To go above and beyond this typical role, any given department must take part of the success of the profit making departments. If it is the HR department, training courses should be offered in coordination with a third party and publicised internally for sales and marketing staff on topics related to profit – how to get the customers loyalty, how to generate profit, how to be creative in a competitive market place.

If it the purchasing department, the purchasing managers should find ways to optimise their purchases, and internally publicise their efforts and how much they have saved on the organisation of cost.

If it is the accounting department, they should coordinate efforts with the sales/marketing team on collections – to make liquid cash available for the company in a timely manner, and also publicise such efforts internally.

It is the responsibility of the manager of any of those departments to make sure to go above and beyond their typical roles, if they want to be considered in the success formula of the company.

Be an Expert in What you Do

An HR personal, or an accountant, or a purchasing personnel is as good as their daily typical duties – no much of expectations are waited, and this is the key to success. If you are an employee of one of the functional departments, be an expert in what you do.

Reading towards making a specific procedure at work much more effective, acquiring certificates and degrees, and bundling internal activities with external activities in alliance with a third party for the betterment of the organisation with low costs is a great value addition technique to your work.

If you are satisfied with what you do, that is okay but if you want to achieve more levels of appreciation and escalate in the organisational ladder, you have to think on the bigger picture which starts with you. You are not as good as your job description, background experience, or studies; you are as good as you want to be and want to do.

Internal Marketing (Newsletters)

Working in large organisations any department can get lost in their daily functions, trying to achieve their daily tasks – the departments who get less of attention are the functional as previously mentioned, and they are the ones usually excluded from the success of the organisation (even if they have somehow contributed towards that success, as HR hires the talents, purchasing buys the required assets for operation, and accounting does the money calculation – profit and loss making).

It is important to engage with the employees, simply by sending a mailer every week. Use an attractive header, use an interesting content, and ask for feedback. Too much mailer makes it easy for the employees to delete the email without even viewing it – the key is to send few messages, use a good time to send the email, and be regular.

Feedback is also important to understand whether the employees engage with you or no, and if not, it would be great to change the method of interaction (if emails is a distractive method that does not allow them to do their work).

Create Internal Competitions with Rewards

It is great to communicate with your internal audience by competitions; asking them questions that relates to your core activities (which keeps them intrigued to know more about your activities, and pay attention every time you have an internal message to publicise.

It is even great to reward your audience with tokens of appreciations when answering your questions right, keeping them engaged, loyal to your departmental brand, and fully understanding of your role within the organisation while being appreciative.

Departmental Corporate Social Responsibility

It is not the responsibility of the company only to be socially responsible; it is also the responsibility of every department in the organisation. As any department is responsible for its internal community, it is additionally responsible for the external community.

To engage with the external community each and every department has to review its goals and objectives and create initiatives congruent with such. For example, the HR department visiting an elderly home is not the perfect CSR activity – their main role is to hire people, and having a CSR activity in the same perspective is encouraged.

The HR department can encourage the hiring of disable personals in the company – to benefit the community and utilise the skills and talents of those disabled members. The purchasing department can purchase food and distribute it in alliance with other internal departments to the poor.

The accounting department can donate part of the company’s profit for the poor. Just doing a CSR in general to be publicised is not the core activity, be genuine in what you do by doing what you know and congruent with your roles and responsibilities for the real betterment of the community and the organisation.