How Your Company Culture Can Become a Marketing Tool

Why immersing employees and customers into your corporate culture is an excellent way to build brand loyalty.
How Your Company Culture Can Become a Marketing Tool
By
Marie Barnes

There are things that even the most experienced marketers tend to forget. One of them is that the times are changing, thus making a society way more transparent than it was even ten years ago.

These days you can’t afford to distinguish corporate culture from the overall brand’s image. Not when everyone has a powerful computer in their pocket and lots of tools to spread the news in a blink of an eye.

It might seem to be very convenient to force your employees to sit in dull cubicles and work motionlessly, without taking the eyes off the display. Yet, it is quite easy to get a stain of hypocrites or heartless corporate exploiters. It will seriously damage your brand’s image, making the entire company look unfriendly and unpleasant.

Over 60% of modern-day customers are eager to know what the brand stands for. Intention doesn’t matter while an unapproved corporate culture can do a lot of damage. Luckily, this works on both sides.

You can positively affect your brand’s image if turning your corporate culture into another marketing tool.

As a matter of fact, corporate culture is a part of the general user experience. If you think of it, some time ago, there was a series of disturbing publications about Apple’s factory somewhere in China. Those articles included pictures of child labor and hard working conditions. Apple’s attempt to justify the situation as a general state of affairs on the labor market in China was in vain. Millions of dollars were spent to wash the corporate image off, yet the story still comes up from time to time.

The idea that a company has to work on promoting itself, along with promoting its products, is back again. It might seem to be odd, yet marketing as science is bigger than backlinks, regular blog posts, and content spreading. Turning your corporate culture into a marketing tool may be very rewarding — and here’s why.

Corporate culture as a marketing tool

The definition of a corporate culture includes not just the personal values of people, working for the same company, but how those values affect customers and how to use them to improve the general user’s experience.

An average customer today prefers to be responsible.

It means they want to make smart purchases, and support companies that share their values, and even incorporate them in their modus operandi.

Moreover, the global trend shows that people are more likely to buy not a product some company produces, but the reason why this product has been manufactured. The best example here is electric cars 🚗

The growth of their popularity is related primarily with an intention to improve the ecological situation on the planet, and not because you’ll save some bucks on gasoline.

Corporate culture is a part of the general user experience.

The following example shows that people will choose one thing over another if that fits their views and beliefs. And the same applies to the brand’s corporate culture. Recent surveys prove that more and more customers are ready to ignore a brand they do not trust, no matter how good their marketing strategy is.

Moreover, numerous attempts to measure corporate culture’s impact on your business’ efficiency and to increase its efficiency as a marketing tool have already been done. The overall brand’s image is becoming an important factor for a customer’s purchase decision.

Good publicity

To cut a long story short, your corporate culture matters because when your employees are happy, your customers will see that and will make a purchase. And that’s more important than it seems, because, well, you can’t force people to be happy in your office. Yet, you can create the conditions for them to be really happy to work for you. 😃

Marketing as science is bigger than backlinks, regular blog posts, and content spreading.

How to achieve this? Well, the methods are widely spread and well-known. At least some ideas can be implemented in almost every office:

  • Cutting the bureaucracy;
  • Getting rid of dress-code;
  • No tight schedules;
  • Work from home opportunities;
  • Informal atmosphere in the offices;
  • Health care;
  • Corporate events, team buildings and employee development.

As you can see, adjusting a corporate culture is not too difficult. These days, when tools for communication and remote work are used everywhere, the company has to work hard to keep employees loyal.

There are lots of opportunities to make people happy, therefore, be more engaged in the workflow process. Their loyalty will pay you off when numerous social media posts will affect your company and your brand’s image positively.

Making examples

It is hard to believe, but there is no defined algorithm to turn your corporate culture into one effective marketing tool. Yet, there is Hi5, a powerful tool, to help you turn your corporate culture into a marketing tool and use it to your advantage.

There are lots of opportunities to make people happy.

The first thing you have to keep in mind as a leader, is that all the changes will come from you. Thus, it is the task of the CEO to head the adjustments of corporate culture, allowing people to bring their pets at the office and making them feel comfortable during working hours.

Moreover, a leader must understand the team’s regular challenges. Corporate management today has to learn through the opportunities their employees face and be familiar with people’s strengths. This will lead you to the reorganization of the overall work process, exploiting people’s strong sides and improving the job experience. Informal meetings, instead of dull conferences, will save time and help you to define the goals in a friendly atmosphere.

The first thing you have to keep in mind as a leader, is that all the changes will come from you.

Finally, to turn the corporate culture into a marketing tool, the management should share it both within the company and outside of it. Avoid producing formal videos, since Instagram pictures and clips made occasionally will do better.

Emphasizing the most important company values and showing them to your customers, using a marketing funnel, will build your brand’s image along with the promotion of your products. It means, while planning your marketing strategy, your team should invest some time to promote the culture of the company they work for.

Incorporating cultural marketing

There is a survey that proves that brands that are using social media in general and Instagram specifically to show both the product and the corporate, is 82% more effective in marketing compared to the companies that do not invest in this.

Your team should invest some time to promote the culture of the company they work for.

The impact of corporate culture on general sales seems to be even bigger than marketers anticipate. Yet, it is still not widely used by the companies, nevertheless, corporate culture promotion provides a brand with a vast competitive advantage.

When people are treated merely as “customers” or taken as “employees” only, a brand will eventually lose its attractiveness due to “hypocrisy” associations. When working with people, you should think of them as people first, and then as assets. This is what corporate culture as a marketing tool is all about.

Think of them as people first, and then as assets.

If a corporate culture is a part of the brand, the marketers should not be afraid to show it. While connecting employees to a company, potential customers will enjoy a “behind the stage” look and get familiar with the business they are about to communicate with. Showing off your company culture is always a good idea 😉

Conclusion

Adjusting your corporate culture and making it a part of your marketing strategy is hard, but it’s really worth the effort. Keep in mind that trying something new is always a bit difficult at first. This new way to approach marketing will bring the most profit.

Immersing customers into your corporate culture is an excellent way to get loyal consumers.

The better we understand each other, the more outcome it will give. Immersing customers into your corporate culture is an excellent way to get loyal consumers. Isn’t it something every brand is looking for?

Got any other ideas on how to make your corporate culture work for your marketing campaign? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below. Good luck!

About the author

Marie Barnes is a writer for LinksManagement and Bestforacar. She is an enthusiastic blogger interested in writing about technology, social media, work, travel, lifestyle, and current affairs. She shares her insights through blogging.

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