Internal marketing gains ground in pharma sector
Ian Santos —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Ian Santos is the country manager of Mundipharma Philippines’ consumer health care and ethical businesses. Mundipharma, owner of the popular mega brand Betadine, is a privately owned global network of independent associated companies, with a presence in over 120 countries across six continents.
Before joining Mundipharma, Santos was national sales manager of Colgate-Palmolive (Philippines and Russia), sales operations planning director of Coca-Cola, and most recently, the Pharma vice president of GlaxoSmithKline Philippines.
Here, he talks about the importance of internal marketing.
Q: Why is it important to treat employees as internal customers?
A: Employees who are aligned with a company’s mission, vision and objectives will be in the best position to help the organization achieve them.
It is in the company’s best interest therefore that they treat their employees as internal customers, who they should effectively sell to and align with to ensure their mutual success.
Employees need to be sold not only on the intangibles. They also need to experience and believe in the company’s products or services before they can become effective advocates for the company.
Once they have belief and passion in what the company sells, the job is already half done. You will have a solid team of associates who are motivated to take the business to greater heights.
Q: There is a popular belief to make employees happy first before making customers happy. Thoughts?
A: I am a firm believer in the mantra: “Take good care of your people, and they will take good care of your business.”
This means more than just providing competitive salaries and benefits, which is a basic requirement to attract and retain talent. It is also a must to create an environment where people are trusted and respected, constantly developed so they can add value and excel in roles that amplify their strengths, and provided a safe workplace where their well-being is given prime importance.
Always strive to create work-life harmony for your employees. Companies who are able provide a good mix of monetary and nonmonetary benefits will likely be able to sustain high engagement of employees. It’s all about helping associates develop their whole self.
Q: Can you share some of your internal marketing strategies that benefited Mundipharma’s market performance?
A: It all starts with Day 1 of our employee experience. We have now made it a must that company tools of trade like cars, laptops, mobile phones and even business cards are made available as best as we could on an employee’s first day of work. We also ensure each new employee is provided a pack of company products that they and their families can immediately try them. In their first weeks of employment, they are introduced to the leadership team and get exposed to all areas of the business, from human resources to marketing managers who educate them about the brands and products we sell.
We also hold periodic employee product sales so our employees can invite their friends and family to our office and take advantage of limited offers on our products. Aside from generating trial and awareness, this enhances business ownership where our employees act as our brand advocates to people they know.
With our major push into digital and e-commerce, we encourage our employees to share posts of our preapproved brand messages and materials in their social media platforms. We are seeing good traction, with more employees sharing our posts online. I would like to consider myself the company’s chief product and employer brand evangelist, so you will often see me sharing company and brand activities in my social media accounts.
When I took the helm last year, everyone knew the Betadine brand but very few outside our industry knew about Mundipharma or our other products. It is quite heartening to see that through various initiatives and channels, awareness for our employer brand as well products like Betadine daily feminine wash, throat spray, oral gargle, body wash and foaming hand wash have significantly increased. —CONTRIBUTED
