Boost your internal branding, and watch every growth metric in your business get better

What is Internal Branding?

As someone who’s been building brands for nearly 20 years, I get this question all the time.

Internal branding isn’t just important—it’s the foundation for everything else you do.

The external brand is everything that your customers see in the public sphere, right? It’s the fun stuff: the logo, the colors, the signage, the product packaging, the label design, the marketing campaigns, the videos, it’s the fun advertising campaigns that we all admire. Internal branding, on the other hand, strengthens the company brand by aligning employees with company values and ensuring that everyone within the organization understands and lives the brand.

But here’s the thing: behind all that fun, flashy external stuff is a rock-solid internal brand. The brands you love and stick with? They all have a clear, unique, and consistent internal brand that sets the tone for everything else. A strong company culture is foundational to internal branding and helps create organizational cohesion.

Internal branding shapes brand identity both internally and externally, ensuring that employees are engaged and that the internal culture reflects the external brand image. Aligning internal and external brand messaging is crucial for building a unified brand identity and fostering trust and loyalty.

To be effective, internal branding efforts should be embedded throughout the organization, supporting consistency, engagement, and alignment at every level.

The True Definition of a Brand

I will continue to share my definition of what a brand is: The perception that your ideal customers have of what you do and your company. It’s their gut reaction. Brand values and what the brand stands for play a crucial role in shaping both customer and employee perceptions, influencing how the brand is experienced internally and externally.

When I say Amazon, you have a gut reaction. When I say Tesla, you have a gut reaction. When I say Chick-fil-A, you have a gut reaction. When I say Red Bull, you have a gut reaction. When I say Liquid Death, you have a gut reaction. When I say Gucci, you have a gut reaction. When I say Target, you have a gut reaction. And you might not be the target audience or the ideal customer for any of those brands, but some people are. It’s important that employees understand the brand’s core values and mission, as this ensures alignment and consistent messaging throughout the organization.

Every single thing you do shapes your brand, for better or worse. Fostering a sense of belonging and purpose among employees is key to internal branding, helping them connect with the brand values and what the brand stands for.

Why Internal Branding is Crucial

I see this all the time: startups, small businesses, even mid-sized companies jump straight to the fun stuff—logos, taglines, websites, marketing—without ever locking in their internal brand.

But if you want real, lasting growth, you have to get your internal brand right first.

Otherwise, if you don’t:

• Your employees, your leadership, your colleagues, and your partners will all be rowing in different directions. Aligning employees with your company’s vision and values is critical to ensure everyone is moving toward the same goals.
• That’s a recipe for inefficiency.

Securing employee buy in is essential for successful internal branding, as it ensures everyone is committed to the brand’s mission and values.

You need a single vision, a unified voice, and core values that everyone—whether you’re a team of one or a thousand—can rally around.

That’s what creates:

• Efficiency
• Motivation
• Clarity

Engaged employees are more likely to act as brand ambassadors and drive positive change within your organization. Internal branding efforts drive engagement and support organizational goals.

And when you have those ingredients, that is what drives revenue and profit growth for your company. So internal branding is imperative for your company’s growth. Most companies overlook internal branding, even though it is essential for long-term success. Ongoing support and focus on internal branding is critical for business growth and maintaining a strong, unified culture.

The Internal Branding Framework

At Big Red Jelly, building brands is what we do best. Our proven process has ten chapters, starting with Brand Discovery, Brand Research, and the Guiding Idea (Brand Strategy and Positioning). Developing a comprehensive internal branding strategy is a crucial part of this framework, ensuring that company values and brand consistency are embedded throughout the organization. Right after that, we dive into two chapters focused on internal branding—because that’s where the magic really starts. Branding efforts in these chapters should focus on creating a cohesive internal brand that aligns employee perceptions and behaviors with brand goals. Creating a strong internal brand is an ongoing process that requires regular assessment and adaptation to maintain alignment with company strategy and employee engagement.

Section 1: Brand DNA

The first chapter in internal branding is Brand DNA.

Think about what DNA is, right? DNA is the biological consistency we all have that tells the rest of the organism how it should act, function, feel, etc. Brand DNA sets the stage for everything that comes next. It’s universal. It’s life. It’s the starting point. And brands need that same energy.

Defining your business values and company values is essential for setting the foundation of your Brand DNA, as these core principles guide your organization’s culture and employee engagement. Your Brand DNA should also clearly reflect the company’s overall mission and purpose, ensuring alignment and consistency throughout all internal branding efforts.

Brand DNA Components (Deliverables)

Here’s what you need to nail down in your Brand DNA:

• Brand Positioning (consider how your positioning aligns with key stakeholders)
• Brand Purpose (Your Why)
• Brand Architecture (define your structure with key stakeholders in mind)
• Brand Personality and Attributes
• Brand Type and Hierarchy
• Personal Brand Blueprint for key executives

These are the real, tangible deliverables that will bring clarity to your brand.

Why Brand DNA is Crucial

Brand DNA matters because it has to start at the top—ideally with the founder or CEO, or at least the leadership team. Before you share it with employees, partners, or vendors, you need to define it at the source.

You have to ask a founder (and you can ask yourself):

• What is our positioning?
• What’s our why? (What is our brand purpose? Why do we exist?)

Practical Tip: The answer to your brand purpose cannot be related to your product, service, your profit and loss statement, or your balance sheet. It’s got to be greater than that. You can look at some great examples from Dove, from Crayola. It’s meant to be emotional, high-level. A strong Brand DNA fosters an emotional connection between employees and the company, inspiring authentic engagement and a sense of shared purpose. It’s meant to get you fired up. Ask yourself that question: Why did you start this company? Other than to make more money, that’s an obvious answer. But why? Why does this company exist for the greater good?

Nailing your Brand DNA gets your leadership and founders all moving in the same direction.

Section 2: Brand Core

Next up is Brand Core. This is where your employees get in on the action—taking your internal brand from the leadership team to everyone in the company. Brand Core initiatives should involve the whole company, ensuring that every department and level, from leadership to frontline staff, is engaged in building a unified brand identity.

Brand Core Components

• Core Values
• Mission Statement
• Vision Statement
• Brand Promise
• Brand Emotion Drivers
• Internal Brand Engagement Program (including ways to reward employees for embodying brand values)

When employees are truly engaged with your internal branding efforts, they can become brand ambassadors who promote the company’s values both internally and externally.

Key Components Defined

Core Values:

• What are the values of your company?
• What are the values by which you hire, fire, and give promotions?
• What are the values by which you make hard decisions?
• Your values should be unique, memorable, and actually mean something to your team. Bring them up often—they should be part of your daily conversations. Encourage employees to create and share brand-related content that reinforces the company’s identity.

Mission Statement:

• This is the practical day-to-day mission that we’re trying to accomplish every day, right now. It’s something everyone on your team can get behind.

Vision Statement:

• This is more long-term: where we want to go, where we want to be, who we want to become in three, five, ten years, and beyond. It’s your North Star.

Brand Promise:

• What is that one thing that you can guarantee to your customer, time in and time out?
• What is that one thing that your employees feel like they can guarantee to their customers 24/7/365?
• Example: Walmart’s is “lowest prices guaranteed.” Amazon’s is efficiency and speed. What is that one consistent thing that you are best at?

Brand Emotional Drivers:

• How do you want your ideal customers to feel after they use your product or service?

Remember, people buy with emotion and justify with logic. This leads us to the final section.

How to Activate and Leverage Your Internal Brand

Let’s get practical. Too many businesses write up their internal brand, mission, and values, then let them gather dust in a handbook no one reads.

Here are some tactics I recommend to actually bring your internal brand to life:

• Connect to Rewards and Discipline:
  • When you give praise, connect it to your core values, mission, or vision statement.
  • When you hire or fire, you should be asking questions or bringing up your internal brand.
  • When you give promotions, it should be aligned with your vision statement and your mission statement.
• Visual Reinforcement:
  • Put up signage in your office so your team can see and connect with your vision and mission every day.
  • Regularly review your core values, mission, vision, and brand promise in meetings. Keep them top of mind. These practices help foster a positive work culture and reinforce your company culture, making it easier for employees to embody your brand values.
• Regular Feedback:
  • Collect employee feedback regularly through surveys or open channels to assess and improve your internal branding efforts.
  • Implement regular feedback mechanisms to maintain alignment, engagement, and ensure your internal culture supports your brand goals.
• Encourage Employee Advocacy:
  • Support employee advocacy by empowering your team to share your brand story and values, turning them into brand advocates who promote your company both internally and externally.
• External Transparency:
  • Share your internal brand on your website. Let your customers and audience see what you stand for. No need to keep it a secret.
  • Great brands are authentic, and they’re transparent, but they have to be honest with you. Younger generations can sniff out an inauthentic brand better than any other generation.
• Spread the word:
  • Add it to your About page, email signature, pitch decks, and social media content.

A strong internal brand not only enhances customer experience and satisfaction, but also helps align employee actions with customer expectations, ensuring your company can deliver on its promises. Internal branding also supports talent acquisition and helps attract new talent by showcasing a compelling culture and values. Effective internal branding leads to cost savings, a positive impact on business metrics, and higher employee and customer satisfaction.

People enjoy that. They want to see why you exist as a company and what makes you different.

The Impact on Growth KPIs

If you follow these steps and build your internal brand, you’ll see real improvements in your key metrics:

• Your employee retention rate will improve.
• Your employee engagement will improve.
• Your productivity and efficiency will improve.
• Your customers will enjoy that authenticity, and that will lead to:
  • Higher conversion rates.
  • More return customers.
  • Higher order value or deal value, leading to higher customer lifetime value.
• It will make your marketing and advertising much, much, much more efficient.

At the end of the day, when you get your internal brand right, you will feel more fulfilled. And so your marketing and advertising will become way more efficient. Grow so that you can continue to perform on your mission and your vision, and grow your company the way that it was meant to be grown.

You’ve got this. Go build your internal brand.