Marketing to Your Own People

Today’s featured startup is redefining how companies market to their own employees.

Project Overview

ChangeEngine is an internal marketing platform — a tool not for reaching customers, but for engaging employees. Or, as the team describes it, a platform for “people design.” The goal? Shape how employees think and feel in ways that boost motivation and performance.

At its core, ChangeEngine helps HR and comms teams craft and send multi-channel messages — via email, Slack, Teams, and SMS — tailored to different employee segments. The platform integrates with HRIS systems to build dynamic recipient lists in real time, making sure the right people get the right message at the right moment.

To streamline content creation, the platform includes an AI assistant trained to mimic your brand’s tone of voice — even your CEO’s writing style. Its large library of customizable templates covers everything from onboarding workflows to birthday greetings and company news.

ChangeEngine also enables automated message journeys. For example, when a new hire starts (info pulled automatically from your HR system), they can receive a personalized onboarding series — tailored to their specific role and edited in a no-code visual editor. Triggers can be based on events like finishing a training module or hitting a milestone.

But internal comms aren’t limited to emails. The platform also offers tools to create branded swag — like t-shirts or hats — and attach them to milestone messages, such as congratulating a rep on their first sale. For more tangible rewards, companies can send employees digital gift cards — from a marketplace of 1,000 vendors across 200 countries.

Employee engagement data is built in. The platform tracks opens, clicks, and interactions, feeding analytics dashboards that help HR and team leads understand what’s working — and where things might be slipping.

ChangeEngine launched in May 2022 and reported 5x revenue growth by the end of 2023. In May 2024, it secured a $10 million round, bringing total funding to $15.5 million. Its client base spans tech, healthcare, retail, consulting, construction, hospitality, education, and more.

What’s the Gist?

ChangeEngine isn’t alone in this space — and that’s a good thing. Last year, Workshop, another internal marketing startup, raised $12M in its biggest round to date. ChangeEngine just followed with $10M.

This isn’t a coincidence. The internal marketing market is expanding — fast.

• The employee communication platform market is growing at 10% annually, on track to hit $2.5 billion by 2031.

• The employee recognition market is growing even faster — 13% per year, projected to reach $34.1 billion by 2030.

Platforms like ChangeEngine and Workshop sit at the intersection of both trends — combining communication and recognition. And that intersection is turning into the main road.

Why? Because communication without reinforcement — or consequences — doesn’t change behavior. If you want employees to act, you need more than just words. You need feedback, rewards, social proof — and consistency.

Recognition messages themselves become part of the comms loop: publicizing who got rewarded and why builds culture, reinforces values, and nudges others to follow suit. That’s why recognition tools are moving toward comms, and comms tools are embracing recognition.

The remote work boom accelerated this. Employees, once confined to cubicles, now work from couches and cafés — with greater autonomy, and greater distance. Companies now have to “market” to their own people — to retain talent, maintain culture, and compete for attention. Employees have effectively become internal customers.

Key Takeaways

The employee-as-customer trend is here to stay — and growing.

Remote work is rising. Global talent is more mobile. And companies are competing for their own people like never before. The result? A fast-growing opportunity at the intersection of employee communications and employee recognition.

The most promising platforms will blend both functions seamlessly:

• Multichannel, segmented messaging powered by HR data

• Personalized reward systems tied to employee actions or milestones

• Smart automation tools and AI-driven content engines

There’s room to innovate — in form, content, and mechanics.

For example, Bonusly (another startup in this space) lets employees reward each other with peer-to-peer points from monthly budgets. That social mechanic helped them raise $31.4M.

Another untapped area: solutions targeting blue-collar and shift-based workers, where retention is crucial and recognition is often overlooked.

So the real question is:
What kind of platform are you building for this new internal economy?
Will you focus on specific worker segments?
Will you reinvent how communication and recognition reinforce each other?

It’s not just about email templates and gift cards — it’s about crafting a new kind of employee experience. One where every message matters.

Company Info

ChangeEngine

• Website: changeengine.com

• Last round: $10M, 08.05.2024

• Total Investment: $15.5M, across 3 rounds