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Building the Hype: 4 Communication Best Practices for Innovation Management

The great Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once said, “the single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Too often, leaders in the corporate sphere assume that once a new project – such as the implementation of an innovation management platform – is announced, users will naturally ‘get the message’ and adopt it as a standard business practice. However, when it comes to companywide engagement, communication should never be left as an afterthought.

While innovation management software is becoming more intuitive and engaging than ever, even the most sleek and attractive platform will be of little value if you don’t implement a dedicated communication strategy to promote it. At the same time, it’s important to ensure that the information regarding the platform is communicated in a practical, appealing, and automated way – avoiding unnecessary repetition or messages that don’t convey any real value.

In this blog, we outline 4 powerful tips for creating a transparent and automated communication plan for your innovation initiative. Let’s dive in.

1. Use Attention-Grabbing Visuals

Naturally, you’ll want all your emails, posts, and other messages relating to your innovation platform to be as visually striking as possible. This will help to both attract users and differentiate your innovation project messages from other internal emails (which may be glossed over). To achieve this, you could include a banner featuring the logo of your project, icons accompanying the stats the initiative has achieved, profile pictures of top contributors, as well as other images associated with new campaigns and ideas.

All visual elements you use within your communication strategy should reflect your company’s branding, as well as the aesthetics present on the platform itself. We’ve written a whole blog on the ways you can customize the visuals of the Qmarkets platform to boost engagement – which you can view here.

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The Qmarkets platform makes it easy to customize internal emails that engage your users.

Although using consistent graphical elements within your communication strategy is important that doesn’t mean you should limit yourself to one method or style. This brings us to our next tip.

2. Maximize Diversity and Creativity

One of the key best practices for innovation management is ensuring your communication strategy casts as wide a net as possible – encompassing a broad array of message formats and channels. For example, in addition to sending an internal email detailing important platform announcements, you could post an update on your company’s instant messaging platform or company portal. Promoting the use of your platform offline – emphasising it in company meetings, using flyers and posters, etc. – can also help boost engagement levels.

There’s virtually no limit to the ways you can spice up the style and content of your messages. One easy method is to change the headline content regularly. One month, the story could feature top contributors on the platform. The next, outstanding ideas realized or KPIs achieved. Leading with the most interesting and inspiring content will help maintain the buzz around your platform.

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In addition to your internal messages, you can also customize the homepage of the Qmarkets platform to so that the most important information – company updates, top performing users, etc. – are prioritized.

Regardless of how diverse your communication strategy is, the central theme of your messages should remain the same: the idea management platform offers an easy, efficient, and rewarding way for employees to add value to the enterprise!

3. Give Your Messages a Personal Touch

Acclaimed marketing consultant and business author Chris Brogan has stated, “no matter what story you tell, make the buyer your hero.” To help increase buy-in for your platform, it’s important to make each user feel as if they are the hero of their innovation endeavours – a valued member of a community, contributing a unique skill set that will benefit the company. This is where personalization is paramount.

Messages should be tailored to specific users wherever possible, mentioning their name either in the title or opening line. To keep your correspondence with users as engaging as possible, you should ensure the tone is direct and upbeat – rather than dry or overly technical. It’s also advisable to break up blocks of text with other elements that will help the end user retain the message.

One of the core best practices for innovation management is to bring out the intrapreneurial qualities of your employees. By personalizing your messages, and letting employees know that they hold an important stake in the platform’s successes, you can help bring these qualities to the fore.

4. Unleash Active Communication

When it comes to promoting your platform via email, quantity is just as important as quality. This is where having a system in place for automated email correspondence can prove invaluable. The emails you create can be configured to be sent to target users only when certain preconditions are met. For example, unique reminder emails can be set up to automatically alert users who have not logged into the system after a set period, or who still have incomplete items in their “to-do” list. In short, automated emails scheduled intelligently are critical for keeping users up to date with what their obligations on the platform.

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Using the Qmarkets platform, you can automate and customize your internal emails for target audiences. 

By using an idea management platform – such as Qmarkets – you can create and automate a default template for user correspondence, configure your target audiences, and create a schedule for active communications.

Keep the Hype Alive – Use Employee Engagement Best Practices for Innovation Management

According to a study conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute, organizations with connected employees reported that productivity levels increased up to 25%. Your innovation management platform is ideally suited to promote this kind of growth-driving connectivity, as it offers a dedicated space where employees can come together to contribute and collaborate around new ideas. However, as we have seen, the platform will need to be supported by a creative and multifaceted communication strategy to remain viable.

By keeping your employees updated on the overarching goals of your projects, what they need to do to achieve them, and how much progress they have made, you can raise the bar for innovation at all levels of your enterprise. More importantly, your communication strategy can help employees feel that their efforts have been worthwhile, giving them more incentive to dig deeper and bring more groundbreaking ideas to the surface.

To discover how Qmarkets can help you leverage field-proven best practices for innovation management, and sustain engagement around idea collaboration, be sure to get in touch with us today!

Ilona Gochman Author
Ilona Gochman

Ilona is Head of Customer Success at Qmarkets.

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