To set up any open innovation initiative for success, you need to ensure active participation of the right people. By marketing your WebStorms you can create awareness and develop a robust, sustained social community.

Here are some basic tips and tricks, together with real-life examples, to successfully market your WebStorm campaign:

Know Your Audience 

It's important to define and understand the target audience for your initiative to generate ideas before beginning any marketing effort. In general, WebStorms will be either directed at employees or externally-facing to customers, targeted groups, or the general public. 

Internal WebStorms

Used internally, WebStorms help leverage the collective wisdom of employees to drive innovation. This can happen among small, cross-functional groups, entire departments, or company-wide. Marketing a WebStorm to an internal audience should utilize existing channels of communication such as intranet portals and direct email communications. Take into account the role and functions of employees to determine the most effective means of communication — the way you communicate with software product developers, for example, will be different than with factory-floor workers or sales representatives.

External WebStorms

If you are planning a public-facing initiative, it's important to narrow down who your audience will be. This will help you to focus your efforts and reach the people who will have to most valuable contributions for your campaign. Identify where the right audience can be reached—social networks, blogs, through advertising in targeted media, etc. While some marketing activities require a larger budget than others, it is always wise to reach out to your audience through multiple channels.  Encouraging employees to spread the word externally can also help get to ball rolling.

Whether you are launching an internal or external WebStorm, it is important to set and communicate expectations internally.

Ways to Market a WebStorm

Here are some thought-starters on how to market a WebStorm-powered campaign, and real-world examples of successful initiatives.

Big Splash

A successful kickoff is important to any WebStorm. Launches are opportunities to gain momentum that can quickly translate into a highly engaged user community. Launch events are helpful for condensing attention and getting your message across to a wider audience be it influencers, press, etc. 

Promoting the WebStorm on existing digital presences also can make a huge statement. A company website or the homepage of an intranet portal often times are gateways to exposure to key audiences. Therefore, it is important to get the buy-in needed to promote through these existing channels.

General Electric (GE) held a high-profile launch event for the public Ecomagination Challenge. To a room packed with press, key public figures, and top executives from GE and partnering venture capital firms, GE's CEO announced the launch of the Ecomagination site and outlined GE's vision and goals for the challenge. Webcasted live online, the event created buzz that brought thousands of visitors to the WebStorm. A Video of the event was uploaded to YouTube, and pushed out to the press. In addition, the company put a link to the challenge WebStorm on the homepage of GE.com – a clear callout box that highlights the initiative and drives traffic to the site.

British Telecom (BT) launched their internal innovation program with an event in London that included a presentation from CEO Ben Verwaayan. Attended by over 30 executives and other key employees identified as 'influencers' from around the world, BT created advocates that galvanized their individual departments and peers from the earliest stages of the innovation program. Five years later, BT continues to foster employee engagement and innovation with a tremendous amount of success.

Continuous Communication

The marketing of a WebStorm should go on well beyond just the initial launch. Communicate the progress of the WebStorm on an on-going basis to encourage continual participation and attract new users. The easiest way to do so is through frequent blog posts in the WebStorm portal. Include statistics and metrics, like the number of users or ideas submitted as an indicator for progress.

Promote On-Going Participation

A great way to promote your internal WebStorm on an ongoing basis is through regular touch points with your innovation community. This can be through in-person meetings (ideal for smaller groups), or webinars (for department level or higher). Managers should meet to review the progress that's been made, give updates on the status of ideas, plan future initiatives and directly recognize key contributors to the WebStorm.

Throughout public campaigns, online media can generate significant interest and drive traffic to the WebStorm. Identify websites and blogs that are popular among your target audience and advertise on these sites or get bloggers to post articles to the blog of your idea portal and/or their own blog. 

Social networking sites provide a valuable, cost-effective (i.e. FREE) channel to reach out to the greater community. Microblogging sites like Twitter can help keep the community up-to-date on ideas (WebStorm also has a “Tweet This” function that allows users to easily tweet their ideas – a great viral marketing technique!).

Stay In Touch

Even after ending the idea submission phase of a WebStorm, it is important to stay in touch with the community. Keeping participants informed on the status of their ideas shows that their contributions are valued and reinforces the commitment to implement the best ideas. Let them know how the evaluation process is going, for example through update alerts or newsletters, and keep moving good ideas forward. Consider a post-campaign survey to collect valuable feedback while interacting with the community.

Most importantly, circle back to the community once ideas have been implemented and launched. This is the hardest part because some ideas take months, years, and more to develop and market, while others only take weeks. Nevertheless, if possible, highlight, promote, and explain the ideas that turned into products, new services, or cost-saving process improvements. Showing the full idea lifecycle often makes the biggest statement and reinforces the critical value of the community’s and individuals’ ideas to innovation success.

Get Creative

Beyond traditional handouts and posters, there are a variety of creative ways to promote your WebStorm. For instance, the City of San Francisco advertised their ImproveSF.org WebStorm with flyers placed strategically on paychecks, helping to drive hundreds of employees to participate in the Employee Budget Challenge which sought cost-savings and revenue generating ideas.

Meanwhile, China Light & Power (CLP) promoted their "Earth Heroes" WebStorm, searching for ideas to improve company-wide sustainability, with a series of life-sized posters strategically positioned throughout company offices. The posters depicted senior executives as 'Earth Heroes' and were designed with holes so employees could take pictures with their faces in the poster. A fun way to engage employees. The marketing initiative also reinforced senior leadership's commitment to the campaign and underscored the creative tone and theme of the 'Earth Heroes'campaign.

Adobe ran two idea contests to source ideas for new products & product enhancements from all enterprise levels. At the end of the challenges, the company held an Idol-themed event to celebrate winning ideas. 

I've seen some other cool ideas to market WebStorms such as a fictitious $5,000 bill with references to the program printed on it, or a chocolate bar that had been covered with an innovation themed wrapper. So don't limit your creativity and think 'outside the box' to grab people's attention!

In Short…

Your marketing strategy and tactics need to take many elements into consideration in order to make your innovation initiative a success. Besides the tips listed above, there are a variety of functionality and feature options within WebStorm that can help your marketing efforts. Contact us for further information. We are here for you to help ensure your WebStorm gets the right number of the right people.