Would you say Insight is at the heart of decision making in your organisation?
This doesn’t happen overnight or by accident - you need to build awareness.
It’s important that key decision makers know who you are and what you do. Ideally you want to bring the Insight lens to decision makers in diverse parts of your organisation.
Typically, Insight professionals are not necessarily very good at self-promotion. We like to talk about our work rather than talk about our department.
Maybe your team is modest in size and modest by nature – so how can you build awareness of Insight?
Adopt an opportunisitic mindset
The first step is to adopt an opportunistic mindset, and look for opportunities for to promote the Insight team and the whole concept of Insight. This might not come naturally to you – many Insight professionals are more inclined to support others, rather than to seek the limelight for themselves. But if you want to influence key decisions and have an impact on the organisation, it’s important to raise your function's profile.
In our recent article on building your Insight brand, we talked about the importance of having a strong Insight brand, to build credibility and occupy a distinctive place and role in the minds of your stakeholders. However, a strong brand doesn’t do the job of raising awareness alone, it requires promotion.
Take every opportunity to make sure your stakeholders know
- what Insight could do for them,
- what your team are working on, and
- where you have added direction and value for key decision makers.
Get in early with new starters
Most Insight teams have a ready-made Insight team presentation for sharing with new starters across the organisation. This typically outlines your markets, brands, competitors and channels, highlighting key opportunities and threats.
For each new person, find out what their key objectives will be, and the areas where they are going to need Insight. Share relevant information sources and how to access them. Provide tailored summaries of key sectors and relevant themes for the individual.
Take the opportunity to explain who you are, what you do and how the new starter can best work with you. Here is your chance to share your Insight brand values, for example, and encourage them to include you early in discussions.
Identify and promote your signature pieces
Many Insight leaders find that a handful of their best outputs really helps put Insight on the map. In Pareto principle terms, which 20% of your outputs account for 80% of your impact?
Signature pieces are Insight projects which have supported high profile business decisions and now have the potential to make the Insight team famous. By promoting Insight's role in producing them, an Insight leader can enhance the team's image for creating credible, commercially-minded outputs that have made a real difference.
What would help people reference these same insights in their day to day work? If you have outputs that you really want people to retain and use, then it’s worth investing extra time and effort on your communication devices. You might even want to engage a marketing agency for help. Be creative, consider posters, cards or even a toolkit. Make sure they look distinctive and you and your team can be proud of them.
Collect and share your million dollar stories
The most powerful way of demonstrating your impact is to collect and share examples of where Insight has made a big difference to the bottom line. We call these your ‘million dollar stories’.
Where has Insight really helped a business initiative? What was the financial impact? Make sure you capture that and share it widely, to build awareness of how Insight has made a difference in commercial terms. Hook up with your Internal Communications team to discover opportunities to share your success stories across your organisation. For example, in publications, on your intranet, and at roadshows or other high profile internal events.
What will mark your success?
An indication that you have succeeded in building awareness of Insight is when you hear you have been quoted or name checked in leaders’ presentations. Another is when you find that Insight has been used to support decision making in areas where you and your team have had no direct contact.
This is what building awareness is all about - making Insight make a difference, even when you’re not there to point the way.
You can’t possibly influence anyone if they don’t know that you exist. If you’re erecting a signpost, put it somewhere that people will see it.
Further information
If you think that your Insight team could improve its position in decision making, or do more to promote the true role of Insight in your organisation, please contact us for more information. The IMA can supply best practice reports for Insight leaders, training for Insight teams, and Free Insight Benchmarking to help organisations understand their current capability.
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