How To Get More Creative In Marketing?

When I speak to people about art, photography, and creating content,  I often hear that the reason they avoid doing all these things and trying out new hobbies is because ‘they’re not creative’.

Creativity has been a topic of debate for a long while now, with people asking the important question of ‘Are we born creative?’. Whether the answer is yes or no, it is undeniable that creating comes easy to some people, almost naturally, while others struggle for days to come up with a single page of content.

During this crisis, it is difficult for all of us to stay focused and creative, with bad news being all around us. So today, we decided to bring you some tips on how to achieve more creativity in marketing and get inspired.

Let’s begin.

1. Use bad ideas to boost your creativity

How many times have you thought of an idea and rejected it immediately in your mind, thinking it’s dumb and that it will take you nowhere? You’re not the only one.

A great way to get more creative in marketing is by trying not to ditch your ‘bad’ ideas immediately. Instead, give them some more thought. Put them on paper and think about them. They are ideas, after all.

You never know, you might come up with something amazing and completely different. They could either lead you nowhere or to something great, meaning you have nothing to lose. Also, they might seem bad at one time, but if a few days, they could sound amazing.

Different circumstances and moods lead us to regard things differently, so make sure to not throw away your ‘bad’ ideas so quickly.

2. Ask for opinions and talk to people

Just because we’re in quarantine doesn’t mean we have to stop interacting with other people.

Don’t let working from home and quarantine distance you from your co-workers and good friends.  

There are plenty of online platforms and mobile apps that offer video calls, and if they’re not your thing, you can still text and speak to your friends and colleagues.

Ask them how they’re doing and what they’re working on and don’t be afraid to go into detail. You never know, maybe something they’re working on will inspire you and give you an idea for your next marketing project.

Brainstorming is an amazing technique and it works wonders when you feel like creativity has abandoned you. Share your ideas with them and ask for their opinions on them. Again, you have nothing to lose, and you might gain some invaluable insight.

Whenever I’m around my friends, we come up with tons of great and creative ideas related to literature and writing. We bounce ideas off each other and before we know it, we have a list of interesting topics to write about and 4 hours have passed.

3. Check out your competition and industry giants

Following your competition is advice you will hear from every marketing expert.

It’s a great tip for a number of reasons: you can see which marketing techniques work for them and which don’t, you can learn from their approaches involving customers and interactions, and maybe most importantly, you can get inspired by their ideas and campaigns.

Be careful not to copy their idea. It is a cheap tactic and your customers will think that you’re desperate and don’t care about your business and its image.

But your competition isn’t the only one who can help you get more creativity in marketing.

A great example I saw is how you can get inspired by Coca-Cola’s ‘Share Your Happiness’ campaign. They put people’s names on bottles, which caused millions of people to share photos of them and bottles with their names on social media.

You can do something similar and make use of personalization. Include your customer’s name in the very product, leave a personalized note in the package, and make sure to use personalization in email marketing.

4. Write ideas down and you will get more creative

This may seem like an obvious tip, but I feel like it needs to be mentioned because it is just too important. I hear people say all the time how they don’t need to write things down and that they’ll remember them, but they rarely do.

Writing things down can be a great source of creativity in marketing. It can help you expand upon an existing idea, pull from ‘bad’ ideas, and come up with new ones.

Whatever idea you may have and whenever make sure to mark it down somewhere, be it your phone or a notebook.

For some people, moments of creativity happen in the shower, while they’re driving or listening to music. Me personally, I get the most ideas when I’m in bed and about to fall asleep, which is why I keep my phone close.

Creativity can hit you at the most random of times, and even if you aren’t able to put the whole idea into words, even writing down a sentence or two can be of significant help.

5. Communicate and work with your customers

In marketing, knowing your customers is everything. In order to sell any product or have people pay for a service, you need to know what they want and need.

Communicate with your customers on social media, or in the comments of your blog, if you have one, that is. This will help you learn about them, which in turn can inspire you and give you some great ideas. Also, their insight and opinions can be a great source of creativity.

Aside from communicating with your customers, you can also work with them. This is a tactic that large businesses use, and a great example is Brocade, who created a special program for 200 of their dedicated customers and worked with them in order to learn how they can improve their business.

So, if you do marketing for a large company, this can be a great way to both learn more about your customers and get more creative.   

6. Get more creative in marketing by being informed

A great deal of creativity in marketing comes from following the trends and reading.

If you have free time, read about what is currently popular, what changes are happening in the world of marketing, and what people are saying. It is impossible to create good marketing campaigns if you don’t know the current trends.

e.g. Amazing Valentine marketing campaign

Marketing changes all the time, and trends come and go, so if you create something outdated, chances are people won’t like it and you’ll end up wasting your time and money.

7. Spend some time away from technology

It is easy to forget that there’s a whole world waiting for us outside of our devices. You know when you sit down to have a break and you start scrolling through social media, and the next thing you know, your break took 2 hours and the content you read makes it impossible for you to go back to work because you cannot focus?

I feel like we’ve all experienced that to some degree.

I heard great advice recently: ‘Spend some time away from technology, you won’t miss anything’. Sometimes, all we need is to disconnect and just be with our own thoughts for a while, away from screens.

Be it another room, your balcony, or your backyard, give your eyes and mind a break, and give your brain a chance to think about something else.

Peaceful moments like these can trigger creativity and an overflow of ideas, so take your time getting some rest and just daydream and think.

8. New places, people, and experiences

This tip unfortunately doesn’t currently apply because of the quarantine, but it is a great tip to use once all of this is over.

When we say that you should experience new places and things, we aren’t necessarily talking about traveling.

Traveling is great for new experiences and brings out the creativity in people, but not everyone can afford to travel the world or visit a different country every month.

Instead, try going out in your spare time and observe. Visit a part of your city you usually don’t go to, have lunch in a new restaurant, or get some rest in a park you don’t visit that often.

Strike up a conversation with a stranger, look at different stores, and how they do marketing. These can all be sources of creativity.

Maybe the restaurant you choose to eat in will have cool decorations and a logo with a unique combination of fonts, or the person you spoke to will say something that will cause a birth of a great idea in your mind.

Give it a shot and step out of your comfort zone, it could greatly pay off and help a bunch when it comes to being creative.

Wrapping up

Those were our 8 tips on how to achieve more creativity in marketing.

If you’re not feeling creative and are struggling with coming up with content, you can make use of your ‘bad’ ideas and work and pull from them and talk to people and ask for their opinions on a topic that interests you. It is also worth noting that following your competitor’s work and marketing campaigns can be greatly beneficial, as it can inspire you.

Write all your ideas down and, if possible, communicate and work with your customers, as this can be an invaluable source of feedback and creativity. Stay informed and follow the current events and trends, as this is always something you can write about.

And maybe most importantly, don’t be hard on yourself, everyone has periods when they cannot think of a single idea.

Hopefully, these tips help you be more creative and thank you for reading!