Increasing competition in the industry has forced many marketers to challenge traditional lines of thinking and productivity. Many marketers are in fact, adopting the ‘think out of the box’ strategy for the same purpose.
Rather than a onetime effort, thinking out of the box needs to be a mentality adopted across the entire organization. This will immensely help a company in questioning existing strategies and developing new ones that work better. Here are some handy tips that help make this possible.
No Shortcut to Creativity
Many marketers tend to fall into a trap wherein they feel that a creative shortcut will get them what they want. There are no shortcuts to creativity. It takes time and effort from an entire organization to come up with a creative plan and stick to it.
Rather than focusing on the current asset alone, a company will need to focus on the entire campaign, taking into account a combination of content, technology and data to work along with creativity for fruitful results. Long term creativity can be fostered by taking into account the company’s brand, the goal of the campaign as well as the preferences of the target audience.
Exposure to Fresh Ideas
Working around the same ideas will get a company nowhere in terms of creativity. Thinking out of the box requires exposure to new ideas as well as exploration of new strategies. Sometimes a board meeting may not provide these ideas.
Companies need to think of other ways to foster creativity, including checking out books, magazines, award winning campaigns and even completely unrelated stuff. The last point in particular may sound out of context here. However, exploring unrelated stuff can sometimes kick off a great idea that can be worked on in a different angle to benefit the company.
Check on Competitors
It pays to keep a constant check on competitors to find out how their campaigns are faring. Comparing campaigns will help a company identify the areas where things are going awry on its front. A company can also make use of insights from competitor campaigns to better its own marketing campaigns.
Brainstorming after Idea Generation
Thinking out of the box will surely help a company come up with some rather innovative marketing campaigns. However, simply applying an idea on paper to the actual process is impossible. The company needs to brainstorm some more to transform these ideas into effective strategies that can then be implemented across the organization.
This requires a stable team of able and likeminded individuals from all levels of the organization who will provide useful insights into the areas which will work fine and the areas which need more improvement.
Refinement of Ideas
Once the ideas start flowing, it is considered wise to jot them down on a piece of paper. However, that alone will not provide a fruitful result. Thinking out of the box requires the company to rewrite the same ideas repeatedly for at least 100 times or more until the ideas are completely refined and the best one can be chosen from them. This allows the company to zero in on the best idea that is guaranteed to work.
Hiring Outside Help
Companies finding it hard to come up with creative marketing campaigns can choose to hire outsiders who are qualified and highly skilled in the same process. An individual or a partner agency can be taken on board the team dealing with the project, and will need to provide new and original ideas rather than just run marketing campaigns on social media. This approach will help an organization evolve its campaign quickly.
Companies will need to spruce up their marketing campaigns by thinking out of the box if they intend to stay abreast of the competition. Thinking outside the box can be easily implemented by any organization with a few simple pointers taken into consideration.
