What sets you apart from the rest? Is it a magical idea that has the passion to turn into something great? Or is it innovation? Regardless of what it is, it all starts the same – with innovative marketing ideas.
Ever heard the saying: “No idea is a bad idea”? Well, it’s true. There is no such thing as a bad idea. It’s not about right or wrong. It’s about generating different ideas from different people, throwing it all out there and seeing what resonates best.
Shoot from the same hip
After strategically analysing your brand, what it stands for and who your target audience is, the next step is alignment. Take every piece of your marketing strategy and make sure that it serves the goals you have set.
Look inside your brand
A brand cannot move forward without knowing what they’re working towards. Look closely at your brand’s overall needs and decide how you would like to use social media marketing to contribute towards reaching your audience.
Know what ideas resonate
When it comes time to generate innovative marketing ideas, your target audience should always be top of mind. An idea could be the pinnacle of brilliance, but if it doesn’t fit well with your audience, then it will likely be unsuccessful.
Customer focused approach
Be empathetic in the sense of putting yourself in their shoes. If you struggle to see things and view your service from their point of view, then you do not know your customer well enough. Make getting to know your customer your priority.
Why develop a content marketing process?
It’s crucial to know what you expect.
We believe that success is a by-product of a strong team that does their planning and consistent execution.
Having defined processes in place makes it much easier to move campaigns from ideation to execution.
What shape and form does success come in for you?
Do you want to attract new customers?
Increase leads and drive traffic?
Planning
This involves everything involved in research, preparation and ideation.
Publishing
Includes everything involved in creation and execution of content.
Promotion
Inclusive of everything involved in the promotion of a piece of content.
Measurement
This includes everything that is involved in analysing performance.
Results
Place focus on processes that create your brand predictability.
Ideation
Understanding your audience & end goal – making magic.
The big idea. This is what ideation is all about.
It is an essential part of the design process and is where an idea is broken down as a basic element of thought and understood.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. Each day everyone has tons of new, exciting and innovative ideas. The real challenge lies not in coming up with these magical ideas, but in determining which of these ideas will produce the most value.
Once this has been determined, it comes time implement these ideas as well as humanly possible. The act of making an idea work and come to life is the true difficulty and it is vital for a successful digital marketing campaign. A tried and trusted 4-part process for ideation is as follows:
Brainstorm
Break the ice and alleviate any anxiety that will act as a communication barrier. Involve everyone and compile as many ideas as possible, regardless of how scattered they may be. The goal here is to generate ideas and think outside the box.
Discuss
So, you now have a bunch of brilliant and spotted ideas, what now? It’s time to compile and refine all the ideas. Have an open discussion where everyone’s ideas are included. Get feedback and rank ideas that seem actionable.
Separate the wheat from the chaff
It is now time to curate your findings and identify those with the greatest value to the client. At this stage you should have a decent number of practical ideas that could be implemented. It’s time for the final step…
Plan production
The final stage in the ideation process is planning production. Recap and rethink everything that has happened throughout the process. Come together and devise a plan that will be most effective for implementing the chosen idea(s).
