I recently read a post on Linkedin by Peep Laja of CXL about creativity.
‘Before you can be creative at something, you need deep knowledge and mastery.’
‘Focus on mastery. 10k hours (or whatever extended period time of getting there) later you can see about being creative.’
Digital Marketing Success
You see, creativity is at the core of digital marketing success. When I say ‘creativity’ I mean, in our jargon terms, original content.
Digital Marketing Technique
Digital marketing, finding quality traffic and converting that traffic is knowledge and technique. What makes you different is originality, entertainment, knowledge passing in a fun manner.
Web Marketing 2020?
Rand Fishkin published a deck not long ago ‘Next Era of Web Marketing 2019 and Beyond‘. See the deck here.
This deck solidified some of my thoughts. Which I put into my own deck, as you can see. At the heart is the creative on your website combined with your email list.
On Being Creative
I always wanted to be a standup comedian. I tried it. It wasn’t for me. I wasn’t hopeless and I wasn’t great.
I understood that I needed to write. How to write creatively? I read books, I went to workshops and I wrote A LOT!
I was also intrigued on generating ideas. I read everything on creativity including Edward de Bono’s books and I built my own tool set for writing.
Well over 10,000 hours.
I learnt much about being creative. I learnt how to set myself to write on demand (well, most of the time). I learnt how to generate ideas (a lot of ideas) and I learnt that when stuck (writer’s block) you’re asking yourself the wrong question.
Being creative is about graft.
Collect Your Tools
Everyone is different and the tools I’m going to suggest below might not work for you. Find your own and practice on your current projects.
‘Every Writer Creative is There Own Medicine’
To me that meant only you can make yourself creative.
Three Tips For Creative Thought
I do have lots more…
Try them, collect your own and become systematic and obsessive (in a good way). O’ and put the hours in.
Tip 1: What If?
The most powerful two words you already know. Ask it again and again. I once asked myself ‘What if we grew an email list using printed material and Facebook advertising’, 30,000 email addresses in eighteen months?
Tip 2: Generate Ideas
“I want you to come back with some ideas.”
What do you do? You have a think and you come back with a few.
Don’t. Go away and set yourself an impossible number. I usually set myself twenty-five and sometimes fifty. You know what, this works. They’ll be all manner of rubbish but gems will appear.
Tip 3: Copy What You Want
When I was teaching myself writing I would copy scripts word for word. You learn more and more quickly about writing by copying your favourite writers.
The next stage is to map your characters to the script. It’s graft but invaluable learning.
I once explained this to a tech guy that I was working with on conversion optimisation for an SEO tool. He said “I see, reverse engineering.”
Where I want to be Creatively
I’m going to marry my digital knowledge with my creativity. I want to go beyond making really good content to make the very best for every client.
Transmedia Storytelling
I have a vision to create online worlds that merge with the offline, using character driven content to promote business. Transmedia storytelling explained.
Might have to start a new business but hey, why not?
Creativity and Comedy Online
Here’s a video of me talking about comedy and creativity on Creative Herts (YouTube). It’s an hour long so you might want to save it for a rainy day and some strong coffee.
Final Thought
I recently had a chat with someone that is using comedy to promote brands. Adam Hunt has founded White Label Comedy (love the idea of the ‘hive-mind’). Worth a look here…
Drop me a line if you would like to know more or if you would like to swap ideas.
Afterthought
If you want to study creativity then I recommend
Dorothea Brand: Becoming a Writer
Edward de Bono: Six Thinking Hats
Natalie Goldberg: Writing Down the Bones
Picture Credit
I borrowed this picture from Mark Schaefer’s blog post ‘To dramatically increase creativity, slash your budget in half’ which is a great read.
About Conversion Detectives
Conversion Detectives is a full service digital marketing agency in Hertfordshire.
We find the best quality traffic for your website and convert more of that traffic into sales or sales leads.
About Post Author
