Everyone is creative. That’s true. We are all creative. That’s creative to a degree. But what if you want to be more creative? Can’t define it can you? Creativity is vital for digital marketing and it requires experience, thought and tenacity.
Yes You Can
Digital marketing is my game and as a side interest I write stuff. Plays, prose and scripts, plus fun daft stuff for amusement that appears on Linkedin.
Being creative is not coming up with random thoughts; and I’m not talking about the creative arts as such. No. My aim is to produce creative and original content for our clients. To do that I have to uncover ideas. Ideas with reasoning that I can test and if they work, more of that, if they don’t have I got some learning.
So, you can be more creative. Want to give it a go?
The Framework of Creativity:
– Preparation & Incubation
– Technique & Tools
– Mapping (planning)
– THE WORK
– Verification (The Editor)
– Medicine
– (Inspiration)
Preparation & Incubation
You’ve had an idea. What now? O’ you haven’t had an idea. I see. Well, let’s start at the beginning, you know ‘once upon a time.’
If you are not having ideas then you’ve not prepared. We all prepare differently, see below for ‘Your Medicine.’
So, how do you prepare for ideas? What works for you? Is it just staring into space waiting for ‘inspiration?’ You could be waiting a long time. Is it in the bath or shower? Is it when driving, talking to friends, reading a book? It’s not a mood. It is a state of consciousness. You just have to learn to switch it on.
Incubation is what you do when the idea appeals but perhaps doesn’t reverberate with meaning or action. If you like an idea but it looks like no result is forthcoming put it to the back of your mind and ‘worry it like a bone’ something, some connection could make it into an action.
Technique & Tools
Technique is having a discipline and a process. Create your own system. Here’s nine to go through systematically. Which work for you, is it a combination or will you bring other technique to your creativity?
9 Creative Tools:
– Put to Other Uses
– Adapt
– Modify
– Magnify, Minify
– Substitute
– Rearrange
– Reverse
– Combine
– What if?
Take your idea and apply the above.
The Number One Tool
The quota. There’s no two ways about creativity. It is a form of thinking you have to work on. It’s graft and with graft and practice comes ‘luck.’
So, it’s rarely the first idea that works. Sometime it is but how do you get more ideas. Well, you set a quota. Not five, not ten, but twenty-five, fifty, one hundred ideas. How far can you go.
Trust me this is where creativity lies, when you stretch yourself.
Illumination is Possible
During any time of applying a process you might get that ‘eureka’ moment, a warm feeling of illumination or insight. The thing is the more you work at your own creative style the more often this will happen. That is worth cultivating.
Mapping
How is your idea / ideas going to work? Do you have just a random collection of ideas and instincts? Then use a mind map. I love this idea for gathering all the thoughts that surround a project. Check out Tony Buzan’s mind-mapping.
THE WORK
This is when you start putting your idea into practice. Only you know how to do that. I would offer one piece of advice. Set the time, remove disturbance and work as quickly as possible. Give your idea the energy it deserves. O’ you might meet this obstacle.
Verification – The Editor
That’s the voice at the back of your head telling you it won’t work. It’s the voice of doubt. For your benefit here’s one exercise to try, warning – don’t do this if you are remotely mentally vulnerable.
The Editor v The Sweetheart
I hope you don’t have to do this and I must stress if you are feeling at all down don’t do it.
Take an A4 sheet of lined paper. Write what the Editor is saying. Write fast and try to cover the whole of the paper, no worries if you don’t just uncover all that the doubt is bringing.
Turn the paper over and write all the good you have, the best things about you, all the positive things you know about yourself and what others have said about you. This stage should be about double of what the Editor has said.
You should have written that b****** out now and embraced you positive outlook for being creative.
You Are Your Own Medicine
This is only for those serious about improving their creativity. What is it? It’s the keeping of a journal. You record what works for you and only you. The journal becomes your personal coach.
You write up tools, like the ones above that work, checklists specific to what you want your creativity to achieve. For me, as a writer I have checklists to help create characters and plots etc.
Inspirations can be kept in your journal which can take any form. A notebook or an app. Apps work well because they have a find function, like Evernote. I love Evernote!
Inspiration
Interesting word. It’s usually ‘the first breath’ and the more you graft at your creative side the more inspirations you are going to have.
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.
Services
Digital Marketing Strategy | Creative Content Marketing | Email Marketing |
Lead Generation | Content Strategy | Social Media Marketing |
Video Marketing SEO (Basics) | SEM |
Video Marketing | Shopify Marketing
*Main image by Sharon McCutcheon
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