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Brainstorming: Think of 100 new ideas for marketing your business and then use the best 10, or even just the best one. Just do something new and exciting every now and then to keep things fresh!
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Analogies: Think of products that your product is similar to and tell the customer (or potential customer) why. This famous creativity exercise adds insight and interest to your marketing communications. For instance, instead of saying, “Our cleaning services are 100% reliable,” you could say, “Having us clean your office is like moving into a brand-new building every week!”
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Pass-along: Write a simple sales or marketing idea on a piece of paper or in an e-mail and then pass that idea along to someone else with the instruction that he or she should add to it or list another idea. Keep circulating the paper or e-mail until your coworkers or friends have helped you generate a long list of ideas and options to choose from.
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Question assumptions: Make a list of stupid questions and take the time to ask people what they think. “Why do you have to have branches to be in the banking business?” is a good example of a “stupid” question that may lead to a breakthrough marketing concept. And in fact, there’s such a thing as direct banking, in which the bank avoids retail branches and their high costs. Could you, if you work in a conventional bank, start a direct-banking division and double your bank’s size without the need for bricks and mortar?
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Rewriting: Good ol’ editing and rewriting can lead you to better marketing communications. In fact, rewriting opens more creative doors than any other technique. Take a copy of a brochure, and make yourself come up with five new headlines or titles that you can use for the cover. You’ll probably come up with at least one headline that’s much more striking and interesting than the existing one.
