Make time for creativity to improve your marketing results.

If you’re a B2B marketer strapped for time and working in a fast-paced, competitive industry, it can often feel like your focus is stuck on continuous execution mode. Without the time to explore ideas and imagine new plans, we can quickly become slaves to habits that rely too heavily on the same old tactics and strategy. We risk falling behind our competition, our audience unable to distinguish anything new or valuable from our efforts.

Teams can become unmotivated and robotic in their approach to cultivating an audience, and in some cases unwilling to share new ideas because ‘that’s just not the way we’d ever do it.’ It can become far too comfortable to plot a calendar following the same route every quarter than it is in creating space to identify new initiatives.

Get out of the rut

There’s a close connection between creativity and B2B marketing — I’ve long believed in the notion that time should be set aside for the generation of new ideas as part of your planning. Some of these ideas will never come to anything of course, or they’ll perhaps be too out of scope for the business, but the process of generating them can be more effective in invigorating team morale, performance, and results as sticking to the same formula.

To avoid these ruts, there must be facilitation and room for imaginative thinking. For that room to be there an adaptable process allowing time in both campaign planning and wrap-up stages is an absolute necessity.

And that’s just for starters.

Seventy-one percent of B2B executives say customers increasingly want B2C-like experiences compared to a few years ago* — Accenture

It is crucial to spend time considering different ways to tell your story and to explore the emotional connections between your audience and your brand. Think about ways to tap into these learnings and put them to the test within your overall branding or content marketing efforts.

We’d all prefer to follow an adaptable approach that successfully strikes a balance between planned campaigns and quick, easy wins, but that’s not always possible given the nature of business.

So, to help you in your efforts, outlined below are four key starting points to support bringing creativity into your marketing team:

1. Time
Dedicate time for creativity so that your marketing team can explore new ideas and concepts. Commit to it being ok to spend time ideating in the name of productivity. Try leading a specific workshop, or officially writing it into the campaign process. If you’re a manager or leader, share your approach to ideation and creating a new strategy. Above all, at this stage remember that no idea is a bad idea.

2. Connect with your customers
Ask for feedback and thoughts on the tactics and campaigns you’re putting out there, or the direction you’re planning to take. Ask for ideas. Use social listening tools to understand reaction and sentiment. Appoint a focus group of trusted brand advocates and reward them for their time and thought. Consider the ‘Engagement Factor’ — will your stories resonate with customers & prospects common problems or challenges? What are the different ways you can answer a question? Will they trigger a reaction?

3. Ignore hierarchy
Regardless of where you si, whether you’re Director, VP, Associate or Entry Level, ideas and creativity can come from anywhere and anyone. Encourage everyone (including those in Sales or around the business) to put forward ideas for marketing efforts. Encouraging a feeling of joint strategy development will increase adoption and engagement internally.

4. Look for stories
Case studies are critical tactics when it comes to marketing B2B. We all want proof points to help determine if something is worth investing in. However, a case study doesn’t just have to be a downloadable PDF or a vox-poppy video. Consider ‘indirect brand building’ through customer stories. What are the ways you can influence your customers in peer-to-peer selling, in turn, positioning yourself as a transformative business partner? Spend time brainstorming the stories that can bridge this gap.

We’re all people

B2B marketing can be creative and innovative, contrary to the opinions of some who say its routed in models and structure. It can be about people, conversation, value, ideas, and great stories. There is nothing is stopping you from looking for these factors. Being a creative B2B marketer is about being confident in the notion that we’re just talking to each other, colleague to colleague, person to person, human to human. This will help set you apart from your competitors and give you the edge to succeed in an ever-changing environment.

Further reading? Check out ‘Is B2B Marketing Lacking Creativity?’, by Heidi Taylor on www.b2bmarketing.net

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Side note: I’m looking to learn more about how brands and businesses are thinking outside of the box when it comes to B2B marketing. If you’ve got a story to tell or insights to share, please do get in touch!

Elizabeth Knights-Ward

Written by

B2B Marketing Leader / Social & Content Marketing Expert / Public Speaker / Consultant / Trainer.

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