Practice Makes Perfect When It Comes to Creative Marketing

Practice Makes Perfect When It Comes to Creative Marketing

When I was first starting my business, I had a mentor who was one of the most creative marketers I'd ever met. We would have a blank sheet of paper in front of us; all I would see was white, but he would see 27 opportunities.

Spending time with him was simultaneously invigorating and incredibly frustrating. He seemed to have access to a never-ending stream of new ideas, and I wasn't able to think like that. Eventually, though, my own creative marketing brain kicked in and I learned how to think differently.

That's all creative marketing is, really. Thinking about the same situation in front of everyone else, but seeing it differently. My friend Tom Otstot, a sharp businessman and masterful public speaker, says that innovation is less about coming up with a new idea than it is about finding a new way to do or use something that already exists. He distinguishes innovation from invention in that both are new and useful, but innovation is applied.

Steps to becoming a more innovative marketer:

1. Find a role model who is a willing teacher. Pay this person if you have to - it will be so worth it in the long run.
2. Read and absorb everything you can get your hands on that is related to creativity, innovation, and marketing.
3. Take some time to process and let what you've learned percolate.
4. Act on your ideas, unafraid to fail.

Will every idea work? Of course not - but you won't know which ones do work until you try them all. Even the greatest inventors experienced many failures.

I failed my way to success.

- Thomas Edison

As with everything else we learn in life, practice makes perfect when it comes to creative marketing. What can you do TODAY to begin to think more creatively about your business?

This is Day 12 in the 60-Day Content Challenge. See you tomorrow for the next post!
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Sign up today for Laura's next workshop, Want to Charge More? Start Writing! Or e-mail your questions on creative marketing strategies - to Laura.