Many of the lessons taught at Search Engine Academy involve the process of creativity. The first thing to realize is that, whether you are more analytical or more creative, both thinking styles are important. Not just for writing, but for enhancing any type of creative approach.
It is possible for a team of creative people to come up with literally dozens or even hundreds of new ideas (which will often separate them from their competition). However, the best results will never be achieved only by coming up with brand new innovations unless there are the analytical or logical thinkers who can take those ideas and find ways to make them a reality.
Disney’s Approach to Creativity Applies to Digital Marketing
The way Walt Disney viewed it, back in the early days, was to separate the logical talent from the creative talent. His creative right brained thinkers were all brought together in a room and encouraged to just go wild with their ideas. Eventually, he called them the “Imagineers,” and rightly so.
Disney believed that there was a valid place for both creative and analytical thinkers. For him, the only difference was that the Imagineers were in one room being creative, coming up with cartoon movie plots, ideas for adventure stories, or adapting established stories over for the screen for maximum entertainment value. The more left brained, analytical, logical types were also engineers but of a different type.
These builders made the Imagineer’s visions into a reality by creating and building a production and bringing it to reality. The same is true today at companies that try to get a mix of creative help and balanced, logical thinkers. However, for the sake of this article, I want to focus on the area of creativity and offer you a few tips that can help you be more creative when coming up with a digital marketing strategy.
10 Creativity Tips:
1. Most experts agree that it is far easier to be creative when you are doing something that is fun to do. For example, some of our best ideas for Search Engine Workshops were stimulated by going for a walk in one of the parks at Disney World. Even though you are having fun, you can still think about new ideas, and the ideas will come easier to you while you are relaxed. Children often come up with new ideas when they are playing a game. Adults are no different. If you are stressing to come up with some new creative idea, stop stressing or stop putting yourself under pressure. Instead, go out and do something you enjoy.
2. Some of the most creative business minds understand the importance of playing. Some companies will equip their employee’s work place with things like a gym, a pool table, or a ping pong table so employees can take a break and relax once in a while.
3. You may not feel like you are much of an artist, but try giving yourself the opportunity to sketch your ideas on paper. Even just doodling can bring creative aspects to life sometimes.
4. I know of a company that has employees feel free to bring their pet to work one day a week. As strange as it sounds, this also can put people in a more relaxed state.
5. Play with some Legos. It’s hard for some people to imagine that the shell of the first computer server ever, made at Google by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, was actually built from toy Lego blocks.
6. The original legendary animators at Disney were encouraged to create whatever characters they were bringing to life by studying an actual animal’s behavior. For Bambi, the artists had the opportunity to study a real deer’s movements. For some characters, they used their creativity to soften certain features for that Disney-cute look. The first drawings of Jiminy Cricket were a little too realistic and creepy, and so animator Ward Kimball worked on Jiminy until he was the character we all recognize today.
7. Sometimes you want to be the originator of something new, but it can seem so hard to know where to get started. If you have an image of what the finished creation might be, it’s sometimes possible to start by visualizing the finished result and then work backwards in incremental steps. This works for story writing and can help with formulating interesting plot twists.
8. Creativity is extremely helpful when mixed with other types of technical skills, such as programming, content marketing for SEO, or doing effective keyword research. Some of the most powerful keyword observations I’ve made didn’t rely on taking a logical approach or going after the first keywords that pop into your mind.
9. When you do have new ideas or come up with something that no one else is doing, be sure to take the all important step of testing your ideas. There are some people that continually come up with innovative ideas, but that’s where they stop. Test all your ideas to see how they work out.
10. Try not to fall into the trap of continually trying to examine and copy the competition. So many times, you will experience much greater benefit by developing something new. You must become the trailblazer and establish new footholds through your own creativity and innovations. The obvious benefit here is that creating something new first puts you ahead of the competition.
Many of the lessons taught at Search Engine Academy involve using your creativity. Take a look at a day by day breakdown of our complete workshop training agenda here.
I like #10 the best. I was tempted to do that once, but then thought, “I think that website is ugly. WHAT am I thinking?” Still not entirely satisfied with my own updated site, but I keep working on it.
It is a bit of a balancing act. When I redesigned it, it was quite whimsical. I got ZERO work for two months. I made it not whimsical and the phone began to ring. I don’t know if there is a correlation or not, but I miss the fun version. I can’t afford to test it by putting it back, though!!
Thank you Sharon,
I think that it’s great you continue to keep a creative edge open. No one says that something must be “ugly” to be creative. But I agree with you that one of the hardest things, for whatever the reason, is when we work on our own sites. Over the years, I’ve heard many students say the same thing. It seems much easier to be creative and come up with great ideas when working on the client’s site. Who knows why?
Best wishes,
John Alexander