Do you consider yourself to be an ideas person? Perhaps a bit more of a ‘right-brain’ thinker? Having someone like you is a great asset to any organisation – but only if you can harness those ideas and transfer your thinking to incorporate the ‘left-brain’.
Because even lightbulb moments result in darkness if you don’t do something about them.
When speaking with clients and prospects, one of their biggest roadblocks is not the generation of marketing ideas for their business – it is the implementation of those ideas.
Sure, marketing consultants can come up with great concepts, but you work in your business, so you know it best. You know the landscape – the competitors, the customers, your product or service, the history of your organisation. Therefore it makes sense that you will organically come up with some brilliant marketing ideas.
We have a few steps that will (hopefully!) help you translate your idea into reality.
Set a timeframe
Creating a timeline allows you to work towards your goal, giving you the dedication to achieve your goal within a certain period of time.
Get feedback
Whether positive or negative, feedback is essential when working on new ideas. Ask for honest feedback from people you trust like your employees, co-workers, family or friends. Then workshop the idea with them and find any flaws or elements you have overlooked.
Build your team
The next step is to determine who you need to work with to get the idea off the ground. Do you need external assistance or do you have the skills in-house? When putting together people, it is important that you determine their individual talents and strengths and delegate tasks that are suitable to their skill set so you can get your idea done effectively.
Gather your tools
Once you’ve gathered the right people to your team, it’s time to decide which marketing tools to use. With all the great technology out there, you have more opportunities to turn your idea into something that really works. Without a doubt, marketing has become a little easier with a wide range of tools available today.
Factors of success
How will you gauge the success (or otherwise) of your marketing idea? How will you determine if it was effective or not? There are several ways you can measure success and the most common of them is by writing your accomplishments down. Creating a checklist is also a good idea.
Launch
The most exciting and nerve-racking part of this process is the launch! But you can only reach this point once you have undertaken all the other steps.
Review
You need to ensure that the last step in this process is to review the marketing idea. Did it do what it was supposed to? You might also want to check for other elements you can tweak to make your strategy better next time.
When was your last great idea translated into a reality?
