Marketing isn’t about doing the same thing better. It’s about fulfilling a need, and approaching the problem differently to find new ways of doing things. People want cars, not faster horses. This is why we #ThinkFresh.
Does Your Business #ThinkFresh?
Your business is but one part of the greater picture. Your customers are the ultimate judge of your product, while your competitors act as a constant reminder to stay sharp. Thinking fresh is about innovation, and constantly checking to stay in tune with your customer’s needs.
Here are some questions to ask yourself to gauge whether or not your business stays on the razor-sharp edge of innovation:
- Do you fulfill a consumer need that goes beyond the obvious?
- Your product/service fulfills a obscure or niche need
- Your product/service fulfills a need in a different way
- What is your product’s value proposition? Has it strengthened/weakened in the past month?
- Keep on top of consumer trends, comparing your value proposition to market changes
- What are your core values? How do they relate to your current marketing campaigns?
- Your brand is a story, evoking emotions through your marketing. If your marketing doesn’t resonate with your consumers to spark an emotion, something is amiss.
- What are your competitors doing?
- While it’s important to keep track of competitor actions, marketing is not a game of copycat. You’ll always be in second place if you treat it that way. Keep track of your competitors to identify issues and needs that leave your potential customers unsatisfied. Then address them!
- How do you promote your current products?
- Your innovative product/service won’t go very far if you can’t get the traffic or conversions from your site. This is where the magic of branding-focused marketing kicks in.
How do you carry out Innovation?
Consumer needs change just as often as your business innovates, so one day’s innovation could become stale within months. There’s a reason why innovation is razor-sharp; your marketing blade needs to be constantly sharpened to make a point.
A fresh perspective comes from fresh eyes, but can only be identified and acted upon through the structure thinking and experience of a true veteran. A typical human has 60,000 thoughts in a day, but how many of those are actually acted upon? How do you recognize a fresh perspective when you see it? Experience, drive, and ability to structure thoughts into strategy are the mark of a professional who can truly execute innovation.
Closing Thoughts
Identifying the need for a fresh perspective is the first step to identifying innovation. Innovation could be right under your nose, and you wouldn’t be able to recognize it without an open mind! The second, yet most important half of innovation comes in the execution and strategy behind the brilliant idea. This comes from experience and the ability to turn thoughts into action. Innovation only reaps benefits with the proper execution, otherwise it’s just another idea in the 60,000 thoughts we go through each day.
Successful innovation lies in the execution just as much as the idea. #ThinkFresh. Click To TweetWe hope you gained some golden nuggets of insight from this blog post. Tweet at us, or contact our marketing agency to chat more about how to #ThinkFresh to grow your business. We’d love to chat about how a freshly done website design or branding strategy can grow your business by heaps and bound! Give us a call. We always have chocolate.