Driving demand may seem like it’s all about the numbers, but creativity is often the ingredient that takes it the extra mile. Every year, half of the viewing audience at the Superbowl, is there for the commercials. It has now become a spectacle of advertising! Without a healthy dose of child-like wonder, every program would be dull background noise.  

But how do you keep your creative engine running? Ben Grossman, Chief Strategy Officer of Doner Partners Network shared his insights on sparking creativity on a recent episode of the Accelerating Revenue Series.  

He outlined 3 exercises to spark creativity: 

1. Live a Day in Your Customer’s Shoes 

This is really a fancy term for the customs and lived experiences of the individual. Ben encouraged to take an ethnographic approach to your customer.  

Challenge your team to spend a day at the office with your ideal customer. Literally. Reach out and shadow them at their desk to understand what activities they complete in their day, challenges they face, how they communicate, and even how their desk looks. This will bring a fresh perspective on what your customer faces every day to get the job done.  

Then, go back and look at your demand programs. Will your message get through to your customer, based on what you learned?  

Remember, your customer has a reason they work in their chosen field. Imagine what is on their desk and in their office, pictures of friends and family, or what their potential corporate environment is like, constant requests coming their way. They are not just data contacts ready for your marketing campaign; they have a soul too. 

2. Empathy Mapping 

Empathy Mapping is a tool to visualize what your customer says, thinks, feels and does.  

As you craft your demand programs, you can use an empathy map (download our template here) to shift the assumptions you have about who you are marketing to. Follow the outline and define:  

1. WHO are we empathizing with?  
a. Who is the person we want to understand?  
b. What is the situation they are in? 
c. What is their role in the situation? 

2. What do they need to DO?  
a. What do they need to do differently? 
b. What job(s) do they want or need to get done?  
c. What decision(s) do they need to make?  
d. How will we know they were successful? 

3. What do they SEE?  
a. What do they see in the marketplace?  
b. What do they see in their immediate environment? 
c. What do they see others saying and doing?  
d. What are they watching and reading?  

4. What do they SAY?  
a. What have we heard them say?  
b. What can we imagine them saying?  

5. What do they actually DO? 
a. What do they do today?  
b. What behavior have we observed?  
c. What can we imagine them doing?   

6. What do they HEAR?  
a. What are they hearing others say? 
b. What are they hearing from friends?  
c. What are they hearing from colleagues? 
d. What are they hearing second-hand?  

7. What do they THINK and FEEL? (Pains and gains)  
a. What are their fears, frustrations, and anxieties?  
b. What are their wants, needs, hopes and dreams?  
c. What other thoughts and feelings might motivate their behavior? 

By working through an empathy map, you are connecting the head and the heart and empathizing with your customers.  

Use this to spark creativity in your next campaign.  

3. Mild to Wild 

The concept of Mild to Wild comes from Ben’s imagination.  

He suggests you start by doing the obvious; craft your campaign with a mild approach, something you know leadership would always approve of.  

Then take one step further and turn up the heat. Make a change that would make your campaign a little dicey and on the medium level.  

Then go full blast to wild, something that is so out there it might get you fired.  

Letting your creativity loose opens the door to finding the sparks of yes in your wild idea. When you create that wild campaign, someone on your team may say, “This is a little too wild for us. However, let’s use this piece for our campaign.”  

Push yourself and get creative with your outreach.  

Next Steps 

Ready to unleash your creativity? Give these 3 tactics and try.  

Access the full episode of How Data & Creativity Can Drive Demand here for more tactics on creating effective demand programs.  

Being a creative can’t be achieved unless you take a risk and try. 
– Ben Grossman, CSO, Doner Partners Network