Brainstorming sessions, when done right, combine ideas, research, and strategy for businesses who are trying to increase revenue. Executing a brainstorm session that is productive takes the right people in the right room.
A study by Adobe and Forrester Research shows companies who embrace creative thinking find greater consistency in market share growth, competitive leadership, and increased revenue generated. Below, I have summarized business areas in which a brainstorm session will help solve for.
1. Sluggish Creative message/Brand Image: I have mentioned this before, but having a comprehensive, organized, and consistent creative message and call to action is the key to any successful branding or marketing campaign. If your message is stale, then people aren't going to react. If your message is off-base, then consumers aren't going to "get it". If your message is not urgent or relevant enough, you wont get much engagement. Keeping it simple, and brand centric are the 2 ways to help creative messaging stay productive. Revive your message through brainstorm sessions; ensure it's on trend, and watch your market share increase over time.
2. Lead Generation/New Business pipeline: New leads are the life blood for companies. Of course, we want to show love to our existing customers always, but generating new leads for sales teams to turn into customers is how companies expand and grow. Many times the lead funnel is the last piece of the marketing puzzle to be solved for. I like to present lead generation in reverse-how healthy is your current new business pipeline today? Do your sales people have enough prospects in the funnel to grow and hit metrics laid forth? If not, how do you get more leads? Back into that question, and after you determine how many, how often, and what your closing ratio is-is it THEN that you can start to layout your marketing campaign. Marketing campaigns start with new ideas on how to reach consumers-before you can come up with those ideas-have you identified your target persona(s) and how they want to be marketed to? If not you can start with this guide HERE. Once you have those target persona (s) developed-NOW you can begin to craft ideas for campaigns that consumers mind find appealing and that will cause ACTION. That requires a brainstorm session, followed by a road map of execution of the ideas developed.
3. Internal process efficiency: You are asking-how can a brainstorm session help my internal process flow, and that is a good question. In order to execute the ideas, one must have all departments on board. One thing I have seen that breaks the momentum of any campaign is different departments working in different directions...some aren't even aware of what services or products are being marketed! In order to reach full potential for campaign success you MUST have all teams on board to help manage and nurture the leads you are about to receive from any campaign. The marketing and sales team needs to be on board with the message and call to action; the service and finance and additional admin teams you have need to be aware of any product specials or offerings, as well as how to on board new clients so the process is smooth for any new customer. A brainstorm session with one of each team member involved can be helpful to ensure the road map to success is spelled out accordingly.
4. Marketing Campaign execution: Having a plan of action and strategy for what each weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually produced marketing campaign will look is the first step to filling your new lead pipeline. Brainstorm sessions are the BEST for new idea generation on ways to reach those target leads. Once you have come up with 5-6 solid ideas from the session, you can then begin to craft promotions, social and email campaigns, advertising messages, custom hashtags, and more around those ideas. Once you put them into action, be sure to be nimble enough to observe and adjust as necessary based on what the data is showing for success. Most of these campaign, once a solid process is in place, can be re-executed easily: wash, rinse, repeat.
If your team hasn't had a formal brainstorm session in years, or ever, then now is the time to execute one! There is no harm in thinking outside the box on ways to grow business; by gathering both individuals internally and externally to offer insight into your brand, you are taking the time and focus needed to ensure growth continues. Learn more about registering for a brainstorm session HERE.
