6 ways to encourage good ideas in your marketing team
Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2025 7:09 am
Once upon a time, marketers were fighting to dominate social media. Today, we have chatbots, Facebook Messenger, voice devices, and much more. There are always new trends or advancements to learn about.
But you don’t just have to stay on top of all the trends, you have to stay one step ahead. If you want to launch the next big campaign or initiative, you and your team have to be ahead of the curve.
“When you’re so conditioned by tried-and-true tactics, you often miss out on new opportunities, either because of bias or opportunity cost,” explains Jeff Kear, co-author of event management software Planning Pod . “The market rarely stands still, so you have to move, too.”
Your team has to innovate to come up with the next brilliant idea or vision. After all, you don't have a crystal ball (although it would be great to have one, don't you think?).
Unfortunately, it's not always easy to implement and animate. It's one thing to say that your team is innovative. But do they go beyond that and consistently produce revolutionary marketing ideas? This requires grueling days and fruitless brainstorming sessions.
Here are six different strategies you and your team can use to generate the biggest, best, and brightest marketing ideas.
Light Bulbs On: Six Strategies for the Brightest Marketing Ideas
1. Encourage your team to listen instead of talk.
Do you think innovation always involves talking and exchanging ideas? Not exactly.
Your team can become internally focused under constant pressure to come up with the next idea. This leads to lots of feedback and idea sharing, but it doesn't encourage listening.
Desktop image promo promo
However, learning to actively listen is important for innovation, especially when it comes to listening to customers. So, rather than pressuring your team to continually generate marketing ideas, be sure to stress the importance of opening their ears and absorbing information and feedback from other areas of the company.
“For our company, what I ask our customer service representatives to do on a monthly basis is a list of top customer requests, complaints and feedback,” Kear says.
“While a lot of this information is about improving the product itself, a lot of it also focuses on our customers’ favorite tools and features, preferred methods of communication, and new markets and prospects we weren’t aware of,” he adds. “By sending this information directly to our marketing team and contractors, we can foster new ideas and marketing tactics.”
2. Give up the urge to pigeonhole.
Your team members each have unique skills. Maybe someone has great SEO skills, and another has a talent for identifying data trends. It’s great to have such different skills among team members, but that doesn’t mean you should pigeonhole your team members into very specific (and ultimately monotonous) responsibilities.
“Having worked with teams large and small, one of the things I’ve learned is not to pigeonhole team members into a specific task or discipline,” says Brandon Seymour, founder of Beymour Consulting , a marketing agency, “because when team members work in isolation, collaboration is harder and each person’s role limits their potential for growth.”
One alternative is to encourage team members to step out of their comfort austria phone number data zone at work and tackle projects outside their safe haven.
By giving them the opportunity to explore other areas of the business, their understanding of the bigger picture increases and they gain enough inspiration to come up with new marketing ideas and initiatives.
TIP: If you really want to give your team a push to try something different, take a leaf out of one of the world’s most innovative companies and consider holding regular hackathons . It’s a day when team members can step away from their regular responsibilities and focus on a different project that interests them.
Another reason why you shouldn't pigeonhole team members? We can all be creative. Learn more in David Kelley's inspiring TED talk:
3. Focus on starting small.
Innovation can be intimidating, and constantly pushing your marketing team to produce the next big thing can feel like an overwhelming and overwhelming mission. So big, in fact, that it can be paralyzing. They feel like they have to have everything in place before even launching a supposedly brilliant idea.
“Marketers will dive into a new direction with determination and a lot of investment, but without first testing the waters,” says Kear. “I know from experience that innovation starts small, with test campaigns and small tasks to anticipate potential problems and learn about the new channel or medium,” he adds.
Emphasize that it's okay to start with very small steps. Tell the team that it's good to try out ideas even if they're not fully finalized. Testing beforehand can save time on ideas that aren't worth pursuing, and can instill confidence in ideas that are worth exploring further. Encouraging experimentation without fear of reprimand will increase the team's ability to innovate.
4. Emphasize the importance of sharing knowledge.
Continuous growth and learning must be core values if you want to foster a culture of innovation . After all, the more team members are exposed to it, the more ideas they will come up with.
Sounds complicated? It doesn’t have to be. It can be as simple as sharing an industry-related book or a podcast you’ve recently listened to and enjoyed. Or you can host a luncheon where different subject matter experts give a short talk to your team. For example, Silicon Valley-based design agency ZURB hosts a monthly luncheon featuring well-known design professionals.
If continuous learning is encouraged in a work environment, employees acquire the ability to cross boundaries and break free from the most predictable and safe ideas.
5. Talk about your own failures.
When you innovate, you're not going to get it perfect the first time. For many of us, it's difficult to talk about our own failures, and it seems a bit counterintuitive.
However, opening up and being honest about your failures and successes can help to eliminate the shame that often accompanies failure. It may seem like you should present yourself as a foolproof example to your team. However, sharing the details of your own mistakes makes you much more relatable.
Plus, it has the added benefit that you're helping to normalize and destigmatize failure at work.
“It encourages failure and doubt. Innovation thrives on boldness and curiosity,” says Seymour.
But it's much more than encouraging failure; it's encouraging people to learn from their mistakes and act quickly to make changes. This is something that the most successful entrepreneurs have been practicing for years under the concept of failing fast .
One final word of warning: you need to show that you are tolerant (and even understanding) of mistakes that occur when innovating, or your team will be too terrified to step outside their comfort zones and make them.
6. Remember the importance of awards and recognition.
All of the above strategies will pave the way for innovation in your marketing team. But when do marketing team members come up with great ideas ? There’s one more step you can’t skip: providing the relevant rewards and recognition.
Think about it, why would your employees want to continue doing the best job possible if they get absolutely nothing in return? They wouldn't.
Make sure you have the right things in place to appropriately applaud the work of team members who go above and beyond, whether it's with a simple shout-out or a formal recognition program. This will serve as motivation for other team members to continue pushing the boundaries.
But you don’t just have to stay on top of all the trends, you have to stay one step ahead. If you want to launch the next big campaign or initiative, you and your team have to be ahead of the curve.
“When you’re so conditioned by tried-and-true tactics, you often miss out on new opportunities, either because of bias or opportunity cost,” explains Jeff Kear, co-author of event management software Planning Pod . “The market rarely stands still, so you have to move, too.”
Your team has to innovate to come up with the next brilliant idea or vision. After all, you don't have a crystal ball (although it would be great to have one, don't you think?).
Unfortunately, it's not always easy to implement and animate. It's one thing to say that your team is innovative. But do they go beyond that and consistently produce revolutionary marketing ideas? This requires grueling days and fruitless brainstorming sessions.
Here are six different strategies you and your team can use to generate the biggest, best, and brightest marketing ideas.
Light Bulbs On: Six Strategies for the Brightest Marketing Ideas
1. Encourage your team to listen instead of talk.
Do you think innovation always involves talking and exchanging ideas? Not exactly.
Your team can become internally focused under constant pressure to come up with the next idea. This leads to lots of feedback and idea sharing, but it doesn't encourage listening.
Desktop image promo promo
However, learning to actively listen is important for innovation, especially when it comes to listening to customers. So, rather than pressuring your team to continually generate marketing ideas, be sure to stress the importance of opening their ears and absorbing information and feedback from other areas of the company.
“For our company, what I ask our customer service representatives to do on a monthly basis is a list of top customer requests, complaints and feedback,” Kear says.
“While a lot of this information is about improving the product itself, a lot of it also focuses on our customers’ favorite tools and features, preferred methods of communication, and new markets and prospects we weren’t aware of,” he adds. “By sending this information directly to our marketing team and contractors, we can foster new ideas and marketing tactics.”
2. Give up the urge to pigeonhole.
Your team members each have unique skills. Maybe someone has great SEO skills, and another has a talent for identifying data trends. It’s great to have such different skills among team members, but that doesn’t mean you should pigeonhole your team members into very specific (and ultimately monotonous) responsibilities.
“Having worked with teams large and small, one of the things I’ve learned is not to pigeonhole team members into a specific task or discipline,” says Brandon Seymour, founder of Beymour Consulting , a marketing agency, “because when team members work in isolation, collaboration is harder and each person’s role limits their potential for growth.”
One alternative is to encourage team members to step out of their comfort austria phone number data zone at work and tackle projects outside their safe haven.
By giving them the opportunity to explore other areas of the business, their understanding of the bigger picture increases and they gain enough inspiration to come up with new marketing ideas and initiatives.
TIP: If you really want to give your team a push to try something different, take a leaf out of one of the world’s most innovative companies and consider holding regular hackathons . It’s a day when team members can step away from their regular responsibilities and focus on a different project that interests them.
Another reason why you shouldn't pigeonhole team members? We can all be creative. Learn more in David Kelley's inspiring TED talk:
3. Focus on starting small.
Innovation can be intimidating, and constantly pushing your marketing team to produce the next big thing can feel like an overwhelming and overwhelming mission. So big, in fact, that it can be paralyzing. They feel like they have to have everything in place before even launching a supposedly brilliant idea.
“Marketers will dive into a new direction with determination and a lot of investment, but without first testing the waters,” says Kear. “I know from experience that innovation starts small, with test campaigns and small tasks to anticipate potential problems and learn about the new channel or medium,” he adds.
Emphasize that it's okay to start with very small steps. Tell the team that it's good to try out ideas even if they're not fully finalized. Testing beforehand can save time on ideas that aren't worth pursuing, and can instill confidence in ideas that are worth exploring further. Encouraging experimentation without fear of reprimand will increase the team's ability to innovate.
4. Emphasize the importance of sharing knowledge.
Continuous growth and learning must be core values if you want to foster a culture of innovation . After all, the more team members are exposed to it, the more ideas they will come up with.
Sounds complicated? It doesn’t have to be. It can be as simple as sharing an industry-related book or a podcast you’ve recently listened to and enjoyed. Or you can host a luncheon where different subject matter experts give a short talk to your team. For example, Silicon Valley-based design agency ZURB hosts a monthly luncheon featuring well-known design professionals.
If continuous learning is encouraged in a work environment, employees acquire the ability to cross boundaries and break free from the most predictable and safe ideas.
5. Talk about your own failures.
When you innovate, you're not going to get it perfect the first time. For many of us, it's difficult to talk about our own failures, and it seems a bit counterintuitive.
However, opening up and being honest about your failures and successes can help to eliminate the shame that often accompanies failure. It may seem like you should present yourself as a foolproof example to your team. However, sharing the details of your own mistakes makes you much more relatable.
Plus, it has the added benefit that you're helping to normalize and destigmatize failure at work.
“It encourages failure and doubt. Innovation thrives on boldness and curiosity,” says Seymour.
But it's much more than encouraging failure; it's encouraging people to learn from their mistakes and act quickly to make changes. This is something that the most successful entrepreneurs have been practicing for years under the concept of failing fast .
One final word of warning: you need to show that you are tolerant (and even understanding) of mistakes that occur when innovating, or your team will be too terrified to step outside their comfort zones and make them.
6. Remember the importance of awards and recognition.
All of the above strategies will pave the way for innovation in your marketing team. But when do marketing team members come up with great ideas ? There’s one more step you can’t skip: providing the relevant rewards and recognition.
Think about it, why would your employees want to continue doing the best job possible if they get absolutely nothing in return? They wouldn't.
Make sure you have the right things in place to appropriately applaud the work of team members who go above and beyond, whether it's with a simple shout-out or a formal recognition program. This will serve as motivation for other team members to continue pushing the boundaries.