Boost Your Direct Marketing Creativity
- Part 6 -

We’ve covered a lot of territory in this series:

The three levels of creative mastery, good creative traits, bad creative habits, releasing your natural creativity, and inspiring your creative staff.

In this final installment, let’s look at one of the most widespread and powerful creative techniques ever devised. When used properly, it can produce more and better ideas than any other process.

It’s called brainstorming. And it’s based on the concept that two heads (or three, or four, or more) are better than one.

Many would argue that you can’t create by committee. I agree. Writing, designing, and other creative acts are best performed by individuals. Creative execution by committee invariably regresses to the mean. The results are weak and watered-down.

However, brainstorming is not about creative execution. It’s about idea creation. And it is almost always more productive as a group activity.

The result of a brainstorming session is — or should be — a long list of potential ideas which can be evaluated, the best chosen for creative execution at a later time. Sure, you’ll come up with a ton of dumb ideas, but so what? Once you get the ideas flowing, the great ideas will float to the top.

And some of those ideas that seem dumb end up being pretty smart once you test them and see the results.

This is not only a great way to solve seemingly insoluble problems, but also an effective means for generating new ideas to keep your testing program fresh.

If you’ve had bad luck with brainstorming, you’re just not doing it right. Because in my experience, conducting a brainstorming session is like throwing a match into a room full of firecrackers. There’s a sudden and powerful chain reaction.

Here are a few suggestions for creating some fireworks of your own:

Before Your Session …

• Select a leader. When I conduct a session, I often serve as both leader and participant. It works for me, but you may want to select a leader who will remain realistic and low-key while the others let their imagination go wild. The leader also must keep the group on track and on a time schedule, stifle negative statements, help the group develop ideas fully, and assure that each member contributes.

• Define your problem. The leader should write a clear definition for the problem the group will address. If you’re working with an outside consultant, this is a team effort. But all you need is a sentence or two that clearly outlines the situation.

• Create an agenda. Outline what topics you want to cover. List specific brainstorming techniques you want to try. Prepare a few ideas in advance to serve as a starter and be prepared to suggest questions to help the ideas flow.

• Set time limits. How much time you spend depends on the group’s endurance and everyone’s schedule, but it’s usually best to keep it short — 15 to 45 minutes. If you go longer, take breaks every hour to keep people fresh.

• Set quotas. The idea is to work fast and produce lots of ideas which will be evaluated at another time. Therefore, you should set quotas, such as a minimum of 100 ideas. This isn’t as hard as it sounds. If you come up with just two ideas a minute, you’ll have 120 in an hour. You can set an overall quota or individual quotas for each topic.

• Select your group and announce a session. Choose a mixed group of the same general rank to participate. When you talk to these people, don’t call it a “meeting.” That conjures images of big oak tables and necktie formality. Call it a “session.”

• Circulate background information. Prime session participants with a simple statement of the problem, background information, and examples of the kind of ideas you’re looking for.

During Your Session …

• Review the problem and background information. Don’t put people to sleep, just quickly go over the problem, background data, and what you hope to accomplish. If there are questions, answer them before you begin.

• Establish the ground rules. The rules must be followed strictly. Read them to the group and emphasize that the success of the session depends on cooperation. Here they are:

1. Each session participant must contribute ideas, accept ideas of others, or improve on ideas.
2. No one may criticize or evaluate any idea. Alex F. Osborn in Applied Imagination said it best: “Think up or shut up.”
3. No one will hold back ideas. When something comes to mind, say it.
4. The group will encourage wild, out-of-the box thinking.
5. The goal of the session is quantity, not quality. Quality will be evaluated later.
6. Ideas will be developed fully. Participants should hitchhike ideas on the ideas of others to produce more and better ideas. When an idea is developed, the group will move on.

• Take detailed notes. Whether written or typed, someone must rapidly capture the flow of ideas as they occur. An option is to record the session and transcribe notes from the recording. (I’ve found that a combination of note taking and recording works best. The notes serve as an outline of the major topics covered and the recording in the details.)

After Your Session …

• Allow time for the incubation of further ideas. If you’ve had a productive session, ideas will continue to occur to people for hours or days after the session. Ask everyone to write down these ideas and submit them later to accompany the main session notes.

• Type up and circulate ALL the ideas generated. The final product of a session will be a multi-page document that lists every single idea created. Nothing should be edited. Organize or classify these ideas in some fashion for later evaluation. Don’t be surprised if you have literally hundreds of ideas.

• Evaluate your ideas and choose the best. The same group can evaluate the ideas or another group can. It’s often best for those responsible for the problem to evaluate the ideas, but you can run into “idea ownership” problems. On the other hand, another group may not be able to grasp the significance of many of the ideas generated. You’ll have to experiment. Either way, I suggest a smaller evaluation group — fewer than 6. Use a checklist or specific criteria to evaluate the ideas. Don’t rule out crazy ideas too quickly. Allow yourselves to continue to develop the ideas as needed.

When the dust settles, you should find yourself with some surprisingly good ideas. And the whole process often energizes your staff and improves morale as well.

But don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t work perfectly the first time. Assembling the right group, creating an open atmosphere, and producing the best results often takes time. As with so many other things in life, practice makes perfect.

Well, that completes this series on direct marketing creativity. I hope you found some useful and profitable ideas.

By the way, let me know if you’ve tried brainstorming and how it worked for you.

Boost Your Direct Marketing Creativity
- Part 5 -

Okay, let’s summarize this series on creativity so far:

In Part 1, we listed three levels of creative mastery.

In Part 2, we covered the traits of highly creative people.

In Part 3, we looked at bad habits that can limit your creativity.

And in Part 4, we discovered how to release your natural creative genius.

Now we’ll take the next logical step. If you’re in charge of a creative staff, we’ll see if we can find a few ways to help them be even more creative.

First, lets have a little plain talk about creativity and your staff. This may be a little painful.

Do you claim to want creativity from your staff, but create an environment full of stress, fear, and confusion? I’m not talking about yelling and screaming. I’m just talking about hiring creative people and then not letting them be creative.

It could be subtle things like asking for some fresh ideas on a marketing campaign, then when fresh ideas are suggested, rejecting them in favor of old ideas you’ve used a dozen times before.

Or assigning a rush project without providing background information and then asking for extensive changes when the final product doesn’t measure up to your expectations.

Such behavior sends a clear message to your staff that you do not respect or value their skills. And over time, this trains your staff to expend the bulk of their energy trying to make you happy or avoid your criticism instead of doing the job you supposedly hired them for.

If you’re in a management position, you are largely responsible for your staff’s output. And they can only be as creative as you allow them to be.

Take a good, hard look in the mirror. Are you an anal-retentive control freak? Are you overbearing and threatening? Do you constantly criticize ideas that don’t agree with your own? Are you indecisive, saying one thing and doing another? Do you feel threatened by the creativity of your staff?

This sort of introspection is hard stuff. But if you’re serious about helping your staff do better work, start your improvement program where it will make the most difference – with YOU. Here are a few pointers:

Hire the right people. If you want to control the creative output of your office, hire people who will carry out your wishes. If you want people who think for themselves, hire people who are independent and have their own ideas.

You can’t get creative work from worker bees or submission from independent spirits. Be honest about what you really want and hire the people who fulfill your needs. If you’ve had a problem with this, have someone else interview prospective employees to bring more objectivity to the hiring process.

Let creative people create. You can dictate objectives. You can evaluate results. But you can’t control what happens in between. If you try to micromanage the creative process, you will get poor performance from your creative staff.

For example, some time ago, a client hired me to write a direct mail package. They wanted me to first submit several ideas so they could pick the one they liked. Then they wanted me to write headlines and subheads for their approval. Then I was to write the remainder of the copy as a first draft without changing the headlines in any way.

They told me this was all necessary because otherwise I might not deliver what they expected. In other words, they wanted to closely control the creative process from start to finish.

Needless to say, the final product suffered as did response.

The creative process can be guided but not controlled. Creative people have their own way of doing things. That’s why they’re the “creative” staff. Get out of the way and let them work.

Make the workplace feel safe. Uncertainty and fear are not conducive to creative work. When people are more concerned about how management will react to their work than about how productive they are, you will get work geared not for results but for approval.

You should have high standards, but encourage risk and accept mistakes.

Create an informal, relaxed atmosphere to allow your staff to concentrate on their task. Define problems and expectations clearly so you can evaluate results objectively and avoid personal reactions.

If you’re not sure how to do all this, ask your staff what you can change to make work more productive and enjoyable.

Encourage creative people to look for problems to solve. Think about a time when your superior handed you a job you didn’t want. It was hard to summon a great deal of energy for the project, wasn’t it?

The same applies to your staff. When you allow them to identify and solve problems (i.e. when you let them take ownership of problems and solutions), you increase their power in the situation, as well as their commitment and enthusiasm.

Make results the ultimate reward. Creative awards are a pat on the back from colleagues. In that way, they are important, since writers and designers and producers often don’t get much attention any other way.

Unfortunately, those pointy hunks of plastic aren’t the same as actual profits. The business of business is business, so reward your creative staff for actual results.

Hand out bonuses. Post winning promotions in the lunch room. Write up articles in your newsletter about testing victories. Let your staff know in a tangible way that their contributions play a vital role in the company.

Allow for “intelligent failure.” Direct marketing is all about testing. And failure is an integral part of testing and a natural part of the learning process. So don’t criticize a negative result or write it off as a waste of money.

Since every test should be a test of something specific, discuss negative results in terms of what you’ve learned from the test.

If one of your staff wrote a package to test a new offer and it didn’t work, don’t say, “Well your direct mail package flopped.” Say instead, “Well it seems that offer isn’t as appealing as the old one. What else can we try?”

This keeps you focused on the problem instead of the person and keeps the staff motivated to find a successful solution.

Know why you do what you do. There’s nothing worse than trying to succeed by taking random creative stabs at a problem. Every idea should have a solid rationale to back it up.

Every test should answer a specific question. Over time, you should build a database of knowledge about what works, how well, and WHY. Without knowing why, you really don’t know much.

If a direct mail insert boosts response by 30%, ask why. Is it because this particular insert relates closely to the product? Calls attention to the offer? Appeals to your prospect’s sense of play?

This is a difficult question to answer, but you should try. Knowing why helps you know when to apply particular techniques and when not to.

Balance risk and reward. Creating is a kind of investment. Greater rewards come only by taking greater risks. Total safety is usually synonymous with mediocrity.

This is not to say that you should ignore proven techniques. It means that while you should start with a tried and true solution, you should keep testing.

Your testing should include some ideas that are different and uncertain, just as a well-balanced investment portfolio should include a few risky investments to increase your odds of long-term success. And of course, the greatest risk is not testing in the first place.

Don’t expect instant success with these ideas. Creating a work environment that encourages productive creativity takes months or years. If you  try to overhaul your creative staff overnight, you’ll just create confusion and fear. Start small and introduce changes gradually, one-by-one.

Ask your staff about changes they would like to make. Try out some of their ideas, even if you think they won’t work. You might be surprised.

In the next and final part of this series, we’ll look at one of the most misunderstood activities in the world of creativity: the brainstorming session.

Boost Your Direct Marketing Creativity
- Part 4 -

If you’ve been reading this series from the beginning, you’ve learned about the three levels of creative mastery, the traits of highly creative people, and bad habits that can limit your creativity.

Now, let’s pick up where we left off and see if we can discover a few basic ideas for shedding bad creative habits and building new habits that can turn you into a creative genius.

The important point to remember is that everyone has creative abilities. It’s a natural and necessary part of being human. The only difference between the creative geniuses and everyone else is that creative people use and develop their creative skills.

Usually this is not a conscious effort, but a natural result of their personality and upbringing. However, everyone can energize their creative powers and release the inner genius, including YOU.

Here are some suggestions:

Learn your craft. You can’t be truly creative in any field until you have mastered the tools of the trade.

Robert Irwin, an artist and MacArthur Fellow, spent two years, working up to 15 hours a day, painting the same picture over and over again in order to understand his work better. You don’t have to go to such an extreme, but you should certainly read the books, attend the seminars, and get a few years of direct marketing under your belt.

Talk shop with your clients and coworkers. Surf the Internet. Keep up on your field. Try out as many techniques as you can. Work in as many media as possible. Become familiar with how the whole marketing process works, from product development to marketing strategy to ad creation to fulfillment. This knowledge will be the fuel for your creative fire.

Get off auto pilot. Don’t allow yourself to settle into a rigid pattern. It’s easy to get comfortable with your tried-and-true rules, checklists, and formulas. People in direct marketing are especially guilty of living by the rules.

However, no formula is foolproof or applicable to all situations. You have to keep mentally active. If a formula works, great. But it’s better to have dozens of formulas to choose from. They’re tools, not the word of the Almighty.

Question your own expertise and the advice of the experts. Stop looking for just one right answer. Don’t settle for the first idea. Set aside those pet techniques now and then. Banish those clichés. Borrow good ideas from others, but try out your own, too.

Loosen up. Early in my career, I was working on a national direct mail campaign with an ad agency. After looking at two ideas I submitted, the creative director handed back the pages and gently said, “Okay. Now give me about fifty more ideas.”

I was dumbfounded. “But these are what I think will work.” He nodded, “Okay. But come up with fifty more anyway. Forget about what will work. We’ll think about that later.”

It was difficult for me, because I didn’t want to submit any idea I wasn’t sure of. I was trying to create and evaluate simultaneously, judging and editing my ideas before allowing those ideas to breathe and live on their own.

Sometimes the best ideas don’t immediately square with the tried and true. And many of the best ideas seem outright crazy at first glance.

To maximize your creative output, come up with lots of ideas first, then figure out which are best and how to make them work later. Creating and evaluating simultaneously is like driving with your foot on the brake.

Stop avoiding failure. Long ago, while I was still in high school, I took a summer driver’s education class. A friend of mine took it with me. No one in the class was a particularly good driver, but my friend drove like a maniac.

With a death grip on the wheel, he sat bolt upright, swerved back and forth on the road, slamming the brake at every intersection. He was so fixated on not making a mistake, he couldn’t concentrate on driving.

Likewise, if your direct marketing programs are built around the idea of avoiding failure, you will be unable to concentrate on marketing. You will certainly not realize your full potential. Instead of avoiding failure, strive for success and accept the occasional failure as part of the learning process.

Focus on important problems. A few years ago, a business mailing around half a million pieces a month came to me for advice about improving their response. They showed me test after test where they had changed the envelope color or modified minor copy points. “We just can’t seem to change our response,” they lamented.

I could see why immediately: they had no offer! When you focus on trivia, you will generally get trivial results. And this will only discourage future creative thinking. Success breeds success. Tackle the big issues first. That’s where the real results come from.

Find new uses for old ideas. I was working on a package for a fundraiser. In analyzing the organization and its donors, I thought that one barrier to response was that people may harbor some doubt about how funds are actually used.

In ordinary direct marketing, a guarantee can put doubts to rest. So I suggested enclosing a buckslip with a detailed guarantee. They hesitated, since none of us had ever seen this before. But this old idea used in a new way helped lift response dramatically.

Learn about the creative process. No matter how talented you think you are, learning about how creativity works will always help you generate more and better ideas.

If you’re a salesperson, you learn how to sell. If you’re a boxer, you learn how to throw a punch. If you’re a surgeon, you learn anatomy and surgical techniques. So if you’re in a creative position, shouldn’t you learn how to create?

Read books on creativity and problem-solving. Scan newspapers and magazines for stories on how businesses solve problems in creative ways. Ask people about problems and how they solved them. Your mind is your most important tool. Learn how to use it.

Keep your head clear. You need information to light your creative fire, but too much will dowse it. Knowing too much is just as dangerous as not knowing enough. Trivial issues take on more importance. Indecision sets in when you have too many alternatives.

Gather information at the beginning of every project, but then set it aside before you get hot and heavy into the creative process. A fresh mind produces fresh ideas.

Break down false barriers. When someone asks you for ideas about how to sell a new product, do you immediately start writing a sales letter? Who says a direct mail package is always the best way?

Back up. Think things through from the beginning. What are you selling? Who would buy it? What ways are available to reach those people? Maybe it’s TV or radio or print ads or telemarketing.

False barriers are barriers you can’t see but which blind you to alternate ideas. Ask yourself how you would normally do something. Then look for other ways.

Set the conditions you need to create. For most people, this means comfortable lighting, pleasing sounds and colors, plenty of space to spread out and work, information and equipment handy, and no distractions such as endless phone calls or people dropping by.

The right conditions vary from person to person. Beethoven poured ice water over his head. Kant wrote in bed. Balzac drank cup after cup of coffee. Hemingway merely got up at dawn and sharpened 20 pencils. Find what works best for you.

Are you starting to feel more creative? Can you feel those creative juices starting to flow? Good. You’re on your way to becoming a creative genius.

Here’s a little assignment to help this good feeling continue: Every day do something different. It doesn’t matter what it is. Move your desk to the other side of your office. Come into work an hour earlier. Instead of writing yet another 6″ x 9″ direct mail package, try a self-mailer. Talk to the new guy in the office next door. Read a book on welding or candle making or stamp collecting or anything you know nothing about.

All of this seems like pointless activity, but you’ll find yourself seeing things differently. Thinking different thoughts. Coming up with new ideas. And many a career has been built on a single great idea.

Okay, all of this is great if you want to be more creative in direct marketing. But what if you’re a manager and you need your staff to be more creative.

Ah, that’s what we’ll discuss next time.

Boost Your Direct Marketing Creativity
- Part 3 -

Previously, we’ve discussed the 3 levels of creative mastery in direct marketing and the common traits of creative people.

Now let’s talk about some bad creative habits.

First, a simple question: Why aren’t more people creative?

Well, you don’t have to be a psychologist to know that people are generally pretty lazy. There’s a natural human inclination to do things the easy way.

And let’s face it, most things in life don’t require too much creativity. So for the average person, there’s really no motivation for the extra effort.

The truth is, most people who display higher levels of creativity have simply learned this behavior by chance. Perhaps their parents or friends did creative things. Or maybe certain random events inspired a different approach to life.

It doesn’t matter how you become creative, of course, but there’s a downside to this randomness. Because if you can pick up good creative habits, you can pick up bad creative habits, too. And you usually don’t know which is which until they’re deeply ingrained.

But bad habits can be broken if you are determined to do so. The first step is to identify these behaviors so you can start making productive changes.

Here are some of the more common bad habits that hamper creativity in direct marketing.

The “Expert Syndrome.” This is a big problem in the advertising and marketing field, where egos often balloon to the size of small planets. I suppose it takes a healthy ego to succeed in this business, but if you think you know everything there is to know, you’re blustering more than thinking.

And you’ll inevitably make mistakes and miss opportunities. In direct marketing, this could be called the “Guru Syndrome,” since we too often think that there is an inner circle of initiates who hold the dark, hidden secrets of success.

The “Novice Trap.” This may be almost as bad as the Expert Syndrome. You don’t know the basics. You don’t have experience. Or you think you’re too smart to spend time learning the basic formulas and rules of thumb. Needless to say, novices are quickly humbled in direct marketing.

Of course, you can easily hide your ignorance. All you have to do is carry out sloppy tests and fudge the results. But this only works long-term if your business does not rely on direct marketing channels for most of its income.

Many Fortune 500 companies are notorious for their novice approach to direct marketing while their sales charts soar with dollars from a direct sales force, retail sales, and other revenue streams.

The “One Right Answer Disease.” As a student in school, your teachers probably said they wanted you to think for yourself. However, come test time, you knew you’d better memorize the facts and give the “right” answers or your grade would suffer.

This simplistic right and wrong orientation pervades our society and it’s the very antithesis of creative thinking. Except for simple problems like 2 + 2 = 4, there’s seldom just one right answer for anything. And in advertising, where just about everything is based on psychology, there’s never just one right answer.

Trying to create and evaluate simultaneously. You can’t drive a car in first and in reverse at the same time. Likewise, you shouldn’t try to use different types of thinking simultaneously.

Creating is generating new ideas, visualizing, looking ahead, considering the possibilities. Evaluation is analysis and judgment, which is picking apart ideas and sorting them out into piles of good and bad, useful and useless. Most people evaluate too soon and too often, and therefore create less.

Mistaking hunting for creating. There are two forms of creative imagination: Hunting and Changing. Hunting is finding something that already exists and applying it to your problem. Changing is modifying something you already have and transforming it into something new. Both are useful, but they are not the same.

In direct marketing, hunting usually takes the form of what has been called “stealing smart,” or copying the success of others to assure your own success. This is a safe approach, but very limiting if it’s all you know how to do. By sticking to template solutions, you are forever trapped by the past. You will never have the chance to break out, stand on your own two feet, and make your business all that it can be.

Going with the first solution. One of the secrets to creativity is playing around with alternatives. Finding one solution is just the beginning. Many ad writers, for example, claim to come up with a hundred headlines or more before choosing the one they like best.

When you go with the first solution, you’re not creating, you’re just recalling. You are settling for a “near miss” or a ballpark answer. Sometimes that’s fine, but if you do it all the time, you will certainly miss some very lucrative ideas.

Being too logical. Ours is a practical profession, but trying to be sensible and rational all the time will strangle a creative idea before it’s born. The brain is not a computer, after all, it’s a vastly complex organ designed to process emotion, intuition, language, symbols, dreams, and all manner of illogical data. That’s what it does best.

Confining yourself to practical lines of thought is limiting and, frankly, illogical. After all, your customers base 99.99% of all their purchases on emotion. The only time logic comes into play is after a decision has been made, and then it is used to justify the decision.

The fear of failure. Most people remember baseball legend Babe Ruth as one of the great hitters of all time, with a career record of 714 home runs. However, he was also a master of the strike out. That’s because he always swung for home runs, not singles or doubles. So he either succeeded big or failed spectacularly.

No one wants to make mistakes or fail. But if you try too hard to avoid failure, you’ll also avoid success.

The fear of ambiguity. Most people like things to make sense. In direct marketing, we are particularly fond of neat and tidy solutions to problems. Unfortunately, life is not neat and tidy. There are some things you’ll never understand and some problems that you’ll never solve.

I had a client who tested a catalog with a newsletter enclosed. Then they tested the same thing but put the catalog inside the newsletter. The second version got a much better response. Why? Because the audience got more involved when the newsletter was on the outside? Because the catalog looked too similar to other catalogs?

Frankly, I don’t know. What I do know is that most great creative ideas emerge from a swirl of chaos. And if you’re not comfortable with that, you’re in for a difficult career.

Curing “symptoms” instead of “illnesses.” Our industry is chock full of technique hounds, yapping twits who prattle on at length about how clever it is to tilt a stamp or fold a letter differently. Such techniques often raise response to be sure, but big results more often come from solving big problems, not from manipulating surface details.

If you’re mailing millions of pieces a month, little changes can be significant for sure. But for most people, if a direct mail package isn’t working, it’s more likely that the offer is off-target than the envelope color is wrong.

Overusing or misusing pet techniques. Results are the only important thing in direct marketing. If you fall in love with a format, phrase, offer, or some favorite technique, you will certainly use it at the wrong time. Techniques are tools, nothing more. They are there to help you attain your goals; they are not a goal unto themselves.

“Functional Fixedness.” This is a common human shortcoming. A person suffering from functional fixedness sees a wrench as a wrench and nothing else. A creative person sees a wrench as a wrench, but also as a hammer, or a lever, or a weapon, or whatever else is needed at the moment.

Whoever thought you could advertise prescription drugs on TV? That you could give away software programs as a way to sell them? That you could use postcards to get magazine subscribers? Not people with functional fixedness to be sure.

Thinking you’re not creative. Everyone is creative. Some are better at using their gifts than others. Some are more open and free in their thoughts. However, every human being on the planet has vast, untapped creative abilities, including you.

One of the real problems that gets mistaken for lack of creativity is ignorance of the creative process. To take full advantage of your natural gifts, you have to know how ideas are created.

Being overwhelmed by information. If your brain is crammed with too much data, it can’t function efficiently. You can’t see the forest for the trees. This is a problem I sometimes have myself. When I start a project, I usually ask for lots of information.

Usually a client can only get a fraction of what I ask for, but sometimes they actually deliver a one- or two-foot stack. And when that happens, it’s far too easy to get mentally buried in all the data.

Being trapped by false limits. Ask a direct mail guru how to solve a problem and you’ll get a direct mail pitch. Ask a telemarketing guru how to solve a problem and you’ll get a telemarketing pitch. Without an open mind and the ability to solve problems from scratch, you can’t arrive at the best solution.

This is where your own experience can hold you back. And it is why defining your problem and generating lots of ideas are key elements in the creative procedure. By forcing yourself to go beyond past solutions, you are more likely to come up with a new solution that works.

Letting your environment get in the way. The phone won’t stop ringing. Your chair makes your butt hurt. The heater is busted. Your stomach is growling. Conditions may never be perfect, but when things get too distracting, you simply won’t be able to concentrate on your problem. Always try to establish a creative space with optimum conditions for creativity.

Do you suffer from any of these bad habits? Don’t fret. Habits can be broken.

Next time, we’ll talk about a few easy ways that you can replace your bad habits with good habits and energize your creative powers.

Boost Your Direct Marketing Creativity
- Part 2 -

In my previous post, I talked about the 3 levels of creative mastery in direct marketing.

And I said that if you’re seeking long-term success in this industry, you should aim for the Third Level, where you strive to find a balance between technique and creativity, between the tried and the new.

This time, let’s take a look at the traits of a truly creative professional working on the Third Level .

Despite what you might think, we are all creative to some degree. You. Me. Your accountant. Your hairdresser. The kid who bags your groceries. Everyone.

Creativity isn’t something you’re born with. It’s not some mysterious aura that hovers around wild-haired writers and artists. And it has nothing to do with how smart you are. In fact, research has shown that once you get beyond an I.Q. of about 120 (which is fairly average), intelligence and creativity are not correlated.

So you could be a genius and display little creativity. Or you could be perfectly average in intelligence and wield amazing creative powers.

Creativity is really just a matter of how you approach things. It’s how you act or react to new circumstances. Your proclivity to look at things in a different way. To question. Experiment.

In other words, creativity is not what you are as much as what you do. It’s a learned behavior and therefore can be controlled and improved.

Think of creativity as a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. To increase your creativity, you simply need to act in creative ways and do what other creative people do.

Not surprisingly, people recognized as creative tend to share common traits. They act in ways that are actually quite uncommon for most people. Creative people …

Have the COURAGE to try new things and risk failure. Can you imagine the first time someone suggested toll-free numbers? Insane! Have people call for FREE? Every big breakthrough starts as a harebrained idea. This doesn’t mean you should constantly go off the deep end, just that you should balance your corporate portfolio of solutions with an investment in the new and untried. Over time, the risk is usually worth the reward.

Use INTUITION as well as logic to make decisions and produce ideas. A company showed me a direct mail package that spread its products over four separate order forms. Many customers had to fill out all four forms to make a purchase, so you’d think people simply wouldn’t put in the effort. But testing proved it worked better than the typical one-page, one-sided form, which shows you can’t always figure people out. And, therefore, you can’t always rely on logic. You have to listen to your gut, too. It follows its own logic.

Like to PLAY, since humor and fun are the ultimate creative act. Which is to say you just have to lighten up. Yeah, I know we all have goals, and quotas, and deadlines, but it’s not life and death. When you enjoy yourself, your brain is able to produce more and better ideas. One of those ideas may be just what you’re looking for.

Are EXPRESSIVE and willing to share what they feel and think, to be themselves. Direct marketing can too often degenerate into cold 47-reasons-to-respond pitches. But people are emotional creatures and respond better to feeling than logic. If you allow yourself to be emotional, you will be able to tap into the emotional lives of your prospects. How do you feel about that?

Can FIND ORDER in confusion; can discover hidden meaning in information. Analysis and research are key tools for the creative person. Information is to the brain what food is to the stomach. So-called “writer’s block” or creative burnout almost always results from a lack of fresh information.

Are MOTIVATED BY A TASK rather than by external rewards. You must like the challenge of generating response. Beating a control. Raising funds. Producing sales leads. If you’re just in it for the money, you’re not going to be a fountain of new ideas.

Have a need to FIND SOLUTIONS to challenging problems. The smartest people in the business won’t have a solution to every problem. If they claim to, they’ve stopped thinking — or they’re trying to sell you their seminar. The very best are those whose eyes light up at a question they can’t answer. Because that’s the opportunity to learn something new and do something great.

Will CHALLENGE ASSUMPTIONS and ask hard questions to discover what is real. The rules aren’t really rules, only rules of thumb. If you want to wield true creative power, you will take everything everyone says about anything with a grain of salt. (That includes all of us gurus who just love to don our pointy wizard hats and pontificate on the secrets of the direct response universe.) If you don’t know something from personal knowledge or experience, you don’t know it at all. Don’t rely on faith. Get proof.

Can MAKE CONNECTIONS between old ideas to produce new insights. Combine the cover of a magazine and a double postcard, and you have an all new type of mailer that is giving a lift to many magazine subscription promotions today. Sometimes the best solutions are simply two old ideas jammed together.

Will PUSH THE ENVELOPE in order to expand the boundaries of what is possible. There was a time when no one thought you could sell on TV. Or radio. Or on the Internet. Instead of dividing the world into the possible and impossible, it’s better to merely divide it into the tried and the untried. What haven’t YOU tried yet?

Are willing to TEST new ideas and compete with others based on results. Isn’t that what direct response advertising is all about? Testing? Results? You see, creativity is at the very heart of boosting profits!

These are certainly uncommon traits for most people in business today. But they’re not particularly difficult. Watch how the creative people you know solve problems and deal with projects.

You may choose one particularly creative person you admire and, when faced with a problem, ask yourself, “What would so-and-so do in this situation?” Over time, you’ll find yourself becoming more and more creative and, most likely, more and more successful.

But it’s not just what you do that makes you creative. It’s also what you don’t do. So in the next post, we’ll look at some of the things that may be stifling your creativity.

Boost Your Direct Marketing Creativity
- Part 1 -

We direct marketing types are well-known for our reliance on “proven” techniques.

Our books, trade magazines, and club meetings overflow with zillions of hints, commandments, rules, warnings, tactics, and all manner of well-organized wisdom.

That’s why many people in the advertising industry — much of which thrives on ultra-creative, out-of-the-box ideas — consider us rather old-fashioned and conservative.

And that’s just fine with me.

Because we have a different job to do than our brand advertising brethren. We’re looking for immediate and direct response. We’re going for instant return on investment. Our massive technique tool box allows us to make sales, generate leads, and raise funds in predictable and measurable ways.

But while we can chide our chums on the brand side about being too creative, they certainly have every reason to chide us for not being creative enough. While they often don’t follow any rules at all, we often follow too many.

The danger we direct marketers face is falling into the “Technique Trap, ” slavishly sticking to what is proven, afraid to try anything new. When this happens, healthy, fresh, creative ideas that might otherwise work wonders are smothered by tired, wheezing clichés. Our profitable, proven techniques then become a self-referencing dead end.

Okay. But you might ask, “Is this really a problem? If it works, it works. Right?”

Sure. If you’ve been selling miracle widgets with the same ads for 50 years and sales are strong and you’re happy, fine. No complaints. But for most businesses, times change. Competition increases. Costs go up. Response goes down. Regulations and privacy concerns threaten.

And guess what? Not everyone is willing to slog through the classic direct mail package with a 16-page letter. You can’t get away with slipshod design for carefully branded products. And there’s more than just direct mail now — there’s TV, radio, the Internet, and all manner of powerful alternative media.

And direct response advertising is no longer just a shadowy group of salesmen hawking Ginsu Knives and Whoopdeedoo Fishing Lures at 2 a.m. on local cable stations. It’s a major force in the advertising industry.

Our techniques are being applied to every demographic to sell every product and service imaginable, not always with the expected results. Old line gurus who thought they had it all figured out are scratching their heads wondering what the heck happened. Why aren’t the tried and true techniques working any more?

Well, they are working. Nothing has changed on a fundamental level. People are still people with all the same wants and needs. And the proven techniques are still just as powerful today as they ever were.

It’s just that direct marketing has broken free of its exclusive domain and moved into the mainstream. Things are tougher now. Our buyers are more sophisticated. The media is paying attention to us, warts and all.

So we simply can’t toss around techniques in our sleep anymore. We’ll have to wake up and develop a deeper understanding of why our techniques work and specifically when and where we should apply them. And we’ll need new techniques, too. We’ll need real creativity. Real innovation.

Which is why I say there are …

3 Levels of Creative Mastery in Direct Marketing

Abraham Maslow once said, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” Can you imagine hiring a carpenter whose only tool was a claw hammer? He’d be great at banging things together or ripping things apart, but his handiwork would be crude and limited.

Such is the case with many direct marketers.

After all, if your only tool is a 6” x 9” direct mail package, you’re going to see the solution to every marketing problem as a 6” x 9” direct mail package.

Your handiwork, too, will be crude and limited. And the situation doesn’t improve much if all you do is collect a bunch of pet techniques — lift letters, yellow sticky notes, tilted stamps, personalized membership cards — and force fit them into every promotion.

Those who do this — and our industry is full of these technique hounds — are forever trapped by what others have already done. “Copy smart,” some shout, attempting to make the copycat approach appear more savvy than it is.

But while these people often wield great power because of the strength of direct marketing techniques, they are ultimately little more than overpaid short order cooks, whipping up quick meals with yesterday’s sausage.

Let me suggest that there are three levels of creative mastery in our business:

1. The Novice, who doesn’t know the rules.
2. The Hack, who has learned the rules, but is trapped by them.
3. The Professional, who knows the rules and, every now and then, breaks the rules, or even comes up with new rules, when it’s appropriate.

Needless to say, if you’re seeking long-term success, you should aim for the Third Level. You should strive to find a balance between technique and creativity, between the tried and the new. We need our techniques because they are powerful, but we also need creativity because it is empowering.

Next time, I’ll show you some of the traits you’ll need if you want to reach this vaulted Third Level of Creative Mastery. Stay tuned.

Note: I wrote this article back in 1995. But while the wow factor of technology has become routine in the advertising world today, the idea this article presents is still as relevant as ever.

After more than two decades of technological evolution, creativity isn’t what it used to be. I don’t mean that the pool of creative advertising talent is shrinking, I mean the way creative people go about creating is different.

It’s more than exchanging typewriters for computers or art tables for graphic design programs; it’s a complete shift in the creative process.

It started when IBM introduced the first affordable desktop personal computer. With a monochrome screen, no hard drive, and an unbelievably slow microprocessor, it proved that a computer could be a practical office accessory.

As desktop units became more accepted in the workplace, other computer manufacturers began churning out armies of clones, with prices always falling and quality always rising.

After years of fearing new technology (remember all those “technology gone wrong” and “evil computers take over the world” movies?), at last it was okay to have a computer.

Trouble was, most people didn’t understand them or feel comfortable with them since they were built by technophiles for left-brained people. Creative types just couldn’t relate to this and stuck to typewriters and X-ACTO knives.

Then in 1984, in a burst of media pretension, Apple introduced the Macintosh. It happened during the NFL Super Bowl on January 22 with a 60-second Orwellian epic, directed by Ridley Scott (the guy who directed the movie Alien), in which a young woman lobs a hammer at a big screen image of Big Brother, ala George Orwell’s 1984. As one industry guru put it, “The commercial changed advertising; the product changed the ad business; the technology changed the world.”

I don’t know how much this overblown commercial changed advertising, but the product did change the ad business. And the technology certainly changed the world, or at least our perception of it.

Suddenly, it was not only okay to have a computer in the office, it was desirable. While the original Mac was primitive, it offered a new way of thinking about computers. For the first time, here was a computer built for right-brained people.

Visual thinking was the key, with friendly on-screen icons like folders and trash cans and a mouse to move the cursor around the screen. And with the introduction of PageMaker software and Apple’s laser printer, ad agencies and in-house communication departments could finally produce quality work on the desktop. Plus, you didn’t have to be an “artist” to become a graphic designer.

Since then, the wave of changing technology has washed over us again and again. But the really interesting thing isn’t how technology has changed but how technology has changed all of us in the ad business. Not only are we working more creatively, the way we work at creating is different.

Just look at how writing has changed. Time was when writing was a linear process. You sat down at a typewriter and tapped out a first draft, edited it, then retyped it. No matter how many drafts you went through, you always ended up with a fixed manuscript that looked and felt official and unchangeable.

With computers, it’s different. It’s more than just typing on a computer screen. Now you are free from linear thinking. Copy can grow naturally from any starting point. If you get stuck, just write the next few paragraphs and bridge the gap later. If you make a mistake, just delete and write it again. Writing and editing, once two separate stages, are now one and the same.

Graphic designers have gone through the same experience, with the fixed progression from thumbnail to full layout giving way to a constantly evolving on-screen design. The printout of a design at any given stage is just a copy of the growing “ideal” design inside the computer. And never does a design reach a true final stage; it’s always open for improvement.

Is this good? I think so. Technology is often criticized for taking us further away from the natural order of things. But in my experience, technology brings us closer.

Today, creating advertising can be more organic and free flowing than it ever was with typewriters or paintbrushes. With such a low barrier to entry, there’s more bad advertising than ever. But there’s also more good advertising than ever.

And the technology we have created and with which we create is also hard at work creating us. We have become like our work — ever changing and evolving. Where will it end? It won’t. Change has become the only constant.

According to research cited by PsyBlog (one of my favorite blogs), brainstorming may not be as effective as people are lead to believe.

I wrote about brainstorming in The Secrets of Successful Brainstorming on my main website. And because I’ve conducted brainstorming sessions with clients, I know firsthand that there are limitations to this technique and that it’s hard to get brainstorming to work just right.

According to PsyBlog, problems such as people slacking in groups and fear of being evaluated can result in a group producing fewer and lower quality ideas than people working alone.

I can verify this from personal experience, though I have found that poor results come primarily from the wrong group mix, a rigid company culture, and inexperience with brainstorming.

In one brainstorming session for a magazine subscription service, I specified the people I wanted to attend. But when I got off the plane and drove to their office, I found the CEO and the company’s current ad agency reps in attendance.

The CEO intimidated his employees and killed ideas he didn’t like while the agency guys focused on defending their “territory” and disallowing any ideas that might show them up.

However, in another instance, I ran a brainstorming session with a much more compatible group from a nonprofit. Everyone felt comfortable with everyone else, no big bosses or authority figures attended, and the session produced well over 100 ideas, some of which we developed into new and effective ads and mailers.

PsyBlog suggests ideas for making brainstorming more effective:

• People should be encouraged to list ideas before coming to brainstorming sessions.
• The number of ideas produced by each person should be monitored.
• Problems should be broken down and group members should brainstorm components.
• Groups should take breaks from each other.
• High standards should be set for the number of ideas.

These are all good ideas, but for the most part, this is what I and others have advised for effective brainstorming all along. However, none of this will work if the group is made up of the wrong mix of people or if the company culture has crushed the spontaneity out of their employees.

I have found that creative people tend to take to brainstorming faster than “business” types. But if you get rid of authority figures, change the venue to a relaxed location, and invite people who enjoy spending time with each other, I’m convinced you can get brainstorming to work for nearly any group.

In addition to the brainstorming article, I wrote an entire series of articles on creativity that address these issues. Click the link and scroll to the bottom of the page.

I’ve been busy recently writing articles for everything other than this blog. So here’s a short reading list for a little direct marketing extra credit.

First, Melissa Data recently published The Ultimate Marketing Survival Guide for 2009. I wrote the lead article, “Direct mail remains the king of direct marketing.” Just in case you thought direct mail was dead or that tweeting is better than mailing, this article will disabuse you of that faulty assumption.

Next, there’s a fun little article over at Copyblogger titled The 3 Secret Persuasion Techniques Every Kid Knows. You parents will relate to this one. I don’t have children, but I know they’re often tuned into persuasion better than many adults.

Feeling a little burned out? Mary Jaksch asked me to submit some tips for Write to Done in a post titled 7 Easy Ways to Energize Your Creative Powers. If you’re a professional writer, you can’t just wait for the muse to drop by. You need a few techniques for flipping the switch on creativity when you need it.

Finally, there’s one of my regular columns for DM News, one of the most recent is Problem Solver: Is it smart for an online business to use direct mail? I discuss how you can’t let a particular medium dictate your marketing strategy and ways to use direct mail to build your online business.

This should keep you busy for a while.

According to a study cited by Fast Company, urban living makes you stupid. But spending a little time in nature can give your brain a boost.

Natural settings, it seems, apply less of a load on our cognitive processes, compared to the flurry of inputs and choices an urban environment – with all its people, traffic, technology and artificial shapes and sounds – makes. Somehow this has knock-on effects deep in our brains. Of course this study simply exposes the results, and an understanding of the mental mechanisms that drive this behavior is much more complex. But it’s clear that our brains developed as we evolved in a natural environment.

And at least the study found that the beneficial effects of a natural environment counteract the negative effects of an urban one–to sharpen up your brain, you simply need to go outside and find a park to stroll in.

I think this has some importance for writers, designers, and others who spend a lot of time sitting inside staring at a computer screen for hours at a time. You gotta give yourself a break now and then or your brain locks up.

Some people can just crank it out all day long. But I start to get fuzzy after two or three hours. So I look for excuses to change the scenery.

If it’s spring or summer, I’ll take a walk around my property and futz with my roses, kick mulch back into the landscaping beds, or prune a bush or two. If it’s fall or winter, I might rake leaves, shovel a little snow, or clean out a gutter. Fun, huh? Well, it’s more fun and refreshing than staring at my computer in a fog.

At the end of the day, regardless of weather, I walk or bike around my home town (which has done a good job of maintaining plenty of green space). This is a little tricky in the winter, but even now with six inches of snow, I get out and about. I’ve always known that time outside recharges my batters pretty fast. Five minutes can give me creative juice for a few more hours.

Writing is largely about managing your brain. The cure for fatigue or writer’s block is right outside your window.