As B2B marketers, we’re all guilty of falling into certain patterns. Through force of habit, one way to do things can become the way to do things. But the world of B2B moves fast, and we can’t afford to rest on our laurels.
That’s why innovation is essential to our culture. In this blog, we share four tactics the Radishes use on a daily basis that help springboard novel thinking and fresh ideas.
Carve out time for idea generation
Twice a year, we hold our Innovation Kitchen where we set aside client work for a whole day. During the session, we encourage everyone in the team to pitch a new idea for the agency, especially from Radishes who might not normally get the opportunity.
Lorna Charlish
The point of Innovation Kitchen is to ask a number of questions:
- What could we do better?
- What new tools or techniques can we try?
- What kind of projects do we want to work on?
Importantly, nothing is off the table – no idea is too small or too ‘out there’. A critical part of the session is making sure we can actually action some of the ideas. That’s why we sort through the suggestions by priority level, measuring their expected impact and resource allocation. We then assign timelines to each of them (30 days, 90 days or six months) and regroup after three months to check on their progress.
The perfect example of how productive these sessions can be was our first Innovation Kitchen of 2022. It was where we put our plans and ideas for the metaverse into action. We set ourselves a goal to host our first ever metaverse social in Spatial within 30 days, and have our first client project go live in the space within the next six months.
Did we know everything about the metaverse before we brought our first headsets? Absolutely not. Did we make mistakes building our first virtual room? Of course.
But that’s the point of Innovation Kitchen: to create a space where you can test new ideas, fail fast and learn from your experiences.
Look outside of B2B for new ideas
When we’re running short on ideas, we turn to something called ‘The Deck of Brilliance’. It has more than 50 prompts that challenge us to see a problem from a new perspective, and tackle it in a different way. It’s a brilliant resource.
Sarah Purvis
We’re big believers that the best inspiration comes from the most unlikely places. That’s why the content and creative teams use things like Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies alongside the Deck of Brilliance in brainstorming sessions to shake off the cobwebs and think outside the box. We also gather the team every Friday morning for an hour-long “creative inspo” session where everyone shares something that’s inspired them that week – whether it’s a great B2C campaign, a superb piece of copywriting, an unusual Instagram post or an interactive website.
Great ideas start with great people
Earlier this year we launched The Growth Academy, a new initiative where we hire fresh talent who might not necessarily get a chance elsewhere because of a lack of marketing experience. As much as we’ll be mentoring graduates on B2B marketing, we think they’ll teach us a lot as well.
Owen Steer
Sometimes, hiring the right people means growing them from the ground up. It’s a great way to encourage best practice from the start of a marketer’s career. But we’re also confident that turning to youth will encourage innovation – having a strong Gen-Z perspective feeding into the company keeps our minds open and our ideas fresh.
Dig deeper into the problem
I get inspired by understanding a challenge – that’s where good ideas come from. It’s also about asking, ‘What have their customers accepted that they shouldn’t have to accept?’ ‘What could make it better?’
Lorna Charlish
We all know that a critical part of any strategy is understanding, not assuming, what your customer’s pain point is. But the process you use to extract that insight can trigger and inspire new ideas. We often gather topic matter experts and senior leaders in small, intimate groups to explore the behaviours, priorities and interests of our target audience. Understanding what they don’t want – and what they care about on a personal level – is often the key to unlocking a great idea.
It worked for our award-winning campaign for Exasol: the creative idea was all about expressing what people were putting up with from database queries, and how Exasol’s solution would actually make their lives much easier.
Making innovation routine
That’s just a glimpse into what we do at Digital Radish to embed idea generation and creative thinking into our day-to-day. The Harvard Business Review has some good advice, too – it’s all well and good having lots of ideas, but without clear goals, processes and timelines, they can disappear just as quickly as they arrive.
The point is, ideas need action to thrive – even if they don’t always work out. In fact, giving ourselves permission to fail is what encourages us to try new things. So, set yourself a challenge. Over the next week, try setting up a 15-minute creative inspo session with your team to broaden your thinking, or try using the Deck of Wonders as a prompt to solve a creative problem. Whatever you do, start small and think big.
Selbey Anderson Group of agencies