What is a brainstorm?

Since the inception of the term in 1948, brainstorming has been the most powerful tool for creative problem solving for designers and marketers. The brainstorming process has been adjusted and reworked by many, but the core principles have remained intact.

The term brainstorm elicits a vivid image of a storm of ideas in one’s mind, however the term was coined by Alex Faickney Osborn (the “O” in BBDO) to describe the technique of using the brain to “storm a creative problem and do so in commando fashion, with each stormer attacking the same objective.” I prefer this image because it describes a method that not only uses teamwork, but attacking the problem without fear.

The goal of a brainstorm is to generate creative ideas and solutions through group discussion and interaction. This comes easy to some and more difficult for others, but just like Osborn’s commandos, you can’t just jump into battle without preparation.

How do we prepare for a brainstorm?

For true creative brainstorming, we don’t want our commandos to prepare with research or preconceived solutions. We want to start with blank canvases. So, this preparation comes simply by getting each participant into the right creative mindset where anything and everything is a possibility. Therefore it’s crucial to have the right type of warm-up.

Rules of the brainstorm

However, before we go through a good brainstorm warm-up, we need to know that we’re warming up the right things. For example, if you’re about to start the Tour de France, you better stretch your legs out before you hop on a bike. Making sure your fingers are limbered up might help, but definitely isn’t as important. Identifying the correct set of muscles you’ll need is critical. The same goes for a brainstorm.

To understand how to warm up properly for a brainstorm, we must identify the muscles needed. Luckily, they’re highlighted by a set of basic rules. You might be asking yourself, “wait a second, why are there rules for a brainstorm? Won’t that kill the creativity?” Not so. The rules are more like guidelines to ensure that we create an environment where creativity can flow freely and that the focus of the brainstorm isn’t lost.

IDEO is widely regarded as the most innovative and creative-thinking company in the world. Its process for brainstorming is second to none. Here are their 7 tips for brainstorming:

• Defer judgment
• Encourage wild ideas
• Build on the ideas of others
• Stay focused on the topic
• One conversation at a time
• Be visual
• Go for quantity

What do these all have in common? An atmosphere that appreciates and encourages free thought devoid of criticism that allows participants to shoot ideas from the hip as long as they’re on topic.

Brainstorming success

To have a successful brainstorm, there must be:

1. Group Trust
   Putting yourself out there with a crazy idea is scary. This is something we’re great at as kids. A few years back, I was watching my friend’s five-year-old while he was out. On a walk, we stopped to pick some blackberries. After eating a few, I feigned a dizzy spell and proclaimed that the blackberries were turning me into a bear. I quickly reminded her that she had eaten some blackberries as well. Without hesitation, she began her transformation as well. Within minutes, we were two bears foraging for more blackberries with only grunts and growls to communicate.
   
   Try doing this with another adult – they’ll look at you like you belong in an insane asylum. Unfortunately, we learn to quiet our creative minds down as we get older because we fear being made fun of or getting rejected. David Keley, founder of IDEO, delivers a really amazing talk about creative confidence. Feeling safe in sharing creative thought is the cornerstone of becoming creative.
2. No Hierarchy
   Creativity is the property of all of us. No matter if you’re an executive or an intern, your thoughts are just as important as any other’s. (In fact, much of the time executives feel less comfortable sharing ideas because it opens them up to the possibility of being judged. Interns generally have less to lose). Also, in a great brainstorm, creativity is no longer attached to job titles. Whether you’re a creative director or a mailroom clerk, your ideas are equally valid.
3. Encouragement
   Group trust tends to vanish if encouragement is nowhere to be found. It’s much easier to break down barriers when people feel the freedom to give words of encouragement with ideas they like. A simple “nice” or “that’s great” goes a long way. (See this in action by IDEO).
4. Respect
   Although group thought is sparked by individual ones, whoever is sharing an idea absolutely needs to have everyone else’s full attention. If you put yourself out on a limb with a wild idea, it’s really easy to assume it’s a bad one when nobody is listening.
5. Laughter
   Okay, this one’s not a must, but I believe that if there’s no laughter, you’re not doing it right. (This does not mean laughing at someone’s idea in spiteful manner). Sometimes the best solutions for a serious problem grow out of wacky ideas. Did you know that the idea for the trackball in the first apple mouse came from roll-on antiperspirant? If that doesn’t make you giggle a little you’re a more mature person than me.

Unfortunately, getting into this mindset is surprisingly difficult for most of us. They require those muscles that we haven’t used for so long. We’re used to programmed thinking in which criticism and logical processes lead to results. Brainstorming is the opposite. It is where we get to come up with crazy ideas that may be totally unfeasible as they are, but can spark something magnificent.

Although I find the “Welcome everybody. Take a seat and quick! Give me your best ideas right now!” approach amusing, it won’t work. We need deliberate warm-up exercises that are not only fun, but really help your team to open their minds and set themselves up for the right type of creative thinking. I’d offer that the activity that best exercises lateral thinking and a truly creative mind is improvisational theater.

Warm-Up exercises

In improv, the term “yes and…” is king, and shutting down or editing another participant’s ideas leads to certain death. During an amateur improv performance, if you see one performer reject another’s idea, it’s like a needle scratching a record – very awkward. The foundation of improv is to accept a contribution from another person with an open mind and expand on that line of thinking. So, what better place to find ways to warm-up, than inside the improv studio. Here is a list of five great activities that will help spark the right kind of thinking for your brainstorm:

1. BANG

What it is:

Everyone stands in a circle except for the moderator, who in this game acts as the sheriff. The sheriff will quickly spin around and point her finger (mimicking a gun) at someone in a circle and yell “Bang!” That person must quickly crouch to avoid the shot.

Each person adjacent to the croucher must turn to the other and shoot at them with their hands. Instead of yelling “Bang!” they must yell the other person’s name. (It makes it a little harder to recall a name on the spot than just yelling “bang”). The slower of the two is eliminated and becomes part of the judging panel for any close contests.

When it’s down to two left, there is a duel. They must each stand with their backs to each other. The sheriff will call out random even numbers, to which each dueler will take a step. As soon as the first odd number is called, it is their signal to turn and fire yelling out the other’s name. The quickest draw wins and becomes the next sheriff.

Why it’s useful:

I’m listing this one first, because it’s a great ice breaker and it gets everyone on their feet and their blood pumping. It is also useful because it’s very good at wiping the canvas clean and transitioning participants away from “work mode” and hierarchy.

2. 185

What it is:

There is a traditional joke structure that goes like this:
185 (blanks) walk into a bar and the bartender says “Sorry, we don’t serve (blanks) here.” So the (blanks) say (punchline).

For example:

185 ducks walk into a bar and the bartender says “Sorry, we don’t serve ducks here.” So the ducks say “Awww.. but we promise to pay our bills.”

The way the game works is that you can pick a topic (I like to pick something themed for the brainstorm at hand) and then participants try to make a joke using that format. For example, in the last brainstorm I ran, we were ideating digital campaign ideas for a guitar manufacturer. One of the jokes was:

185 guitars walk into a bar and the bartender says “Sorry, we don’t serve guitars here.” So the guitars say “Well, thanks for not stringing us along.”

There’s not necessarily a set order in which to participate–anyone can jump up with their joke after the last comedian has finished. No pressure for the pun-challenged. As you progress, you can modify the format to make an advanced version. If/When there is a significant stall in the game, you can switch it up to a different topic.

Why it’s useful:

The game is admittedly cheesy, but that’s the point. Occasionally the jokes are clever winners, but more often than not, the jokes are groaners. However, this exercise really helps stretch your minds for any possibility on a subject. As soon as the first obvious jokes are exhausted, you really need to scrape your brain for anything that could possibly work. This is important to lateral thinking.

3. The Expert

What it is:

If I asked you to explain what a hat was and why it was valuable, you’d probably easily be able to do it. If I asked you to explain what a ball was and how it was valuable, you’d probably be able to easily do that too. But what if I asked you to explain what a ball-hat was and why it was valuable; could you do that?

In this game, you get the group to shout out two nouns that are to be combined into a new product. The participant must pretend to be an expert on that item. They’ll expound the product’s value and why everyone definitely needs one.

Why it’s useful:

It’s definitely a difficult game and puts participants on the spot, but you’ll be amazed at how each participant will be able to come up with something creative.

More importantly, it really gets you to think about complex solutions. To first understand how a ball-hat would be useful to anyone, you must first consider what needs are met just with a ball. Next, you must consider what needs are met with a hat. When those two are considered separately, only then can you visualize a unique combination of needs that this ball-hat would solve. And guess what? Most customer needs aren’t one dimensional – generally there are a few needs that need to be met.

Another GREAT version of this is the Reversed Brainstorm exercise from Bastiaan van de Werk.

4. Run-On Story

What it is:

I imagine most people have done some version of this game at camp, in a drama class, or on a car trip with the family. This game is simply to put together a collective story one sentence at a time.

The moderator would start by throwing out a simple prompt. For example, this could be “Mike and Sally’s Trip to the Museum”. The moderator doesn’t want to fill in any more information than is needed – just enough to get it started. From there, you go around the room in a circle and each person adds the next sentence to the story.

The game can end after a few revolutions around the room or the story seems to find a natural ending.

Why it’s useful:

This game is all about teamwork and staying on your toes. You might be waiting for your turn to come around knowing that you’re going to have Mike propose to Sally, but if the person before you kills off Sally, you’re going to be stuck. This game warms up listening skills and considers the previous contributions before opening your mouth. Building off of previous ideas is an integral part of product ideation.

5. Going to a Picnic

What it is:

This is a simple game in which your group is going to a picnic and each has to bring something they think is useful. So, it would start off with the one person saying “We’re going to a picnic and I’m going to bring a _____.”

On the first run-through of the game, the next person should respond with “Yes, but…” and give out a reason why the last person’s item wouldn’t be that great and then follow it with what they’re going to bring. And so on.

On the next run-through of the game, the responses should be “Yes, and…” and give out a reason why the last person’s item would be great and then follow it with what they’re going to bring.

Why it’s useful:

As it is, this game is particularly taxing on the creative, but the point is to show how negative reactions to ideas seem to make the picnic planning process tedious and clunky. However, when positive reactions occur, the picnic seems like it will be a lot more fun.

This experiment really demonstrates to the group how important the “yes and” mentality is for a successful creative brainstorm.

Conclusion

As a moderator, it’s really hard to get everyone comfortable with the creative brainstorming mentality in the first few minutes. These games are great ways to push people a bit out of their comfort zones in order to prevent self-censorship. Expect these warm-ups to take a bit of time with a new group, but each successive time it will go more quickly and your team will be rocketing out of the gate.

Now, on to the actual brainstorm.

(Kyle feverishly limbers up his fingers in preparation for his thoughts on running successful marketing brainstorms).

The post How To Run A Great Marketing Brainstorm: The Creative Warm-Up appeared first on Portent.

A man goes to into the doctor’s office and says it hurts no matter where he touches his body. The doctor looks at him noting that he doesn’t appear to have any full body trauma. Skeptically, the doctor says “Impossible.”

The doctor replies, “I’ll explain it to you after I fix your broken finger.”

******

What does this have to do with marketing? More than you’d think.

One of the things that I’ve come to understand more and more lately is that a shop that advertises as a full service agency isn’t always necessarily equipped to make sure your marketing program is healthy.

It doesn’t simply take an arsenal of tactical services to solve complex solutions; it takes critical thinking and a wide-angled approach.

You know better than anyone that your marketing effort is an ecosystem of different initiatives all with different targets, tactics, KPIs, and interdependent purposes. Just like a complex machine, each piece may serve a different function, however they all need to be aligned and working together. If one piece breaks down, there is no telling the magnitude of damage – and more importantly where that break-down will manifest.

Lazy Doctors Prescribe Advil to Patients on Fire

Ask any doctor, and I can guarantee you that they see patients who walk in already claiming to know exactly what their symptoms mean and what they need for treatment. (On behalf of the entire medical profession: “Thanks WebMD!”)

Sometimes those patients might even be right, but many times they’re too focused on the symptom to realize that there’s a bigger underlying problem. Sound familiar?

I’m definitely guilty of this. I’ve complained about chronic headaches and exhaustion only to be told to drink more water, take a multivitamin and get more rest. “Okay, so I didn’t go to Stanford Medical School per se, nor have I had 10 years of training and experience, but I’m pretty sure I have the plague, you quack.”

What sets good doctors apart from mediocre ones is that they’ll listen to your symptoms and instead of just focusing on the pain point, they’ll dig underneath to find the cause. They’ll analyze your entire body and make recommendations that make you healthier as a whole. They take a total body wellness approach.

Of course, they need to address the initial issue, but the last thing they’d want to do is give a quick fix, only to have the real problem growing underneath until your entire body starts to fail. By that point, it’s too late.

Lazy Marketers Throw Simple Tactics to Clients On Fire

This is exactly where you want your marketing agency to be like your amazing doctor. They should be able to take a total marketing wellness approach no matter what issue you bring to the table.

Certainly don’t ignore the problem of a channel or campaign that seems to be falling flat. But if the end-goal is top-line revenue growth, let’s have a look at your whole marketing stack before we run to prescribe some PPC-feel-good, shall we?

If your paid advertising isn’t doing well, have you analyzed your target content? Are the majority of your leads unqualified? Are you ranking for the wrong terms?

What does this look like in the real world?

A client came to us last year for help with lagging customer engagement. The symptom they described was that users would never make it to filling out their contact forms (their #1 goal). They assumed that it was ineffective content and needed help from our content team.

Of course we looked into their blog and on-page content and they certainly had room for improvement here and there, but ultimately it wasn’t that bad. However, we also looked into Google Analytics and noticed that there was actually a higher than expected bounce rate as well as low session times. Interesting.

As a team, we went through all the possibilities. Our Senior Developer was in the room and immediately said “Infrastructure.”

“What do you mean?”

“The code” he said. “Let’s take a look at the code.”

He pulled up the site and it took him a matter of minutes to zero in on the underlying issue. Much like my mother would routinely say when walking into my room as a 10-year-old, he said “Good lord. This is a mess.”

Over the next month, rather than jettison their blog, their product descriptions, and a great team of on-staff writers, we worked with them to clean up the site’s WordPress back-end and add components to nearly triple their page load speeds. Just like that, engagement immediately spiked. The problem wasn’t the content strategy, the promotion, or the writing itself, it was that their customers had a terrible time accessing all that goodness. #UXFail.

Let’s Grow Old Together

Another huge benefit of the total marketing wellness approach is providing solutions that will actually prevent issues down the line – future-proofing.

Solutions implemented to solve a single, immediate pain-point are often short-sighted. More strategic solutions that solve underlying issues frequently work as preventative care against issues down the road. Just like the goal of our awesome doctor, your marketing expert should aim to provide you with a symptomless future.

Let’s do one more example. We’ll call this: “I’m frequently stiff.” “Let’s try stretching?”

A client for whom we’d designed and built a new website last year began describing a symptom of “trouble with landing pages.” For context, they’d begun using landing pages generated by their CRM. These were incredibly easy to spin up, but they lacked flexibility and were not aligned with the design of their new site.

The initial request for our team: Find a way to bend and redesign several of the CRM’s canned landing pages.

The actual diagnosed goal: Create highly flexible, easy-to-use landing pages that didn’t require a truck-load of wasted work re-aligning each new page and campaign with a beautiful new site. Let us focus on our unique selling proposition, without the stiffness of the page getting in the way.

The long-term prescription: Using WordPress itself, we created a custom landing page builder which gave them WYSIWYG modules like calendars, video features, and product description panels, adaptable to any campaign goal. Effectively: the ridiculous simplicity of a service like Squarespace, on the more powerful, adaptable platform WordPress, without creating a graveyard of static pages.

Once we got past the initial diagnosis, each part of the treatment (module) was tailored to the specific needs of their sales team. If they were building a landing page for an event, they simply pulled in the Map module, entered an address, and wrote out the unique selling proposition. If they were building a landing page for a new whitepaper, they could prominently feature a video for thought-leader introduction, a few panels for key benefits, and off to the races.

The bottom line: This not only provided a simple and elegant solution to an initial symptom, but by taking the time to solve the root cause, that pain’s not coming back for a long, long time. And wouldn’t you know it? Those landing pages are perfectly aligned with the design and branding of the site, allowing them to dynamically update along with the site for years to come.

Future proof? Check.

Summary

The idea of a total marketing wellness approach isn’t so much ground-breaking. There’s no marketer or agency or exec that’s going to tell you they focus on one quick-fix solution at a time. But just like the WebMD enthusiast patient, if your doctor isn’t asking “why?”, you may want a second opinion.

The post Total Marketing Wellness: The Health of Your Marketing appeared first on Portent.

I love meetings. Actually, let me clarify. I like creative, strategy-focused meetings like a brainstorm or its emo cousin, the Post-Mortem.

What is a post-mortem? To some, it’s an examination of a corpse in order to determine the correct cause of death. To other more well-adjusted individuals (no offense Dana Scully), it’s a discussion (usually at the end of the project) to identify and analyze elements of a project that were successful or unsuccessful. It answers the question, “How’d we do?”

Many people find the name “post-mortem” too macabre. They’d rather call it a “retrospective,” which I find boring and lacking imagination. Even if a project was a ridiculously successful delight from start to finish, the post-mortem marks the end of a job (or phase) and your team is probably happy to have it behind them. If I had my way, I’d call it the “[insert project name] Super Post-Mortem Extravaganza!!” Now don’t tell me you wouldn’t rather go to that than the “[insert project name] Retrospective.”

Not Just For Single Projects

Many people assume that post-mortems are only for one-off projects. Although they’re extremely important for projects with a clearly defined start and end date – think apps, web sites, infographics, etc. – they’re just as useful for ongoing marketing efforts. Post-mortems can keep the big picture in perspective with monthly, quarterly, or annual reviews. Obviously, having one every month is time-consuming, but a few hours every quarter is time well spent.

Not Just For Agencies

Post-mortems aren’t just for agencies trying to retain clients or win new business. They are every bit as useful on the brand side. Marketing Directors can equally benefit by holding post-mortems after finishing any campaign or project. To note, in a perfect world, the post-mortem can involve the client team and the agency team together. Remember, it’s “How’d we do?”

So, now that you’ve been convinced of the awesomeness of the post-mortem and have probably already scheduled one, here are my 10 tips for getting the most out of your post-mortem:

(Note: For the purpose of these tips, I’ll refer to them in the context of a single campaign with a goal of completion rather than an ongoing project.)

1. Have a post-mortem for every project, no matter how small or how big, no matter what the outcome.

Even if a project is small, there are always things that pop up which will help you learn for larger projects. For example, let’s say that the project was delayed because of communication issues. This could lead to a delay of a few days for a small project. But in a massive project, this could delay you by months and more importantly, increase the cost by two-fold. Always a fun conversation with the CFO.

Importantly, post-mortems should be held no matter how well a project went. Some tend to think that a post-mortem is all about what went wrong. Again, I prefer to think of it as “how’d we do and why?” I’ve never worked on a project that went perfectly. Likewise, I’ve never worked on a project that was a complete disaster. There is always something of value to learn.

“The minute that you’re not learning I believe you’re dead.”
Jack Nicholson

2. Schedule the post-mortem directly after the project concludes.

If you’re like me, project details evaporate from memory when the big push is finished. If a project goes well we lose sight of problems in light of a job well done. If a project goes poorly we lose sight of successes as we try to figure out what went wrong. Have your post-mortem while details are still fresh. Bonus points for scheduling them in advance.

“The palest ink is better than the best memory.”
Chinese Proverb

3. Set a constructive mindset.

This is by far the most important tip on this list. A post-mortem is not about highlighting failures with the purpose of assigning blame. It’s not about reviewing employee performance. It’s about reviewing the work and the result for purposes of team and personal improvement. It needs to be constructive.

Therefore, it’s important that your team is in the right mindset: positive and learning-focused, not defensive or hypercritical. The best way to do this is to start off the conversation with something positive. Generally, the more powerful or proud they feel, the more effectively they can process constructive criticism.

As one of my team members always likes to say when things go wrong, “Well, nobody was killed, so…” Remind everyone that, no matter how embarrassing a gaffe, you can learn from it. Obviously, this doesn’t work if somebody did die, but no Portent project has killed anyone so far… so I’ve been told.

“I’m the kind of person who likes to create the environment and mindset – not because I do it deliberately, but because that’s how I like to live – where, from catering to makeup to hair to wardrobe, electricians, camera department lighting, sound, you know, it’s our movie; we’re together, and we have that camaraderie and that closeness.”
Steve McQueen

4. Create an agenda.

Even a relaxed meeting needs an agenda. The last thing we want is a completely disorganized mess that leaves you an hour later with no idea of what you actually learned. Having an agenda will actually help with all of the tips I’ve spoken about so far.

Here’s a sample agenda for an effective post-mortem:

1. Set Tone / Explain Format (5 Min) – This is possibly the most critical, pivotal 5 minutes of the meeting. It’s where you remind the group that this post-mortem is all about constructive analysis. It’s your chance to guide the mindset of the group and hopefully get them to relax and feel safe enough for a truly productive session.
2. Recap The Project (2 Min) – That’s it. You’ll give a synopsis of what the project was about and what the initial expectations were. This will let you focus on the measurable goals so you can objectively evaluate whether the project was a success.
3. Recap The Outcome (3 Min) – Although there might be a difference of opinion on how everyone thought the process went, usually there’s a pretty straightforward idea on whether the goal was met. Was the client happy? (This could be a client in the literal sense, or it could be the CMO of your own company.) Did the cost exceed the budget? Was the product delivered on time?
4. Team Member Questions (40 Min) – This is the meat of the post-mortem. Where all this setup will pay dividends. It’s where the conversation really gets going and your team members get an opportunity to speak up. It helps to jump-start by asking one person a question and allow people to riff off each other. The important thing is that everyone gets a chance to contribute. Here are the questions that I like to ask:
   1. Are you proud of our finished deliverables? If yes, what made them great? If no, what was wrong or missing?
   2. Did we get the results we wanted and did it make impact?
   3. Which of our methods or processes worked particularly well?
   4. Which of our methods or processes were difficult or frustrating to use?
   5. How would you do things differently next time to avoid this frustration?
   6. What else could we do better next time?
   7. What was the most gratifying or professionally satisfying part of the project?
5. Wrap-Up (10 Min) – This is where you thank everyone for participating and let them know that notes will be coming soon.

Admittedly, it can be really challenging to keep to this agenda on the fly, but the last thing you want to do is stop the conversation from flowing organically. Most times, the conversation will jump naturally from one question to the next. The important part is that you make sure each of the answers is a conversation and everyone is able to address them.

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
Benjamin Franklin

5. Identify the moderator.

Along with an agenda, there must be one person responsible for moderating the meeting. This is generally the same person that set the agenda and scheduled the post-mortem. Having a moderator not only creates bumper rails for the conversation, but allows all the other team members the freedom to speak their mind without worrying excessively about the structure or process.

A good moderator will give the right amount of leeway for the conversation to tackle a tangent before reigning it back in.

The moderator should also be the one to take notes. I recommend using a white board. That allows team members to stay engaged, rather than frantically scribbling notes.

“Can you repeat the part of the stuff where you said all about the things?”
Homer Simpson

6. Keep it relaxed.

As I mentioned earlier, I love creative strategy meetings. They tend to be more relaxed and therefore more fun. Dreaded, high-tension post-mortems kill creativity and seal your team into their personal shells. That kind of meeting is as productive as a team-wide nap time.

You’re uncovering uncomfortable stuff much of the time. Deliberately promote a relaxed environment. If it’s early in the morning, bring coffee and donuts. If it’s later in the day, bring beer and well… donuts. Always bring donuts.

“A cheerful frame of mind, reinforced by relaxation… is the medicine that puts all ghosts of fear on the run.”
George Matthew Adams

7. Encourage participation.

The goal of a post-mortem is a deep dive into the project and learning as a team. By surfacing the perspectives of everyone in the group – many of whom are often more in the weeds – they let us uncover issues at a micro-level that add up to a seriously macro impact. If only a few team members are speaking up, be sure and ask the others what thoughts they have. Sometimes it only takes a small amount of prodding before people feel comfortable talking.

“In teamwork, silence isn’t golden, it’s deadly.”
Mark Sanborn

8. Leave the laptops behind.

Just like creative brainstorms, I prefer that post-mortems are screen-less affairs. Folks are encouraged to bring notes, but computers often provide more distraction than they’re worth. For those already a bit hesitant to share their thoughts, there’s nothing worse than opening up only to find that people aren’t paying attention. A post-mortem should create dialogue and bounce thoughts and ideas back and forth. There’s no room for a computer in this process – even for note taking. (I’ll explain why later.)

“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser focus.”
Bruce Lee

9. Develop actionable takeaways.

Even the most productive post-mortem is no good unless there are clear, actionable takeaways. “Do better” is a noble takeaway indeed, but how do you act on that next time? You need specific to-dos the team can remember in the heat of the next project.

In our previous example, if communication was the problem, perhaps the actionable takeaway is to set more regular, in-person check-ins.

Actionable takeaways set clear expectations. The team can hold each other accountable for implementing them on the next project.

“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.”
Jack Welch

10. Share post-mortem takeaways.

Nothing groundbreaking here. The last important tip is to share the post-mortem takeaways with anybody who might benefit from your newly-found pearls of wisdom. This definitely includes your post-mortem attendees. But spend the time to identify others in your company who deal with the same challenges.

“Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.”
His Holiness the Dalai Lama

While some of these tips are bit more rigid than others, the most important thing to remember is to keep the nature of the post-mortem light, yet still productive and impactful. If you succeed, you’ll watch your team take away immensely valuable insights that’ll make the next project even better.

Or if this is all just too much, just be sure and call it a Super Post-Mortem Extravaganza. And bring donuts.

The post 10 Tips for a Successful Post-Mortem appeared first on Portent.

What is this IMC you speak about?

There are a few definitions for Integrated Marketing Communications, but my favorite is from the Northwestern School of Journalism: “IMC is a strategic marketing process specifically designed to ensure that all messaging and communications strategies are unified across all channels and are centered around the customer.” Simply put, it is the principle that marketing is most effective if every marketing channel has communication that is aligned to the same core brand positioning.

Like many good marketing strategies, this initially seems like a “duh” principle. Clearly you don’t want to have marketing that makes your brand look like it has some sort of split-personality disorder like Gollum from The Hobbit. (“No, not social media! / It will cheat you, hurt you, LIE! / But, social media is our friend!”) But getting all your marketing communications aligned is trickier than you may think.

Why now?

IMC is not a new concept, but it’s more important than ever, as there are now more marketing channels than ever before. Back in the 50’s, marketing campaigns relied heavily on print, radio, and television. It didn’t take much to keep these aligned.

But, now with digital media, we have everything from newsletters to social media campaigns. Our marketing tool sheds are filled with new and effective tactics that range from broad messaging (your website’s homepage) to targeting more niche groups (via Instagram).

In bigger companies, each marketing channel will have a different manager, which is all the more reason to make sure that high level IMC strategies are in place.

Examples, please!

An IMC expert once told me that when he first engages a client, he would audit their entire property. This obviously includes their entire digital efforts, but also included things that they might not expect.

In the case of a restaurant, he’d visit the restaurant and bring a notepad and paper taking note of everything from the condition of the parking lot to the personalities of the waiters. If the brand messaging of the restaurant is elegance and fresh foods, it really doesn’t help if the dumpster is viewable from the parking lot. Every little piece that contradicts your brand messaging is a step back.

Likewise, let’s take a look at a brand that seems to come up on everyone’s list as the gold standard for marketing – Apple. Apple stands for innovation, simplicity and style. Not only do their commercials, print ads, and website all share the same design aesthetic, but they bring the same qualities to their retail stores and even their products. For example, their customer service center – the Genius Bar – is set up to be simple, easy, and effective, just like an iPad.

What’s bad IMC?

One of the most common pitfalls for brands in terms of IMC is the use of too many tools for social media. Some brands have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Foursquare, Yelp, etc., when their audience only really pays attention to one or two of those channels. What ends up happening here is that although one channel looks nice and engages in meaningful conversation, the others look like a barren wasteland that ignores their audience. Not good.

But even when you have someone concentrating specifically on your social media, they need to not only be aware of the messaging they are trying to convey, but the manner in which they are conveying that message. Sometimes, it doesn’t always go well (See Exhibit A and Exhibit  B below).

Exhibit A

Here’s a post from ZzzQuil early in 2014:

And here’s one of the many responses they got:

Exhibit B

And again, what seemed like a genuine post from Gap:

And as you’d expect, it didn’t get the best response.

Another thing that sometimes brands forget about is that even though you may not be able to directly alter the messaging for external sources, you still need to be aware of it and try and shape it best you can. This can be done by how you choose to respond to audience communication. If this is done improperly, it’s the same as having poor communication in the first place.

TL;DR

The point of IMC is to make sure that every piece of marketing is paid attention to. If every piece is in harmony, the overall result is much more powerful and the audience will be able to hear what your brand is trying to say. Each piece, no matter how small, shares the same responsibility in providing a strong brand identity. Each and every drop causes the flood.

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