All You Need is a Good Idea!: How to Create Marketing Messages that Actually Get Results

Chapter 2. THE POWER OF AN IDEA

Welcome to the wonderful world of ideas.

You've been here before of course. Remember when you thought of putting cinnamon on top of your cola? Or when you decided to take digital photos of your old black and white family pictures, so that you would have them in a digital format without the expense and bother of scanning.

You've had product improvement ideas for your original Phufkel too, or ideas for a brand new Phufkel. You've had ideas on how to hold more productive sales meetings, grow a territory, shrink a budget, reward a key salesperson.

Very often you've seen the positive results. Good for you.

The world of the creative selling/marketing idea is even more rewarding.

More difficult? Sure. Possibly more fraught? No doubt. But there's nothing like the rewards you can achieve from a good idea.

As we all know, nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come, though I doubt Victor Hugo actually had this book in mind when he said that.

The question is this: Is it really worth the effort it can take to create a good idea? Do you really need one? Here's part of the answer: The market research firm Yankelovich, quoted in the New York Times, estimates "a person living in a city 30 years ago saw up to 2,000 ad messages a day, compared with up to 5,000 today." Given that information, we are left with the question, what does your business need to do to have your marketing message stand out from the other 4,999?

Perhaps the answer is simply to create a ...