• by editor , David Baker , January 8, 2007

Creative e-mail marketing is not just about pretty pictures or clever copy. It's about creating interesting and engaging ideas and reasons for a consumer to engage with you, then applying what you know to facilitate the online exchange.

From time to time I facilitate creative workshops. These have proven to be help stimulate creative thoughts, renew energy, and most importantly, clear the cobwebs away from e-mail programs already in motion. As a result, participants find they can focus on what's really important to their program--valuable for the business and marketing team, and ultimately to the consumer.

Here's how you can run your own creative workshop.

It begins with setting up a room: place white paper all around the room, colored pens (Sharpies®), colored Post-it® Notes (yellow, purple, pink) and a table full of candy.

Several visualization exercises help focus the group, then you open it up into four sessions of 10 minutes each. Allow each person to contribute ideas without passing any judgment on the ideas as they come. Even silly suggestions can stimulate great ideas further along in the process. At this stage, censor nothing.

Session one: Write down everything about your target consumers that builds a picture of their physiological, psychological, and social networking needs.

Session two: Focus on your promotions. What could you possibly give to these consumers to entice them to become a customer, remain a customer or be a customer advocate?

Session three: Write down ways in which you could possibly reach these consumers. Don't limit the suggestions to e-mail. In one session, participants suggested fortune tellers, skywriting, and tattoos. Some of the most creative "containers" for e-mail came from alternative channels.

Session four: Have everyone write down all the factors they want to measure to help them understand consumers' perception of the company or product, their loyalty, and marketing performance in general. It's interesting to see how desired measurements vary according to job title: CEO, vice president, marketing manager, etc.

These sessions have a few general rules.

(1) You must break and tell a joke or do a mind teaser between sessions to "clear the palate."

(2) Everyone must contribute. It takes a strong facilitator to get everyone involved and to be bold enough to pick on any high-ranking people in the session.

(3) Afterward, go through every written submission. If the notes aren't clear, make the author rewrite it (even if it's your CEO's). Show no bias or fear; remember there are NO titles in brainstorming sessions.

(4) Keep the energy levels high. I've even done this with everyone standing up. It's great to have everyone post their ideas on a central board using sticky notes. This keeps everyone moving and makes it a bit chaotic.

(5) Use small Post-it® Notes and Sharpies®--it keeps participants from writing a book. If someone can put more than 20 words on a 3 x5 Post-it®, I'll hire them to write copy for mobile devices.

Try this in your organization and see how much creativity you can draw out of your team. It may take a few times, but you'll gradually find your people are expanding how they look at the consumer, the business and the relative exchange these can have. Most importantly, when you mix fun with creativity you should get a winning program. I plan to write a follow-up column later that will give you some ideas of how to apply this to communication planning.

Let me know how it goes. I would love to hear your stories.