Brainstorming techniques

While brainstorming is primarily free, creative thinking, it’s also a creative process used to generate ideas and solutions. Processes can be good as they set a focus – and regardless of how free-thinking you want to be, a process will help get you started and keep you on track. Have a look at the following infographic of brainstorming techniques. While this list of techniques isn’t exhaustive, there are some effective brainstorming techniques to help with your idea generation. The techniques are described in more detail below.

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Traditional brainstorming

Collect all ideas, as you never know if a half-idea that doesn’t seem to work on its own could improve another idea generated later. Open the discussion by presenting the problem, and just see what people come back with. What you’re doing here is freeing them up to approach the problem in their own preferred manner.

How could you apply this to your digital content?

Set the scene for brainstorming by advising your group that you’ll accept all ideas, and then ask a question or make a statement that you’d like them to address, such as:

• how can we improve the website for our customers?
• what type of content should we be developing for our social media?
• how could our eNewsletter be better?
• in what ways do you think we could produce videos?

Mind mapping

Document all ideas and use lines to connect related ideas to show how the ideas flow. This is a great activity for people who grasp concepts visually. It also takes advantage of the fact that the creative process isn’t always linear.

How could you apply this to your digital content?

There are a few ways you could approach apply mind mapping to your digital content. Your central idea could be your outcome (bookings to an event, purchase of your product) and you can extend from there. Your central idea could also be your audience, with your branches connecting with the stages of their customer journey. Or you could start with your product, and branch out into the value it provides to customers or the problems it solves.

Reverse brainstorming

This is a great way to break people or a team out of ingrained habits, which have primarily been about fixing things. So focus on generating ideas to cause or exacerbate the problem. Then, flip these ideas to identify potential solutions.

Here’s how it could work:

• Firstly, identify the problem or challenge you want to solve.
• Instead of brainstorming solutions, brainstorm ways to make the problem or situation worse.
• Analyse the ideas you’ve come up with to find reasons behind your main problem or issue.
• Use this analysis as a starting point for your brainstorming.

How could you apply this to your digital content?

Imagine for a moment that you’re a clothing retailer. You need ideas to help bring people into the store, or to buy online. Your reverse brainstorming process could look like this:

• Firstly, identify the problem or challenge you want to solve.
• Instead of brainstorming solutions, brainstorm ways to make the problem or situation worse. For example, how could we alienate people on social media? What could we do to our website to ensure nobody ever followed up or sent an enquiry?
• Analyse the ideas you’ve come up with to find reasons behind your main problem or issue.
• Use this analysis as a starting point for your brainstorming. How do you fix these points?

Role-storming

Walk the group through a scenario – they are the audience. They are now providing ideas based on what they know about your business, but also with the knowledge they have from within the business.

How could you apply this to your digital content?

Once your group are in ‘audience mode’, set them a task that includes questions such as:

• you approach our business in the digital world – what do you see?
• what do you like?
• what do you respond to?
• what would you like to see that is currently missing?
• do you understand the language that we’re using?

Take them deeper into their role as an audience member, and add their insights (which includes knowledge of your business) to the other market research you may have.

Word association

First of all, give people the parameters around what you’re looking for, and then start with a random word and then quickly list words or ideas that come to mind.

How could you apply this to your digital content?

You could start here with the audience perception of your brand, product, service or staff, or a mindset people have about why they’d need your product. For example, if you’re an insurance company, you might start with “car”, which could generate related words:

• driving on the weekend
• holiday
• mum’s taxi
• getting to work.

Now armed with these words, you could develop content around “Why our XYZ model makes your Mum’s taxi a safer ride for your family” or rethink your website content so your product pages show how driving on the weekend is better when you don’t have to worry about accidents or insurance.

Remember that the effectiveness of these techniques may vary depending on the context and the individuals involved. Experiment with different techniques to find the ones that work best for you and your team.

Share your thoughts

Reflect on a challenge you have encountered with your digital content or digital strategy. Which of the techniques outlined in this article would help you resolve that challenge? Why do you think that technique would be effective? Share your thoughts in the comments.