Month: March 2026

Producing marketing that stands out in a crowded market is perhaps the biggest challenge creative teams face. And it’s one that’s likely to get harder as homogenised, AI-generated content overwhelms the internet. It’s maybe never been more important to be adventurous and unique – but how can you teach yourself to think outside the box? Where do the sparks of inspiration that really resonate come from?

At Radix, we’re often asked to come up with creative concepts for clients. And we also spend time finding original, creative angles for our own content, so new clients can find us. We actually have our own internal guide – a sort of creativity companion – full of exercises and techniques for shaking ideas free and approaching things in different ways.

So, we thought it might be useful to share some of the key takeaways from our guide that could help you unlock new ways of creative thinking.

Here are five simple rules for doing just that. (And a free, printable poster)

1. Embrace ‘bad’ ideas

There’s a lot of truth to the old expression “perfect is the enemy of done”.

Sometimes the desire to get something just so is a hinderance to doing anything at all. And when you’re stuck in the starting blocks because your idea isn’t absolutely perfect, it can spell trouble.

The truth is that getting started is sometimes the only thing that will bring clarity. It might be producing a first draft that unlocks the insight needed to improve it. Or it might be workshopping those ideas that almost work instead of discarding them because they’re not quite right. Either way, this is about removing barriers and actually getting things done – because perfect will probably never arrive.

Remember, bad ideas can lead to good ideas, and failed attempts plant the seeds for future best practice. You don’t want the public or your clients to see the things that don’t work, but, especially during ideation, don’t be afraid to experiment with new things. You’ll learn as much from what doesn’t work as what does, so encourage free thinking and an ‘anything goes’ mindset.

2. Put a different hat on it

The way you deliver information is just as important as the information itself. If everyone is talking about the same topic, is there a way you can stand out by choosing a different medium? Could a video series drive more engagement than a white paper for a busy CEO? Would a physical mailer set your offering apart? Or is there an emerging content type that could capture the imagination of your target audience?

A good marketing campaign requires a mix of content formats. But there’s no reason a generic ebook can’t be reimagined as a something more dynamic, interactive, and interesting that generates word of mouth.

3. Adopt a new identity

When we’re trying to come up with a fresh angle on a popular topic, one thing we do to  approach things differently is adopt different personas. There are a couple of ways we deploy this idea.

With our own content, decisions are often made based on our level of expertise on a topic. For instance, if it’s something we know well, we’ll adopt the persona of an expert. On the other hand, if it’s an emerging topic, we adopt the persona of a curator or interviewer and explore the subject through the eyes of those who do know (while educating ourselves and our audience in the process).

Here are some personas to try out:

The Expert

The expert is extremely knowledgeable in their field. They’ve seen it all play out before and are in a perfect position to provide advice or explain what something really means.

The Curator

On the other end of the spectrum is the curator; a watchful, thoughtful persona that scours and compiles different opinions. By exploring and comparing different takes on topics, you can become really useful to readers who want to gain a quick but thorough understanding of the subject.

The Trend Spotter

Predictions are risky, but there’s something intrinsic to human nature about wanting to know how the future will play out. By speculating (in an educated way) about the potential impact of emerging trends, you can create content that people really engage with – especially as this kind of content leaves lots of room for differing opinions.

The Interviewer

If there’s an interesting new topic that you don’t feel you have the authority to speak about, it can be useful to find an expert in the field (or more than one) and explore the topic in an interview. This is where your SMEs will come in handy. The added benefit of this is that your interviewees are likely to share the piece through their own channels, which will result in more engagement and traffic coming your way.

Another way to find a fresh angle is something we call the adjective game. We use this to find our voice or stance on a topic, writing a variety of headlines based on different adjectives. For instance, one that’s controversial, speculative, dismissive, amusing, or philosophical. These ideas don’t have to be immediately suitable, and it’s fine to be completely over the top. A slightly softer incarnation of an extreme headline can provide a good starting point to delve into a topic. It’s also a great way to come up with different subject lines for email campaigns.

4. Open up the floor

Within your teams, you’ll have lots of personality types, each with their own ways of tackling issues or generating ideas. Only you can think like you, but that also means you can only think like you. So, use the ideation stage of a campaign to field ideas from a broad range of people. You’ll be amazed at how differently they’ll tackle a challenge or topic, and you’ll find yourself with a wider range of perspectives and possibilities.

5. Get out of your head

As a writer, I never sit and stare at a blank page, because that’s when my brain says, “Nope.” There’s nothing less inspiring than a flashing cursor on an empty Word document.  In fact, I don’t even open a Word doc until I know what my first sentence is.

Trying to force ideas isn’t something that ever works. In fact, sometimes taking time away from that thinking allows those ideas to form properly in the back of your mind. Try stepping away; get your body moving, take a shower, walk the dog. Give your brain room to breathe and see what happens.  You can also try using different tools to force your brain into new ways of thinking. For instance, a pencil and paper might seem archaic, but they change the pace you work at, and this slightly more meditative and distraction-free state of mind might be exactly what you need.

Here, have a thing we made

There’s no single solution to creative thinking. Different things work for different people – but often the key is tricking yourself into thinking differently.

If you found these tips useful, you might like the printable poster we designed as a little reminder.

 

**When looking for inspiration for our internal creativity guide, I adapted some ideas from my friend Dion’s book, Creativity Begins With You. If you’d like to explore the topic in more detail, I highly recommend it.

 

Behind every successful B2B organisation, there’s an elite marketing team dedicated to building the brand and driving revenue. And behind every elite marketing team, there’s an inspirational leader.

Andrew Soane has decades of marketing leadership experience, and he knows what it takes to lead and scale high-performing marketing teams. We sat down with him to get to the heart of what great marketing leadership looks like.

Radix: What are the hallmarks of a successful marketing team? What are they doing that other teams aren’t?

Andrew: The strongest marketing teams are commercially obsessed. They operate as true revenue partners to the sales team, not as an internal service function. And that means having shared accountability (with sales) for pipeline quality, deal progression, and growth – and a relentless focus on building a repeatable revenue engine, not just running campaigns.

High-performing teams are also cross-functional by design. And the best marketers act as connectors, bringing together sales, product, partnerships, and delivery to create alignment around customers, value propositions, and go-to-market execution.

They’re also systems-driven, not hero-driven. Exceptional individuals matter, but it’s not scalable. The most effective teams embed marketing into the organisation’s operating model through clear business processes, shared data, and repeatable programmes, so impact isn’t reliant on a handful of people

Part of this systems-driven approach is having a programmatic balance of brand and performance marketing. Clearly, you’re not going to succeed if you’re over-indexing on brand and under-investing in performance, or vice versa. It’s left- and right-brain thinking; successful teams invest in long-term brand and trust while building demand engines that convert attention into measurable revenue.

And lastly, these days, truly effective teams are using AI and automation to build their insights, inform their planning, and handle repeatable tasks.

Radix: How do you define ‘success’ for a marketing team – and how do you measure it?

Andrew: For me, success comes down to revenue impact, and there are three outcome areas every marketing leader should track.

The first is about marketing’s contribution to growth. If marketing is truly a revenue partner to the business, then success is measured by growth contribution. Pipeline creation, win rate, and revenue influenced. These are the metrics that matter most at board and executive level.

The second is brand strength. That’s about indicators such as share of voice, inbound lead quality, brand searches, and so on. Signals that tell you whether the market understands who you are and why you matter.

And the third is execution health. Metrics like web traffic and engagement, MQLs, event performance, and conversion rates. The specific KPIs will vary by organisation, tactics, and channels, but the underlying principle remains the same. They should be seen as performance indicators, not end goals.

The mistake I see too often is marketing teams over-indexing on execution metrics when talking to the board. The C-suite cares less about MQL volume or funnel size, and far more about how marketing is accelerating pipeline and driving revenue growth.

Strong marketing leaders translate performance into a language their CRO, CEO, and other executive leaders understand. Today’s technology has given us is the ability to do this through shared dashboards and aligned reporting across marketing and sales. Investing in that transparency is critical to building trust and credibility at the top table.

Radix: As a leader, how do you nurture motivation and engagement across the team?

Andrew: Motivation starts with clarity of mission. Teams need to understand where the business is going, what it’s trying to achieve, and how each individual contributes to that journey.

People are far more engaged when they feel part of the plan, not just recipients of it. As leaders, it’s our responsibility to share wins, celebrate successes, and ensure teams get visibility with senior leadership so their impact is recognised.

Clear career pathways and opportunities to learn and develop are also critical. But perhaps the most important leadership skill is creating a culture of honesty and openness.

Truly effective leaders build 360° feedback into their teams. If I’m doing something that frustrates or slows you down, I want to hear about it so I can change my behaviour. Ultimately, I try to treat people the way I’d want to be treated myself. If you get that right, you can’t go far wrong.

I learned this early in my leadership career – sometimes the hard way. In my first big role as Managing Director, I was responsible for multiple UK teams, and I had to oversee a significant downsizing, visiting each office to make the announcement.

At the first office, I moved too quickly through the context and focused on the outcomes. I thought they would be more interested in the impact of what I was announcing – the planned redundancies themselves.

That evening, the local manager called to tell me the team were upset because they didn’t understand the reasoning behind the decision. So that night, I prepared like crazy, so I could answer every possible question anyone could have.

The next day, I returned to the same office, apologised and explained the full context, and answered each and every question openly. While people were still understandably unhappy about the redundancies, they felt respected, informed and able to participate in the consultation process in an informed way.

I learned a big lesson that day: in any change, transparency matters more than comfort. When people understand the why, they’re far more likely to take ownership, contribute constructively, and stay engaged even in difficult moments.

Radix: What are the building blocks of an effective marketing strategy?

Andrew: There’s a famous quote from Michael Porter, a professor at Harvard Business School: “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

I love that idea. For me, strategy starts with absolute clarity on what the business is trying to achieve. That usually means beginning with revenue goals, then layering in ICPs, buyer personas, customer journeys, competitor gaps, market dynamics, and so on.

Very often, the hard work is going back to basics, with clearly defined offerings, sharp propositions, and a coherent product or services strategy. Without that foundation, it’s almost impossible to build an effective marketing strategy; you’re simply amplifying ambiguity.

Once you have that clear, customer-centric proposition and narrative in place, building the strategy becomes a collaborative exercise. The strongest strategies are built in partnership with sales, product, and partner teams, tailored to how the organisation actually goes to market.

When marketing plays that connective role, aligning stakeholders around clear choices and priorities, marketing and GTM strategy stops being a document and becomes a shared operating model for growth.

Radix: One final question – if you could give a marketer stepping into a leadership role just one piece of advice, what would it be?

Andrew: I’d encourage leaders to stop thinking about campaigns and start thinking like a CRO. The real job of marketing leadership is to build marketing systems that drive sustainable growth, not just run activities.

That mindset shift is already changing the shape of senior marketing roles. I’m seeing more CMOs step into broader roles spanning strategy, growth, and commercial execution, in some cases evolving into Chief Strategy Officer or Chief Growth Officer roles. That’s a healthy and important development, because it positions marketing where it belongs, at the centre of business decision-making, with a clear line of sight to growth

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