Whether you’re a marketer or the founder of a bright, new start-up; having creative skills can make a huge difference in helping you to achieve success, no matter what you may do.
It will not only help you to produce better content – which in the modern, content driven marketing world of today is a must, but it will also help you to transform and sell your ideas, internally, or it can even help you to climb up the career ladder.
Learning creative skills is fun, and most of these skills can even become a great hobby. Unfortunately, a lot of people try to put off learning these skills by using the most common excuse – “I’m not creative enough”. Don’t fall for it. You can learn and practice creative skills, just like any other.
So, which creative skills should you acquire to impress your colleagues, bosses or clients?
Writing
This one’s a no-brainer. Marketers are responsible for the majority of communications that are sent from any company, on top of writing end of year or month reports and, of course, implementing marketing strategies.
Most marketers can write well, but not necessarily in an engaging way. Remember that people are truly only interested in themselves and what you can do for them. Find a connection, be more direct, write about their pain points and how your product or service will address them.
Consider taking marketing copywriting writing classes, or check online courses on Udemy or Linda.com
Photography
Easy, fun and useful – most people have taken photos of their family and social life, but it’s likely that they do not consider how this creative skill can be a bonus for your career. Use this skill at work to help fill your social media with quality photos. Take photographs to document events or even to add faces to customer testimonials, after all, prospects can engage with your content a lot better when it is visually appealing.
Expect to spend some money for a camera. It needs to offer manual controls, at least 4/3″ sensor size (better low light performance) and a raw file support (for correcting any mistakes, post shot).
Digital cameras have made photography much easier to learn, as you can see the results instantly and experiment with different settings. There are plenty of free courses on Youtube – you can start with this one by Allversity
Graphic Design
You may have great ideas but communicating them to stakeholders is just as important. Designing an excellent presentation or an infographic may be the difference between a good or an enthusiastic reception. It can give you that edge that is often the difference between idea being implemented immediately or an idea being postponed indefinitely.
Having even a basic knowledge of Graphic Design can help you to improve your communication with designers – often leading to decreasing the number or revisions, and can improve the way that you utilise the assets and templates that they provide.
Try Photoshop – it’s an industry standard and will open the files that your designers provide. It’s a powerful and complicated software that may see a bit daunting at first, but there are practically unlimited learning resources. Remember that Google and Youtube are your friends.
If you can’t get Photoshop, consider using one of this online graphic editors.
Photoshop is just a tool, and just like swinging a hammer or using a saw won’t build you a new desk – you will need to learn some graphic design theory to help you create eye pleasing graphics. Start by learning some principles of design like balance, contrast, and white space. Then study grid design and color theory.
HTML & CSS
Many marketers cringe at the thought of coding, and this may be one of the best reasons to learn some basics and stand out. Writing content using CMS, tweaking email templates or landing pages on your own, can save you or your company a lot of time and money.
HTML is easy; you can learn it in a day or two. CSS requires a bit more time, but you can stick to the basics. Why not take a look at this free course on codeacademy to get started
Side Effect
Improving your creative skills will improve your perception of detail and can highlight what makes some things more attractive than others. It will help you to improve your communication with your design team, speeding up and increasing the quality of any work that you assign.
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