Innovation can be a marketer’s most strategic asset, says Shideh Sedgh Bina, founding partner of Insigniam, and a speaker at the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association Leadership Conference. Here, Bina shares her insight on how marketers can overcome obstacles and improve results through innovation.
What are some challenges marketers are facing these days, and can they be resolved through innovation?
“Everyone’s trying to come to terms with the digital channel. It’s not so much about innovation. It’s about dealing with the innovation that the digital space has provided. The digital space is innovation in and of itself, and it’s about creating value in that space.”
Define innovation.
“[At Insigniam,] we define innovation as anything that creates more value. You want to constantly be creating more value as your customers need it. Internal innovation is also about adding value. And I don’t think innovation has to be housed in marketing functions; I think that innovation is a key enabler of marketing functions.”
What are some specific ways that marketers can innovate and create value?
“For Insigniam, at least, it’s about creating platforms that are interesting and conversations that are worth engaging in. I see CMOs dealing with that a lot. How to add value to the conversations they are having in their various channels.”
What’s an example of something Insigniam has done or is doing to support innovation?
One of the things we’ve done is Insigniam Quarterly. This is a print magazine that allows executives to share their story. It’s also digital. Our biggest challenge right now is to create something that’s compelling, and this helps.
How do you envision the next era of marketing, in terms of where we are now with mobile marketing? How might the landscape change over the next few years?
“I think we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg about moving into a more mobile [marketing] environment. I think that what we are doing in the mobile marketing environment is going to be obsolete in the next 10 years. At the beginning…the app was like a portal to a [company’s] website. But I think it’s going to expand; we’re going to get more sophisticated mobile apps.
