Digital marketing often leans on familiar, trusted formats. Templates that have worked before. Content structures that feel safe to stakeholders. Campaign plans that run on repeat. And of course, all the practical parts like analytics dashboards, cost-per-click charts, code, sales graphs and campaign structures.

It can be easy to stick with what works, and there’s no problem with that. 

If it delivers results and saves time and energy, it’s valuable.

But marketing, at its heart, is a creative art form too. And when we treat it that way, we unlock new ideas, new audiences and new ways to connect.

Digital marketing is its own art form

Digital marketing mirrors many of the same skills artists use. Storytelling drives how we communicate what an organisation does and why it matters. Visual composition appears in everything from social media grids to campaign landing pages (see examples of some of our favourite social media templates). Rhythm and timing show up in how we plan content calendars and when we release key messages.

There is also a level of intuition involved. Understanding what an audience needs - what will resonate, and what will fall flat - relies on empathy and creative judgement. Even data-led decisions require interpretation. When we recognise these overlaps, it becomes easier to see digital marketing as a creative practice rather than a checklist.

Creative inspiration does not only come from big ideas or long planning sessions - though these are helpful, too. Most of it appears in day-to-day moments. A conversation with a colleague that sparks a new angle, a pattern you spot in comments on a post, or a small detail you notice during a commute. Something you read, watch or listen to, that triggers a useful thought.

Artists pay attention to the world around them to stay creatively engaged, and marketers can do the same. Exhibitions, books, podcasts, workshops, team meetings and even user behaviour data can all prompt new directions for content and campaigns.

Practical creativity habits

For arts marketers, many will have entered the field either as artists themselves, or with a passion for arts, culture and heritage. Most probably, you are regularly working directly with artists, so take inspiration from them!

Try to be an artist yourself whenever you can. Being an artist can mean creating something that conveys your perspective on the world around you. Here are some ideas to do just that:

If you have a spare 15 minutes on your lunch break, take a notebook and pencil, and sketch something that catches your eye, or use your phone camera to take pictures of things you haven’t spotted before on the street. You don’t need to be a brilliant artist to do this, and you definitely don’t need to show anyone!  But this small action can help you to notice, explore, and more deeply engage with your everyday surroundings.

If you enjoy working with words over visual concepts, word association is a quick and easy way to get the creative thoughts flowing. Start with a random word taken from your head, an email, or a news article. Set a timer for a minute or two, and write the next word that comes to mind that you associate with the previous word. Continue until the timer runs out, and see how many you’ve got. What did you start and end with? If you have some spare time, you could even make up a story that associates those two words. This exercise can help train the mental muscle that builds links between concepts. 

I once attended a poetry workshop that offered several exercises to give yourself constraints and rules, which can lead to more creativity. One of these was to write in a space you’re not used to, or isn’t your typical writing location. Another was to write down three trains of thoughts you’ve had, and two things you’ve experienced that week. Take one train of thought, and one experience - then create a poem, or a short piece of writing - out of this. This can spark new reflections on things you’ve already been thinking about in the back of your mind.

As a filmmaker, inspiration also arrives from research. Start by diving into a topic that interests you - maybe something you’ve read in a book or an article, or seen in a video. What can you find online? Are there articles that discuss the topic more deeply, or a documentary that explores it? I recently went to a talk by a writer, who raised the point that as they research something widely and broadly, they might find a nugget of information - something that feels like it’s arrived in their hands by magic - just to be part of their narrative. 

Finally, a great scientist once said: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”. Everything that we know in science or the humanities is from individuals building on other people’s ideas, exploring them further, more deeply, or expanding that knowledge. And it’s the same with art. Artists go to exhibitions, work with other artists, research a topic in detail, cross-pollinate ideas, and use this to take inspiration for their own work. For more ideas, see this article from The Guardian on ways to feel creatively inspired.

Simple systems for capturing sparks

As arts marketers, we’re lucky to have the creative minds of our peers to draw from. Watch content from your favourite institutions, scroll through social media to find posts you enjoy, and chat with other marketers from similar organisations to put your heads together and creatively solve a challenge.

Useful ideas often arrive when you are not actively looking for them, so having somewhere to store them makes a big difference. Once you’ve set that creative brain in motion, there are a few ways you can capture the sparks that emerge. 

• Create a bookmarks folder on your social media accounts to save ads and posts you like. Create a new post template based on your favourites, or weave some similar post types into your own calendar.
• Keep an evolving document to hold new ideas emerging from your research, day-to-day, or learnings from webinars and conferences. Set time to review this, and schedule half an hour to explore how these ideas could be integrated into your own campaigns.
• Embrace constraints like limited time or tight formats, to enable clearer thinking.
• Have a screenshots folder on your phone, or keep voice memos for thoughts you want to revisit.
• If you work with a larger team, you could create a new messaging channel just to share inspiration with each other.
• For visual inspiration, using platforms like Pinterest can also help to bring out new ideas.

Creativity doesn’t always mean extra hours or large budgets. It comes from noticing what is around you, capturing ideas and using them in small, practical ways. When you treat marketing as a creative practice, it becomes easier to keep campaigns fresh and relevant.

Start by paying attention to the ideas that already show up in your day. Give them a home, and let them grow! These small steps can make your marketing both feel, and be more creative, more fun, and more effective.