by Melanie Scott - chairman, Chartered Institute of Marketing, Kent branch

Whatever your business and whatever its size, creativity is a prerequisite for success, more so now than ever before.

As small to medium-sized businesses from all backgrounds and sectors compete in this challenging economic climate, creativity can give your businesses the edge.

Creativity helps a business standout from its competition and provides advantages across product or service development and delivery.

It is often thought of as visual outputs such as branding and marketing materials, rather than the less tangible role it plays in creating efficient and effective processes, culture and performance.

The truth, however, is that creativity should penetrate deep into the very fabric from which a business is created.

While many people in business do not consider themselves creative and in some instances this is true, it's my belief that in many cases creative capability does exist, just that there's a lack of ability and skill to be able to visualise and convert it into tangible original, progressive or imaginative outputs.

For some businesses, even though they are aware of this, they will often struggle on using creativity ineffectively, while competitors seek help from individuals and businesses that can do their visualising for them.

These trained visualisers, often referred to as a designers or creatives, are able to transform run-of-the-mill work into engaging and attractive promotional material, capable of achieving a far better response and creating a far more memorable impression.

Outsourcing creativity doesn't always need to cost the earth and when organisations like VisitKent achieve a return on investment of 60:1 and have contributed £18m to the county's economy in just five months after launching their Kent Contemporary campaign, the potential benefits are clear.

In Kent we have an abundance of small creative agencies and freelancers, many of whom are members of CIM or connected to our small business initiatives in someway.

To find out more about the county's creative talent contact the Kent Branch small business team at sharon@cimkent.co.uk.

To find out more about how Visit Kent used creativity effectively, visit www.cim.co.uk/events and book your place at the Kent Annual Marketing Lecture, Using creativity effectively: A case-study of the Visit Kent campaign, on Wednesday October 17 (7pm - 9.30pm) at Commissioner’s House, Chatham Historic Dockyard.