The best ideas evolve from a combination of innovative, creative thinking mixed with hard data and analytics, the Entrepreneur.com article “6 Ways to Analyze Your Creative Ideas” explains. Creativity is vital to every business – nothing can have a more immediate impact than an innovative idea, whether it involves marketing, products, or customer service. But you also can’t afford to make the mistake of getting so fascinated with a concept that you ignore facts that impact its viability. So, before you take the plunge, test your creative ideas in these ways:

1. Google it. First, find out if the idea has already been done, and how it worked out for the companies that have tried it before. What value did it add? Can your business replicate these results? Can you do it better than they did?
2. Like-improve analysis. This involves writing out everything you like about the idea and how it will benefit your business as well as all of the concerns that you have about the idea, how it may not work, and how it can be improved. Then decide if you can make the “improve” listings work, or if you need to table or abandon the idea.
3. Answer the hard questions. Even if you are the boss, imagine how you would explain the idea to a supervisor, and what questions they would ask. How will it increase the bottom line? Does this line up with your goals and objectives? What will be the ROI? How will you track the results?
4. Talk it out. After you’ve done your due diligence on your own, discuss it will peers that aren’t afraid to offer constructive criticism.
5. Test your idea. When you do decide to go forward with an idea, you don’t need to jump in headfirst. Test it with a gradual rollout, focus group, and A/B testing.
6. Learn from your successes and failures. At the end of the day, none of this will teach you as much as actually having gone through the process a time or two. Make the most of each experience by taking the time to formally analyze the campaign and identify knowledge that will help you with your next idea.

Click here to read the article from Entrepreneur.com.