Many people ask industry gurus, “What is the secret ingredient to marketing success?” Without a doubt it is imagination says Harvard’s Theadore Levitt in his landmark book, The Marketing Imagination. Unlike engineering, finance and law, marketing has no rule book or blueprint to success. Imagination is what lifts the marketing winners above the losers. It’s the magic “it” in Nike’s “Just Do It.”

There’s no denying that market research is one of the hallmarks of a sales-centric marketing approach. But after all the strategic research has been dissected, only marketing imagination can deliver the payoff in sales performance, says Levitt.

Imagination is that right brain activity that projects your message in a way that draws buyers to your brand. It’s tactical excellence that actually creates pull for your product instead of push, push, pushing it through your distribution chain. In today’s Internet-empowered B2B world, marketing can help buyers find and understand you. Imagination, however, will inspire them to seek you out.