In a recent article that appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Mark Tritton, Target’s chief merchandising officer, talked about the dual importance of both “math and magic” as he leads the company’s development of innovative new products in several key categories. Big data must be combined with big creative in order to capture customers’ attention.

At this year’s Women in Retail Leadership Summit, Margaret Moraskie, senior vice president, analytics, insights and marketing services for Chico’s FAS, and myself led a conversation about winning your customers’ hearts (and wallets!) by joining the forces of right- and left-brained leaders. As whole-minded, whole-hearted, in-the-trenches business strategists, Moraskie and I presented these seven springboards to create retail stories, surprises and sales:

Springboard No. 1: Stay curious. Curiosity cultivates creativity, which fosters brand mindfulness. It’s vitally important for your people — both employees and customers — to connect regularly with each other for what professor Cal Newport calls “deep work.” Magic happens when people identify opportunity. Companies like Duluth Trading and Title Nine unite their employees and customers for face time and in-person learnings as part of their brand cultures. YETI is another brand that values camaraderie in and out of the office, dedicating planning time to allow for curiosity and magic to happen.

Springboard No. 2: Mine for insights. Insights are not magically derived from data on a spreadsheet. People generate insights. This investment of time and energy — e.g., gathering cross-functional and cross-channel leaders together on a regular basis — leads to strategic conversations that impact product development, market development and, ultimately, brand staying power. Anne Kent Rush wrote that “creativity is really the structuring of magic.” Structuring time to mine for insights together has long-term brand payoffs.

Springboard No. 3: Reprioritize your data. Not all data is created equal. Know what isn’t important. What questions surface to the top when you think about your customers’ unmet needs? Your main objective should always be about the customer, not the company. Content expert Joe Pulizzi reminds us, “Your customers don’t care about you, your products, your services … they care about themselves, their wants and their needs. Data-driven content marketing is about creating interesting information your customers are passionate about so they actually pay attention to you.” What data aren’t you using? What data are you missing?

Springboard No. 4:  Magic happens when you answer a specific need. Brands and products have a job to do — be amazingly useful, solve pain points and/or enhance pleasure points in customers’ lives. Companies like Sephora and REI get this. So does SPANX, as its website succinctly describes: “When founder and owner Sara Blakely cut the feet out of her pantyhose to make her butt look better in white pants, she was transformed from a frustrated consumer to a fearless entrepreneur!” Magic = pain point solved!

Springboard No. 5:  Quantitative and qualitative data generates the biggest wins. Combining data with stories creates meaningful and memorable customer moments. When Chico’s presented its So Slimming® Girlfriend Ankle Jeans, it doubled its brand and product magic by plussing its campaign with emotionally connecting copy and visuals that spoke perfectly to its target audience. Wilson and Harley-Davidson are two more brands that master this combination.

Springboard No. 6:  Be sure to tie back to your brand’s why. Yes, data informs and predicts the what, when and how of the story, but as Simon Sinek has counseled, customers respond to the WHY behind the buy. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it,” Sinek says. Every touchpoint should tie back to your brand’s why. Brands as diverse as American Girl and Campbell’s Soup specialize in connecting their customers to their brand purposes.

Springboard No. 7: Test, test and test again. It makes the end of the story more fun! Purpose-driven brands never rest; they’re always testing into their future, always adding new chapters, revising, surprising and delighting. What chapter are your whole-minded brand leaders writing right now?

This season, why not schedule some deep work time and get your right- and left-brained leaders together and take some time to play in the brand. Invite your customers. Play with ideas and spreadsheets. See where your curiosities take you. Make some magic.

Andrea Syverson is the founder and president of creative branding and merchandising consultancy IER Partners. Andrea has more than 20 years experience providing clients with innovative approaches to branding, product development and creative messaging. She’s the author of two books about brand building and creating customer-centric products that enhance brands: ThinkAbout: 77 Creative Prompts for Innovators, and BrandAbout: A Seriously Playful Approach for Passionate Brand-Builders and Merchants.