With the increasing competition in marketing as a whole, it's essential for businesses to make some noise to stand out more than ever. While having a good content plan is necessary (yes, necessary), it's not enough to simply create and distribute the content anymore. It has to draw the audience in by being compelling, attractive, and having real creative input.
The impact of creativity on all brands
According to a recent study in Science Magazine, there is a small but very real sales benefit from a creative approach from brands (I mean we have been saying this all along), especially in terms of visual content and sentimental messaging.
From our own hands-on experience with visitor attraction brands, we have seen a definite positive impact from using strong creative, especially when advertising to new audiences.
In our tactical campaigns for data capture, we've seen the conversion rate substantially higher and the cost per acquisition reduced by 50% when we have used engaging video and creative graphic executions. Click-through rates also increased by over 1000% when engaging video ads were introduced.
What should I be aiming for?
You shouldn't be aiming for average or just doing the same as last year. Creativity evolves like all other areas of communications, and refreshing the visual and written content to give it more context and stand out is essential. You should carry out a full creative review and aim to improve key areas consistently over successive campaigns or seasons. This could be improving the quality of images or video or getting a copywriter to bring your brand to life for customers better than before. Make the changes ambitious but achievable.
Tips for Success
Our team has given us some unvarnished thoughts to help you focus your effort on improving the creative inputs and outputs of your marketing effort. Some questions to ask yourself include:
- Is your advert or messaging actually interesting?
- Does it promote fun, facts or is it useful? Is it inspiring?
- Will your ad make audiences want to visit?
- Does it promote value and make new customers think of the whole offer - not just the price of entry?
- What's the experience? Can you show me what I'll get and how it will make me feel?
- Can you use multiple images and write different versions of your ad copy so that different versions can be tested?
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Next steps
For the longer-term creative review, here are some key points to consider:
- Get all your marketing collateral together.
- Review your brand values, mission and unique selling points (USPs).
- Figure out who your most important target audience is.
- Review your messaging to understand if it still aligns with your brand values and USPs.
- Assess your assets for quality, consistency, and variety.
- Look at the marketing channels you're currently using.
- Develop a creative brief that outlines your objectives, target audience, key messaging, and desired outcomes.
- Brainstorm your tactics and agree on your plan, then scope the work and agree on timings for delivery and launch.
Conclusion
In conclusion, creativity is crucial for businesses to stand out in today's highly competitive market. With a full creative review and some key tips, businesses can improve their creative inputs and outputs and differentiate themselves from the competition.
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