If you wish to run a marketing team without an effective creative strategy at play, it would be nothing short of a disaster preceding your firm. No company would ever hitch their horse to a wagon that is going to lose. As a result, you always need to ensure the direction you are heading in and what entails the treacherous journey to the summit. Developing an effective creative strategy is imperative for every organization to function seamlessly. As a result, we bring you everything that you need to know about creating an effective strategy that will shift the floor beneath your customer’s feet, but obviously in a good way.
What is a creative strategy?
Your creative strategy defines the mind map that will lead you to the summit your marketing team has been trying to achieve. With an intelligent design, you can outlay the tactical plan that your firm’s team members can aggressively approach. Your strategy will outline the steps in the process, what is expected of each member, the channels you will be using, and the target audience for whom the plan is being prepared. It will also highlight how, when, and what to say to the targeted demographic. By developing a thoughtful, creative strategy, you can ensure a successful accomplishment of organizational objectives.
Formulating a creative strategy translates to success
If you have ever set foot into the marketing department on a busy day, you will realize that it is nothing short of a war room. Panelists on a marketing team neither have time to spare or budget to waste. The definition of achieving success has altered nowadays. It doesn’t matter how successful you are; people will not focus on the outcome but rather dwell on your journey and how you achieved it. As a result, to develop a scalable creative strategy, you must keep the following recommendations in mind and devise an impeccable campaign.
- The creative strategy must be scalable
Your organization’s creative strategy must manifest goal-oriented ideas that answer every objective question arising out of the design. Once the team understands the goal, it is easier to devise a scalable strategy that supports your organization’s integrity and does not swerve you from your path.
- Be wary of the timeline
Every organization functions on strict deadlines and limited time. Any rational business owner would like to achieve their goals as quickly as possible. As a result, designing a creative strategy that underlines a specific period helps every team member plan accordingly and avoid any last-minute hiccups.
- Share your strategy with relevant stakeholders
Any relevant stakeholder wants to know what’s going on in an organization that they support. It goes without saying that you must keep them in the loop. There must be collaboration among the various stakeholders as they synergize to generate a top-of-the-line outcome to achieve the marketing goals successfully.
Take your creative strategy to be a blueprint or a map that guides you through untested waters or unchartered territory flushed with vicious snakes and deadly sharks. Details can be helpful, but do not get carried away by predicting every scenario in advance. Leave some room for last-minute changes since every organization functions in a dynamic environment, and forecasting trends can waste your resources at the moment.
Six essentials for your creative strategy
Now that you understand a creative strategy’s vitality let’s dive into the essentials your plan must-have.
- Define your goals with clarity
Understanding what you are trying to achieve is fundamental to every plan. You must know where you are headed to map your journey to the place. Consider the creative strategy, your map, and the goals, your destination. For instance, if your goal is to indulge more customers online, your plan should look different than the one you would map for 20 percent more lead generation.
Before diving into the deeper end of the pool, take a breath to write down your goals and the methods you think are the most efficient to achieve them. It will further map your subsequent steps, including establishing budgetary constraints, allocating resources, things you would say or do, and the probable risks entailing your plan. Once your marketing team has solidified the objectives, share the information with everyone who you think can benefit and is necessary to keep in the loop. A complete team comprehension is crucial to the success of the plan.
- Write an engaging statement
A creative statement underlines the purpose of your initiative or campaign. It is not long or detailed. An effective creative statement is brief and highlights what an organization plans to do once its creative strategy is in place.
- Choose suitable KPIs
Every campaign’s viability requires assessment. It would be impossible to gauge success or failure without having a definitive metric structure in place. As a result, choosing the ideal key performance indicators is crucial in developing a feasible creative strategy.
Now you may ask how you can determine KPIs. Again, it all depends on the objectives you seek. Once you have decided what you are trying to achieve, many subsequent planning procedures will become easier. For instance, if your goal is to increase online customer engagement, some of your KPIs can be the impressions entailed by social media posts, the number of likes or comments you get on each post, or how many customers save your post on a social media platform.
Gauging how to measure such aspects is also crucial for the growth of your organization. With KPIs, you can answer questions such as whether you want to attain a specific number of impressions by next quarter or you want to increase their percentage each week. When including a KPI in your plan, you will need to consider what you want to measure and how you can achieve the results highlighted in your project.
- Determine your messaging and marketing channels
Once the plan is in motion, it is time to plan for the deliverables your customer will see. Whether it is a digital marketing campaign, a commercial, an eBook, a live-sized billboard or flex board, greeting cards, stunning posters, or even a combination of these, it is that step of your creative strategy that will influence your customers. When you create a poster as part of this strategy, it should be visually compelling and aligned with your brand’s messaging to make a strong impact.
The steps call marketing teams to determine what the commercial will say and how you want to say it. To make a commercial that truly resonates, consider conducting market research to understand your audience’s needs and preferences. Your intentions must land in the customers’ minds with a bull’s eye precision. Your message’s length, tone, and style should be consistent with your objectives and must be manipulative enough to sway a potential client’s perspective.
- Plan a budget
Time is money, but money, in actual terms, quantifies the most worth in an organization’s work.
Creating a precise budget is integral to the seamless functioning of your creative strategy. Your budget will pay for everything, from billboards to whoever outlays the billboard’s design, everything. It lets your creative strategy pan out the way you want it and also most efficiently.
To set an accurate budget, you must understand its scope and the aspects it must cover:
- The kind of deliverables you will produce.
- The proportion of paid marketing and organic marketing in your strategy.
- Cost of running paid services, including paying for online ads, vendors, and possibly even buying software.
- The period for which you will be running your creative campaign.
- Establish a timeline
A realistic timeline is fundamental to any creative strategy. As a result, establishing one is vital to preventing last-minute hiccups or messing up deadlines. It also enables relevant stakeholders to know what is going on and whether everyone is on the same page. When each contributing member understands what is anticipated from them, the project moves forward seamlessly and can dodge any obstacles that arise meanwhile.
Enhance your creative strategy
Here is a thorough outline that can help you establish a sound creative strategy to energize your marketing campaign wisely. By empowering each member, you can acknowledge their work while gauging collaboration by following the steps mentioned above.
