Having a brand which clearly represents your
business is vital to your business success and the backbone to any successful
brand is an effective creative strategy which outlines how the creative aspects
help to achieve business objectives.
A good creative strategy takes the experiential
elements of your company, such as the branding and tone of voice and explains
exactly how they will help to meet your business objectives and drive your
business forward.
Here are 10 elements to include in your company
creative strategy:
Your
business story
You need to have your vision, mission and key
messaging all created and developed to accurately tell your business story in a
way that is authentic and will engage with your customers. This will then be
used as the overall guiding hand when it comes to creating and developing any
marketing material. Your business story needs to outline who you are, what you
stand for and why you are different.
Your
business objectives
You need to know what your business objectives are
so that you can make sure your creative strategy supports them – so have your
business objectives outlined at the very beginning of your creative strategy to
make it crystal clear exactly what you need to achieve and why.
Your
marketing objectives
Now that you have your business objectives you need
to outline the marketing objectives that go alongside them – these are
specifically for the marketing team and will then help to guide exactly which
creative approach you need to adopt and when.
Your
target audience and channels
You need to know the target audience in order to
make sure your marketing messages reach the right people at the right time –
you need to know which marketing channels will reach them successfully so that
you can place your marketing messages appropriately.
Your
budget
You need to know how much budget you can allocate to
creative work and what you will need to deliver the strategy. There is no point
developing a clear and effective strategy if you don’t have the budget to make
it happen.
Good
communication
It’s all too easy to get caught up in creating
beautiful imagery and coming up with clever headlines but it’s important not to
forget the main aim of a creative strategy is to communicate with your
customers and potential customers – to achieve a business goal. So never lose
sight of what your brand is trying to communicate.
Market
research
It’s always wise to test an idea in a controlled way
before launching it to the public so make sure you include opportunities for
market research and message testing within your creative strategy.
Imagery
Make sure you do some research before deciding on a
creative approach to imagery within your strategy – you need to make sure any
images you choose are appropriate, match your values and will have long-term
appeal. It’s always worth paying a little more to get original images rather
than opting for stock photography which could have been used in many places
already.
Consistent
approach
Make sure your creative strategy is implemented
consistently across all marketing campaigns – after all, if you keep changing
your messages and image then your brand won’t be memorable, it will just become
confusing.
Expert help
If developing a creative strategy feels like a lot
of hard work – it is – why not outsource it to a marketing agency like LCM
Marketing – who can also implement all of the creative work for you as well.
How can
LCM help?
If you’d
like help with selecting imagery or any aspect of building your brand, please
get in touch with us at LCM and we will be happy to talk through what you are
trying to achieve. We will ask you guided questions to find out if you need our
kind of input, or if another route is best for you.
Telephone 01489 891870 or
email info@lcm.co.uk
