Like many agencies, here at Everything-Connected we face a continuous challenge when it comes to our creative process. Brands are still striving for the next big idea, or award winning campaign, but this can often be at the expense of the commercial objectives. Delivering what the audience NEEDS is not always what the boss WANTS.
The good news is that there is a middle ground. ‘Money’ doesn't have to be a dirty word when it comes to creative and it is possible to deliver ‘cool’ designs that also drive ROI.
Here are the top 5 challenges we have faced head-on:
1. Letting creativity over shadow our objectives
- Setting out clear goals at the beginning of the creative process helps ensure that the designs match the audience needs.
- If we have clear goals, it enables us to more easily challenge subjective comments.
- However, aligning our creative work with commercial objectives doesn’t need to compromise the quality of the end result. It allows a framework for decision making.
2. Quantity or quality?
- We often hear that the desire for quantity of content comes at the expense of quality. This is largely true, a really excellent single piece of content will drive higher engagement. However, this isn't always the case. If you’re targeting a wider spread of audience personas, a single piece of content may only serve one segment. In some instances a larger quantity of bite-size content pieces will deliver higher engagement across the board.
- The answer lies in the data. Before the decision on ‘what’ is being created, we must first ask ‘who’ and ‘why’. And these answers live in the data.
3. No research, no connections
- A common misconception we encounter is the notion that creative concepts are by necessity based on intuition or the latest design trends.
- In fact, effective creative is grounded in customer journey research.
- Knowing who your customers are and how they interact with your brand is essential to consistently creating campaigns that connect.
4. Idea-makers, not order takers
- It’s easy to fall into the trap of waiting around for briefs and responding to them verbatim. This approach assumes that the client knows what the audience needs.
- We need to have the confidence to drive the creative strategy and defend our ideas.
- We are the experts and with the support of good data, we know what’s best to achieve our collective goals.
5. Kaizen
- Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning "change for the better" or "continuous improvement".
- We often see projects losing their way due to sheer weight of deliverables, deadlines, budgets and creative vision are all at risk when a project runs for an extended period.
- We advocate a ‘ Growth-Driven Design’ approach which enables a workflow that produces reliable month-over-month growth. Your website becomes stronger as you continue to measure, iterate and act.
Any that you think we have missed? Should creatives be focused on commercial objectives? Budgets are often a tricky part of any creative brief and they have often been described as a killer in creativity. Connect with any of the Everything-Connected team if you want to hear more about how we use creative as a tool to connect brands and audiences and drive real engagement and growth. Speak to the Everything Connected team, let's GET CONNECTED
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