How to Run a Successful Marketing and Advertising Campaign
Part 3 - Roadmap to Creative Content
There is so much thought that goes into running a marketing and advertising campaign and to make it successful requires significant time and planning.
In Part 1 of the series on How to Run a Successful Marketing Campaign, we covered the first steps in getting started, which means establishing a Strategic Plan. When establishing your Strategic Plan you are setting goals, identifying your target audience, defining the benefits of your products or services, evaluating your competition and establishing a marketing budget.
If you missed Part 1 on Strategic Planning and also to download your FREE Strategic Planning Checklist, be sure to read up on it here.
Once you have a solid Strategic Plan, you can now start developing a Multi-Touchpoint Media Strategy. Remember, people don’t get their information from just one source so it’s important that you are in more than one place and thereby can influence prospects’ buying behavior no matter where they get their information.
Missed Part 2 of our series?
Download your FREE Media Planning Checklist and read the rest here!
Wrapping up our series and closing the loop on Strategic Planning and Developing a Multi-touchpoint Media Strategy, is the Roadmap to Creative Content.
What is Creative Content? The ultimate goal of a Marketing and Advertising Campaign is to turn your prospects into buyers and we do this by peaking their curiosity with appealing, awe-inspiring Creative Content; content that tells your brand's story in a creative way and also engages your audiences.
So it’s important to think about the style and tone of your communications. Things like color choices, photography or illustration styles (e.g., product images versus people images, color versus black and white, etc.), font selections, and copywriting style. Decisions regarding these creative elements should be based on what you believe will resonate best with your target audience; not so much on what “you” personally like. Other considerations should include how to differentiate your enterprise from your competitors, what is the most effective way to quickly get buyers’ attention, and how to quickly communicate the benefits of what you sell or do.
Creative ideation is very much a subjective effort. But think whether humor, drama, fear, or other human emotions will best represent your brand and appeal to your target audiences. Then, be sure to use the same creative tactics across all your media touch-points. The execution across various media platforms may be slightly different. But the basic presentation should be consistent everywhere.
For example, your website content must be on-point information about the benefits delivered by your products or service with many engagement tools for the consumer to “take action”. Ask yourself these questions: If a customer comes to your website, what will they learn about how you will enrich their life and how do they connect with you? You want a well designed website with creatively intriguing content. It should be used as your most powerful sales tool and a key part in your sales process.
Creative Content for blogs is slightly different. For example, for a blog, focus on being helpful, educational and informative...using the same tone, style, imagery, fonts, etc. as on the website.
We strongly recommend incorporating videos and images as part of your creative content. Most people are visual learners...which is why these tools typically produce higher engagement rates versus massive blocks of text. You don’t need to be a professional videographer or photographer to use this effectively. Simple videos or photos that show how your brand is unique and helps customers visualize that by using it, their lives will be better.
In addition to defining your “brand” creative content can concurrently incorporate contests, offers, giveaways and promotions. An example of this might be a contest to drive brand awareness AND engagement. RSC Marketing & Advertising is actually doing this right now with a fun idea around a Virtual Kentucky Derby Contest, using email and social media posts to announce the details of the contest and how to enter. We had fun developing the campaign and we know people will have fun playing along! Follow our journey by visiting any of our social media platforms over the next few weeks. Or submit your entry here!
This leads into developing engagement tools and how to create a two way interaction with your audience. In our Kentucky Derby campaign example above, the details of the contest are to pick a winning horse and be entered into a drawing to win a $250 gift card. It’s simple and to the point and not requiring a huge effort on behalf of the person. We are asking that they like our post and share with others!
Now that we’ve defined what Creative Content is and you’ve established which materials you will be using, and how they can be used, an important part is to develop a solid process for production and implementation. What we mean by this, is everyone on your team (even if you have a small team), understands what the campaign is and the goals they are working towards, what tasks are needed from each person and the timelines associated with it.
During this process, time must be set aside for writing and editing, as well as design, revisions, and deployment.
The devil is in the details! But no matter how you go to market with your advertising and communications, don’t forget about consistency! It is the key to building awareness so that when your brand is exposed on various media channels and touch-points, customers will recognize it and it will be reinforced repeatedly.
To help get you on your way, we are sharing a FREE Creative Planning CHECKLIST.
Download Your ✓ FREE CHECKLIST.
Have questions or need help with your marketing needs? RSC Marketing has over 30 years of experience in various industries. Contact us today to chat more about your business!
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RSC Marketing & Advertising provides small and medium size business owners with affordable and creative marketing services designed to increase sales.
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