How To Reconcile Creativity With A Digital World
If you were expecting a eulogy for creative marketing, sorry to disappoint you. This article will have no martyrs, no venting, and no excuses for readers. Instead, you will find tactics for upholding creativity in a digital world.
If you were expecting a eulogy for creative marketing, sorry to disappoint you. This article will have no martyrs, no venting, and no excuses for readers. Instead, you will find tactics for upholding creativity in a digital world.
The digital medium and its heaps of data do make it harder to sell creative ideas to a CEO and board of directors. They want data, market insights, and metrics to support every campaign.
That obstacle is an opportunity, not a ball and chain. There are creative ways to get such data, and there are creative ways to act on the data you already have. Two variables matter: budget and knowledge of the audience.
The Agile Road
If you have a small budget and little awareness of your audience, take an agile approach to creativity. Just as startup engineers preach iteration, fast failure, and pivoting, digital marketers can also hedge their bets.
Initially, plan campaign s , not the campaign. Shout different messages in multiple channels and wait for echoes. This approach is safe (and smart). Over time, it creates the data you need to fight for those wild, creative schemes that made you fall in love with marketing.
The agile road acknowledges that business goals, not artistic instincts, guide modern marketing agendas. There’s a noose around your neck called “ROI,” and if you forget it, you’ll squander the opportunity to go big. To get your breakthrough, loosen the noose. Use agile marketing to build a case for your creative leap.
The Persona Road
If you have a giant budget and deep awareness of your audience, you have the tools to take creative risks.
Think about it this way: Moms who are 26 to 35 years old are a valuable yet vague category. You have to water down the message to reach them all, and diluted messages are, by nature, uncreative.
But if you segment those moms into 12 different personas based on buying behavior, use cases, and regional culture, you can distill rather than dilute the message. You can go to each audience with an audacious, 80-proof marketing campaign. Moreover, you can test that campaign on different channels with different messages and timing. Deep budgets help you prove that your campaign will resonate with the audience.
The persona road has a crux: risk tolerance. Most companies with deep pockets feel like they have too much to lose. They’ll walk the tightrope for Super Bowl commercials, but otherwise, they stay on the ground. When you can focus on a well-defined audience, you reduce the perceived risks of creativity.
The Hybrid Roads
By the rules of mathematics, I have two more combinations to discuss: small budget plus high awareness and big budget plus little awareness.
With a small budget and high audience awareness, take massive creative risks. This combination means that you probably work for a startup or a cult brand that grew without much investment in marketing. Your idea has to splash like a chunk of glacier because you don’t have the budget to sustain a campaign of attrition.
Do A/B analysis or some “mother-in-law” testing to build your case. (Ask friends, family, and clients for feedback.) If the campaign doesn’t make you sweat, you’re wasting this opportunity. Without a budget for frequent communication, you have to go big.
With a hefty budget and little awareness, get ready to spend some time in the trenches. You’re probably a marketer at a Fortune 500 brand that was late to the marketing technology game. Such companies usually want “brand-safe,” tame ideas. They also want more sales, but don’t bother pointing out the contradiction. Instead, allocate part of that eight-figure budget for focus groups, polling, online surveys, and other market research.
Be aware that you can gather lots of biased feedback quickly. It can steer you toward a watered-down idea that is more comfortable but not as provocative or effective as it could be. If you can live with batting to get on base, fine, take that route. If not, keep the research going until you can hit a grand slam. You know the difference.
Frame To Win
Whichever path you take, overprepare for that meeting with the CEO and board. Present a range of thinking, not just one angle. Some ideas look too nutty and outlandish on their own. But when your audience members can compare ideas, they become persuadable. They see weaknesses and strengths that are only revealed with contrast.
Remember, if you know your audience, you can be more creative with less risk. If you don’t understand you audience, duct tape some risk mitigation to your plan. In every case, anticipate resistance. Outmaneuver the detractors and win the right to be creative.