Frequently, when planning marketing campaigns or discussing how to market a brand or product, there’s a demand for creative ideas. The first stage of many people’s planning is looking for creative ways to “promote” their campaign.
But, frequently, what they are missing isn’t creativity but rather a working strategy:
- What’s the strategy?
- Who is the audience? Usually there are multiple audience stakeholders
- What’s the core messaging (values/benefits for each target market)
- Are you positioned in the right market?
- Are you going after the people most likely to buy?
- Tactically – are you running a B2C campaign for a B2B campaign?
- Have you discussed the ROI: What’s in it for them?
- Are you using the right channels? If you’re working with a PR company, are they pitching media with the right messages or just posting press releases on free press release sites?
There’s a role for creativity, but that’s the icing. Creativity – or lack of it – won’t make or break your product/service. However, if you have the wrong strategy, than you won’t succeed. You can have a cake without icing, but you can’t have a cake without flour. Strategy is the flour, while creativity is the icing. Icing’s nice, but are you trying to get the icing without doing the hard work?
Creativity comes after a proper strategy.