Why great creative is more than just good design

Creative marketing can make your B2B brand stand out in a crowded marketplace and build brand recognition. Using creative techniques to capture your audience’s attention can also lead to an increase in sales, with one study finding that a euro invested in a highly creative ad campaign nearly doubled the sales impact of a euro spent on a non-creative campaign. This is particularly good news for your sector, as B2B companies are more emotionally connected to their vendors than consumers are to brands.

Good design is, of course, an essential element of effective creative, but here are five other vital factors that contribute to appealing content for your audience to provide a valuable experience and align with your business goals.

Planning and goal setting

French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry famously said, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” So no matter what your business goals may be, failing to plan your creative B2B marketing is planning to fail.

Typical project planning includes a kick-off meeting to identify your goals, your audience, key messaging, and marketing channels. The data collated during this planning stage will help inform your design and future decisions related to the campaign.

A well-informed plan may also include SMART goals. These specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-sensitive goals help to ensure that your B2B marketing will deliver value by providing clarity on exactly what business outcomes you want to achieve with your creatives.

Strategy

Once you have a plan for your creative marketing project, the next stage is to formulate a strategy for how you are going to effectively implement it. This will give you a creative roadmap to follow – and help set a timeline for getting things done. With many moving parts involved in B2B marketing, a creative strategy helps everyone involved stay on track to meeting your goals.

Another part of a B2B marketing strategy can be a schedule or calendar that details the start and end dates for each campaign, plus other important dates for your business, such as product launches and key events. Giving everyone involved visibility of the overall strategy and schedule helps to keep everyone on the same page.

Narrative and storytelling

Entrepreneur and author Gary Vaynerchuk described storytelling as “…by far the most underrated skill when it comes to business.” That’s because storytelling is ingrained in the human experience from the day we are born.

Framing your marketing creative with a narrative structure provides a satisfying beginning, middle, and end, and helps to place your brand, product, or service as the main character – which is usually the hero.

An effective story can lead to a deeper connection with your target audience by presenting your message in a recognisable format using common human emotions to bring your brand values to life. As a result, it can help your audience feel that they really know – and like – your brand.

Omnichannel expertise

In our ever-evolving technological landscape, it’s not enough to have just one or two channels on which to distribute your marketing creatives. The only way to ensure that your messaging reaches the widest possible audience is to have an omnichannel approach.

This means using multiple channels to provide an integrated experience for your audience, who may begin their digital journey on a desktop, before moving to a tablet, then a smartwatch, and so on. Today’s digital-savvy customers expect this to be a seamless experience.

Having the technological expertise and understanding to use multiple digital distribution channels will help give your creative campaigns the best chance of success.

Copywriting

The yin to good design’s yang is great copywriting. Your marketing may look like a work of art but if the copy is poorly written with spelling and grammatical errors, your audience will soon lose confidence in your brand.

Effective copywriting can help ensure that your messaging stays consistently on-brand across every channel. It can also help reach your audience by speaking their language and directly addressing their pain points in clear and concise soundbites.

Copywriters are also storytellers, so are perfectly placed to present your message in a memorable fashion. Many copywriters also have SEO (search engine optimisation) knowledge, which can help your content perform better in search results.

Your recipe for great creative

So when you’re in a position to start work on your next creative B2B marketing campaign, utilising planning, strategy, storytelling, multiple channels, and professional copywriting alongside good design will put you in the strongest possible position to achieve your business objectives and goals.