Creative Services: What are you investing in?
Investing in Creative Services means putting funds or time into strategic branding, design, content creation and marketing collateral, in order to build robust, long-term business assets. Underpinning this, you’re buying skills, knowledge and experience.
Branding
This is where you define exactly what you do, how it benefits your clients and what makes you different from your competitors. It helps you focus on your position in the marketplace, and ensures that your messaging is consistent and cohesive at every touchpoint/interaction with your audience.
Being able to clearly articulate, and embody what your company stands for, beyond your service offer, e.g. your values, ethics, purpose, will generate a natural feeling of trust.
Your brand identity is the visual and tonal articulation of your position - your logo, colour palette, font, photography/illustration style and your tone of voice. It’s a toolkit of elements that you will consistently apply to all your marketing touchpoints. See the Marketing section below.
Key takeaway
If you have a solid brand foundation, your communications thereafter will be clear, cohesive and consistent: ultimately making it easier for your audience to understand what you do, engage with your offer, and choose you above your competitors.
Design
Good design establishes a reliable visual and functional language that makes a company look professional, stable and trustworthy. Design is a strategic business asset, not just aesthetics or decoration. When executed correctly, it directly impacts a company’s bottom line by solving communication challenges and building brand equity. On a functional level, it has to be appropriate and effective when it comes to communicating the right messaging. But it’s also an incredibly powerful tool to inspire thinking, generate engagement, resonate with hearts and minds, and facilitate a unique position that will help you stand out.
Key takeaway
The McKinsey & Company Design Index tracked 300 public companies over five years. They found that businesses with the strongest commitment to design integration achieved 32% higher revenue growth, and 56% higher total returns to shareholders, compared to their industry peers.
Content creation
You might have established your tone of voice as part of your brand exercise, but your communications may benefit from copywriters to help keep your messaging on point. Creative copywriters can help with campaigns and advertising to create compelling stories, and PR specialists can help with attaining media coverage.
Key takeaway
Brand and Design agencies often work with content creators and will be able to help connect you with resource as part of their service offer.
Marketing communications
Here’s where you bring all of the elements above together to promote your business. You will probably have a list of deliverables that you know you need: This could be a website; a brochure; presentations; social media assets; events collateral, motion graphics, video... the list goes on. Your brand and design partner can deliver on this but you might also want to consider getting help with marketing and sales strategy, which works in tandem.
Key takeaway
Think about the deliverables you need first and foremost to move your company forward. Aligning with a creative partner that fits will open up a pool of resources you can utilise to your advantage.
Skills, knowledge and experience
Last, but not least, you’re investing in a professional service. You’re looking to engage with a creative business that has the experience and know-how to deliver on what they promise. Most importantly, find a creative partner that’s the right fit. Look at the quality of their work first, is it the right calibre for your company? Next consider their proven experience and what value they can bring to you.
The creative process should be collaborative throughout and ultimately, people buy people. Do you resonate with what they say, their ethos, their offer? Are you engaged and want to meet them? If so, go ahead and get in touch. Remember, nothing bad can come of it.
Key takeaway
Ai is an invaluable tool, but you can’t replicate the value of human connection and collaboration. Ask yourself the following: Do you want to invest in human beings with experience of connecting with audiences through human-centric stories? Should your story-telling come from a position of sharing real-life experiences, knowledge and learning? Do you want to build long-term, meaningful and productive relationships with your creative partners?