It’s Time to Prioritize Your Creative Content
It’s really easy to grow a business, said no one ever.
Or better yet, let’s rephrase that.
It’s REALLY stinkin’ hard to grow a business, especially coming out of the largest pandemic we’ve ever experienced, and now that all your stimulus aid has dried up.
While growing your business may not be a total walk in the park, we’re continually surprised by how many companies forgo one of the quickest and foolproof tools to drive business growth.
Too many companies miss out on a huge opportunity to drive business growth and capitalize on one of the best weapons a business can use to withstand uncertainty. In this post, we’ll cover one of the fastest ways to grow your business and why you should pause to reconsider before you go slashing your marketing budgets, particularly during tough times.
So what is this commonly overlooked tool?
Wait … what?
Okay, let’s back up. Think about all the times you’ve signed up for a service or purchased a product. Maybe it was your car insurance because of that ever-present green lizard. Maybe it was the coffee you drank this morning that you bought from a local coffee roaster you heard about on Instagram. Maybe you decided to switch from Persil to Tide laundry detergent because It’s Tide.
Whatever that choice was, there is a 90% chance that your decision was influenced by a piece of creative marketing content that subconsciously made its way into your life.
What is creative content and how do you use it effectively in your marketing strategy?
Creative content is an umbrella term that is used to describe all forms of multimedia stimulus that should form the nucleus of your brand presence and marketing strategy. Using creative content effectively in your marketing strategy is leveraging your creative assets in a way that supports your business goals and maximizes ROI.
In other words, creative content marketing is centered around the concept of providing your audience the kind of content they’re craving and giving them something that they haven’t seen before. You have to elicit a reason for a viewer to take notice and ultimately take action, and it has been proven for decades that the right creative content is the only sustainable way to do that. The best creative content gives your target audience an experience that they just aren’t getting elsewhere. Establish your brand’s differentiation, be creative, tell a story, and distinguish yourself from your competition.
Be engaging. Trust us, your audience will notice.
Did you know that…
- Content marketing generates three times more leads than traditional marketing.
- 76% of eCommerce Businesses found that better content leads to decreased CAC and improved ROI.
- 93% of brands got a new customer because of a video on social media (Animoto, 2019).
- It’s predicted that 25% of your audience will lose interest in your company if you don’t use video on your social channels.
- 92% of marketers and businesses report content as a valuable business asset.
- 64% of consumers report that watching a marketing video on Facebook has influenced a purchase decision.
If utilizing great creative content is highly effective for growing your business, where is the disconnect?
While the statistics show that investing in a solid content marketing strategy and utilizing high-quality creative content is a fantastic way to drive business growth, we’re still seeing massive marketing budget cuts this year. According to a survey conducted by Statista in March 2020, 44% of marketing professionals responded that their content marketing budgets would decrease due to the coronavirus pandemic – and that was just during the first wave of the virus! To keep their business afloat, many organizations choose to freeze or redistribute their funds, with the plan to revisit their creative content plans after things settle down.
Regardless of the state of the economy, this type of reprioritization of marketing budgets is a much-too common occurrence and is a frequent decision made by emerging businesses. Sure, we know starting and growing a business is REALLY hard but it’s even harder when you unintentionally sell yourself short by failing to harness the power of quality creative content to drive your customer acquisition. Although spending on creative content might seem frivolous as an emerging business, we encourage you to reframe your perspective. Think of it as an investment with exponential compounding potential.
For larger businesses, decreasing marketing budgets might make sense from an executive-level standpoint. We all know it can be difficult to get executive buy-in for efforts that do not yield an immediate ROI, which is why marketing is the first budget to go in just about all large organizations (can we fact check this) You’re saying: “let’s create a disruptive video campaign that will drive customer acquisition, increase conversion rates and lower acquisition cost!!!” Yet all executives seem to hear is “High risk, lost revenue, too long”. You’re either in a large business with your hands tied or are an emerging business that’s nervous about costs. So, what’s next?
It’s time to reframe the content conversation.
Wait… what?
Okay, we’re getting ahead of ourselves again. Let’s explore where businesses often get it wrong.
The problem with the standard approach.
More often than not, businesses blow their cash on fixed costs and agency fees, leaving whatever is left over for media spend and production costs. But the lifeblood of any business is its customer, and to scale, you need to properly fund a viable acquisition strategy. And as we mentioned earlier in this post, consumer data shows that customer acquisition is directly tied to effective creative content.
Now this all can get a bit tricky, especially during a period of uncertainty. But at Kaddie we believe better creative content is the single quickest way to grow a business, and that mindset is a fundamental aspect of our business model.
Contrary to popular belief, there is a smarter way to create and pay for custom branded content. At Kaddie, we apply the concept of compounding to media: invest early and often. This framework gives brands the ultimate control over their budgets by turning customized content into a variable expense. If your content is driving revenue for you, great! Use it. If not, then you ditch it and don’t pay for it. This model enables brands to achieve a better ROI by focusing their budgets on the performing content.
Want to learn more? Let’s chat about how we can help produce world class branded content and optimize your marketing funnel. Contact us.
Where do we go from here?
Hopefully, by this point, you will have begun to think differently about the importance of your creative content in relation to business growth targets. Maybe you’ll revisit how you’ve allocated your marketing budget or experiment with video. Or perhaps it’s time to get clear on what kind of content your target audience craves. Either way, we hope you’ll start using creative content to your advantage.
Sure, Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will your business. But laying the first stone of the foundation or posting your first piece of quality creative content will put you on the trajectory to building your business empire.
Not sure how to start? Here are a few tips from Kaddie’s content experts:
- Make sure you get clear on who your target audience is and build out a solid content strategy. If you don’t, you risk the chance of creating ineffective creative content that doesn’t resonate with your audience and ultimately won’t drive results.
- Do some research on what your competitors are doing. Remember, be creative and be unique. Don’t sell yourself short by following the status-quo.
- Ensure that your creative content aligns with your brand voice and style so that your brand image remains consistent across all channels.
- Make sure your content is high quality. Nothing turns customers away faster than a pixelated post or video that takes forever to load.
- Work smarter, not harder. Focus on content that performs best and ditch what doesn’t serve you.
- Get creative in your content medium and keep an eye on consumer behavior. Did you know that people are twice as likely to share video content with their friends than any other type of content? Didn’t think so – go try it out!
If you’re looking for a quick and effective way to grow your business, we’re confident the best method is to leverage creative content to drive traffic and boost your customer acquisition. Now you know that quality creative content is a key factor in driving business growth, you’re ready to take your marketing strategy up a notch. Not sure what type of creative content will perform best for your business? We can help with that.