Creative strategy is the process of designing and executing innovative and effective solutions for a specific challenge or goal. It can involve different disciplines, such as marketing, design, technology, and storytelling. But how do you measure the impact and value of your creative strategy? How do you prove your creative strategy ROI (return on investment)?
Before you start any creative project, you need to have a clear and realistic idea of what you want to achieve and how you will measure it. Depending on your challenge and goal, you may have different types of objectives and metrics. For example, you may want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, improve customer satisfaction, or launch a new product. For each objective, you need to define specific and measurable indicators, such as website traffic, conversion rate, net promoter score, or sales revenue. You also need to establish a baseline and a target for each metric, so you can track your progress and compare your results.
Sustainable Brand Growth Advocate | Creative Problem Solver & Speaker
One thing I've found helpful is standing true to the objective/target of the project, and being specific on the indicators to be measured towards the goal of the project. These indicators could be website traffic, subscriber rate, product trials, conversion rate, net promoter score, or sales revenue. All these above, with the target audience in mind, so that progress can be effectively and efficiently tracked.
One thing we believe in is how is your concept or creative solution moving a person up the ladder from unaware and totally unengaged through to curious and then up to “what the heck let’s try this” and then last that to loyal user and ultimately a passionate advocate. All those measurements mean diddly squat unless you’re somewhere on this path
As simple as it may sound, one extremely useful tool is asking “Why?”. Why is the project a need? Why is it proper to do it now? Why is the brand supposed to take action. Why do customers need to know. Such critical questions can lead, if held close and true, to incredibly beneficial outcomes.
Chase conversions, not clicks. Too often people become obsessed with views, click through rates, email open rates, etc...But do any of those actually lead to conversions? Find out what works by talking to customers, sales people, and product teams, find out who bought what features, and work back from there with your content strategy.
It’s very simple but profound you must identify your “WHY” I like to define why as your intention. Once you know your intention, you get to use that information the most intelligent way possible. That my friends is called intentional intelligence.
Once you have your objectives and metrics, you need to align your creative strategy with them. This means that every decision and action you take should be guided by how it contributes to your desired outcomes. For example, if your objective is to increase brand awareness, you may want to focus on creating engaging and shareable content that showcases your unique value proposition and personality. If your objective is to generate leads, you may want to create compelling and relevant offers that capture your audience's attention and interest. If your objective is to improve customer satisfaction, you may want to create personalized and delightful experiences that exceed their expectations and build loyalty.
Ensuring that your strategy aligns with your objectives and metrics is imperative. It can be challenging to gauge progress without this alignment. Setting clear metrics and consistently tracking progress allows you to ensure your strategy is effective and make necessary adjustments. It's crucial to remain adaptable and willing to alter your approach when things aren't working. Establish a clear correlation between your strategy, objectives, and metrics you'll be on the right track to accomplish your goals.
Aligning your strategy with objectives and metrics is paramount. Every decision should contribute to your goals. To boost brand awareness, create engaging, shareable content highlighting your uniqueness. For lead generation, craft compelling offers that captivate your audience. To enhance satisfaction, deliver personalized, delightful experiences exceeding expectations, fostering loyalty. It's about ensuring every action propels you toward your desired outcomes.
No matter how well you plan and execute your creative strategy, you can always improve it by testing and optimizing it. Testing means that you experiment with different variations of your strategy and measure how they perform against your metrics. For example, you may want to test different headlines, images, colors, or calls to action for your website or email campaign. Optimizing means that you analyze the data from your tests and use it to make informed and data-driven changes to your strategy. For example, you may want to keep the elements that work well and discard or modify the ones that don't.
The term “creative strategy” is used far too loosely. Is it the strategy of executing the creative or is it the strategy behind the creative? It should always be the latter. Certainly, headline options, colours, CTAs, will have an effect on CTRs – to a degree – but the best approach is to front-load the effort to understand your audience and develop messaging that will truly resonate with them. A/B testing and mixed performance result from a lack of confidence in how to address your audience in the first place. Instead, study your target, gather data both quantitive and qualitative, mine insights, understand your brand’s impact – then mesh it together to create messaging that has a far greater likelihood of working the first time.
Absolutely, setting clear objectives and defining measurable metrics is paramount to the success of any creative project. It's like charting a course before embarking on a journey – a roadmap that ensures we're heading in the right direction and making meaningful progress. Each objective needs its own set of tangible indicators. For instance, if we're aiming to increase brand awareness, we should measure metrics like social media reach, engagement, and website visits. Remember, it's not just about the creative aspects; it's about aligning those with the bigger business goals. By defining these objectives and metrics upfront, we're not just designers; we're partners in achieving measurable success.
In the digital space, especially with conversational AI and Voice experiences, launch does not mean "done." Continuing to iterate and enhance based on actual user behavior allows us to build upon the strengths and identify what can be better. With an intentional test-and-learn approach, we're able to not only improve our creative product, but we're also in a position to know what made it better and have the data to prove it.
‘shiny new thing’ thinking and strategy are often confused, stay tuned on business goals. For instance; a creative award winning strategy for a new channel is not the question. The question is: how can this channel support our business and what does that mean for creative requirements? Also: reaching people doesn’t guarantee influencing them.
The final step to prove your creative strategy ROI is to communicate and report your results to your stakeholders. This means that you need to present your data in a clear and compelling way that showcases the impact and value of your strategy. For example, you may want to use charts, graphs, tables, or infographics to visualize your data and highlight the key insights and findings. You also need to tell a story that connects your data to your objectives and metrics and explains how your strategy achieved them. For example, you may want to use testimonials, case studies, or success stories to illustrate how your strategy solved a problem, met a need, or created an opportunity for your audience.
Sustainable Brand Growth Advocate | Creative Problem Solver & Speaker
Always communicate the right message, so you'll not later think of communicating the message right... ...know the objective and let your strategy be aligned with the objective with the target in consideration
Humanizing data is critical in storytelling and showcasing impact. It helps demonstrate how the strategy not only achieved its objectives but also how it impacted the intended audiences.
Communicating results is the final step to prove creative strategy ROI. Clear, compelling data presentation is key. Use charts, graphs, and infographics to visualize insights. Craft a narrative linking data to objectives, explaining strategy's impact. Incorporate testimonials, case studies, or success stories to showcase problem-solving, needs met, and opportunities created. It's about demonstrating how your strategy delivered value and achieved goals to stakeholders.
I couldn’t agree more - reporting your findings and data is crucial for proving the value of your creative strategy. In my corporate experience, tailoring those reports is an essential part of the puzzle. You need to connect with your main stakeholders on what matters most to them, so research their priorities and challenges, then create customized reports for each of them. They will often have additional/different objectives and it’s in your interest to show how the results are relevant to their key objectives too.
Creative Strategy is not applied to creative projects but to all processes.. Dream big picture, define main objective and create your story at least as a hypothesis as a starting point. Then define the key milestones together with SMART KPIs & easy tracking methods and deadlines.. frequently check if all are on track. dont forget informing stakeholders frequently about 'the story' and how it continues / finalized with tangible & simple data base outcomes
Talk to your stakeholders and collect their feedback. Creative strategy doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is not aimed to feed the owner's ego. It should be developed for users first. You should understand what sort of impact your creative efforts produce on them. And it is not only about money. It is about building long-term relationships with your audience and gaining social capital that converts into sales.
Creative strategy is not just one solution. To start with, for solving any business problem first we need to clearly define what we are here trying to solve/ achieve. Idea. The success of any campaign or strategy would depend on the idea behind it. Many a time we try and create disruption with that one idea. In such a case the ROI is not always a number but the kind of image you create of the brand in consumers mind. The reach is much higher and suddenly the brand becomes the talk of a town which will stay for longer duration than a click on the add on website or a person visiting the store. Make memorable creative ideas that solve the brand problem and become a guide to inspire many other brands in coming days. Idea is the key.
Well as Creative Director and lead consultant for different brand, what I have experienced is the fact that it is important to remember that proving the ROI of your strategy is not just about data and metrics. While it is important to define your objectives and metrics, align your strategy with them, test and optimize your strategy, and communicate and report your results, it is also important to tell a compelling story that shows how your creative strategy solves a problem, meets a need, or creates an opportunity for your target market.
Don’t solely rely on quantitative data. It only makes sense if corroborated by qualitative insights from consumers - surveys and focus groups can provide valuable context for understanding the impact of the strategy.