What Is a Creative Strategy
A creative strategy is a plan you create to accomplish business objectives using creative design and content to connect with a target audience. It serves as a guide for all marketing endeavors by providing direction on how to make decisions about and market your creative content.
A successful creative strategy showcases a deep understanding of the consumer’s problem, then communicating how a specific product or service will solve it. In this way, it helps you gain a competitive edge over other businesses. You can also use a creative strategy to refresh brand identity, plan an advertising or marketing campaign, introduce a new product or service, design user experiences for digital platforms, and create educational materials and programs.
Common Elements in a Creative Strategy
An effective creative strategy includes several common key elements, such as brand information, a creative strategy statement, and a core message. Create these elements to create a comprehensive plan to reach your target audience and differentiate your product or service from the competition.
Include these elements in your next creative strategy:
Brand Information: This is where you define the essence of your brand. Include the name, logo, colors, typography, images, tagline, story, personality, voice, mission, and core values.
Learn the importance of brand consistency and cohesiveness for attracting your target customers.SMART Goals: A SMART goal is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Define these clear, measurable objectives to provide direction and focus to your larger creative strategy.
Check out our comprehensive guide to writing SMART goals to get started.SWOT Analysis: A SWOT analysis is a technique for identifying your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Use a SWOT analysis template to help determine the areas of the company you can capitalize on with a creative strategy.Creative Strategy Statement: Write a brief explanation of what you aim to achieve with this strategy, the target audience, and what differentiates your product or service from competitors.
In some instances, such as for a marketing or advertising campaign, you might use a creative brief to include additional details, such as how to guide the team to approach and develop deliverables. Use a creative brief template to get started.Target Audience Information: Your target audience is the specific group of people who you believe will benefit the most from your product or service, and therefore that you explicitly target with your creative strategy and marketing efforts.
Unique Selling Proposition: In a unique selling proposition (USP), explain what differentiates you from the competition. This is where you pitch your product or service as a unique solution to your customer’s problem or pain points.
Core Message: Here, relay the brand’s purpose and connect emotionally with the target audience through the value of your benefit, service, or product.
Creative Concepts: Use the best material generated from your brainstorming sessions and data analysis as creative concepts that will guide your design. They should capture your target audience’s attention and motivate them to take action.
Learn about understanding creative concepts and creating your own.Communication Channels: This refers to how you share the brand’s messaging with your target audience, such as through advertisements on Instagram or TikTok, traditional print media, email marketing, etc. Determine your communication channels by thinking about which will best suit your message, and where your audience spends most of their time.
Budget: The budget is the funds allocated for the creative strategy. It sets the parameters for what can be done creatively and supports realistic expectations.
Key Performance Indicators: KPIs are the critical metrics you use to track the progress and success of any objective. Choose a handful of KPIs to track, so you can report on success and determine next steps.
Timeline: The timeline is the amount of time allocated to spend on the creative strategy. Create a schedule to keep the creative strategy on track and include milestones along the way.
Steps for Building a Creative Strategy
To build an effective creative strategy, you first need to create a plan to bring your brand or campaign ideas to life. Download the creative strategy template from this page to develop and manage your strategy.
Use the following step-by-step instructions for how to create a creative strategy template in PowerPoint.
Download and Open a Creative Strategy Template
Download the creative strategy template to your computer, and save it using your preferred file-naming convention. This template provides a customizable, repeatable plan for you to house all the elements of your creative strategy.
- Enter Company and Brand Information
Enter the company name and date. Include basic brand information, such as vision, tagline, and color scheme. You can gather this information from the company’s brand guidelines, website, and social media accounts, or by speaking with the brand manager or marketing department. These elements are crucial to your strategy to support brand alignment and encourage brand recognition in the market.
SWOT Analysis
Fill out a SWOT analysis form, which includes space to document the company’s strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Consider internal finances, operations, and teamwork, as well as external trends, political and economic circumstances, and market competition. Include stakeholder and team input for each component.You can use the SWOT analysis to help with goal-setting. For example, if one of your weaknesses is outdated technology, a goal might be to update the technology infrastructure to ensure products remain competitive and reliable.
- Enter the SMART Goals
All of your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). An example of a SMART goal is to increase e-commerce sales by 15 percent in the next six months using 12 short-form videos that align with the brand’s identity. Meet with stakeholders to ensure the creative strategy goals align with the business goals. Use a SMART goals template to help with your goal planning.
Write a Creative Strategy Statement
Briefly explain the strategy’s purpose, target audience, goal, and competitive advantage. An example of a creative strategy statement is as follows:We aim to captivate college athletes on social media platforms such as TikTok using vibrant, high-energy marketing videos that highlight our sneakers' versatility and appeal. Using upbeat music and bright colors, and by showcasing college-aged athletes in both sports and everyday activities, we will create engaging content that motivates our target audience to click the link and purchase our sneakers.
- Enter the Target Audience Information
Use a customer persona worksheet template to build a representation of your target customer. Collect details, including their demographics, psychographics, behaviors, interests, needs, and motivations. Gather this information by analyzing and surveying your current customer base, conducting market research, and researching your competitors’ target audiences.
- Write the Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Describe the benefit that differentiates your product or service from the competition. It could be a new feature, faster shipping, an easier return process, competitive pricing, outstanding customer service, or innovative technology. To generate a USP, use the word only to describe and differentiate your product or service. For example, you might say, “We are the only brand that uses organic, locally sourced ingredients. We are the only brand that offers a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee with a full refund. We are the only brand that offers customization at no extra cost.”
Write the Core Message
Your core message should be simple, memorable, engaging, and consistent across all communication channels. Think about the brand’s purpose and how the product or service benefits the target audience. A tip for creating an effective core message is to test message ideas with your target audience and get their feedback.Decipad is a startup that offers an intuitive platform for users to easily create, collaborate, and share interactive, data-driven notebooks. Its core message is: “A new way to create, collaborate, and build anything you want using numbers. No code. No spreadsheets. No fuss.” This core message the product’s value and gives the impression of an easy-to-use, collaborative platform.
- Enter the Communication Channels
Decide which communication channels you will use, including social media platforms, newsletters, podcasts, digital ads, blogs, and in-person events. Choose your channels based on where your audience spends most of their time and what aligns best with your content. For example, lengthy written information isn’t suitable for TikTok but is effective in a newsletter or blog.
- Detail the Creative Concepts
Creative concepts include design, images, written and spoken content, video, storytelling, and more. Brainstorm with your team ways to capture your target audience’s attention and motivate them to take action. You can generate inspiration from personal experiences or memorable campaigns — such as Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign, where Dove used real women of diverse body types, ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds instead of professional models. Another famous example is Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign, where the company highlighted customers by replacing its iconic logo with popular names. This personalization tapped into a universal desire for individual recognition.
- Enter Budget Details
Using the budget template, enter financial estimates for cost of software, vendors, advertising, employee hours, and all other factors. Use the budget sheets from creative strategies and vendor quotes to estimate costs, and make informed estimates about the other resources, time, market rates, paid services (e.g., running online ads) for the types of deliverables you plan to create.
- Create a Timeline for Deliverables
Create a timeline based on goals, budget, and resources. Determine a start and end date, categorize the deliverables into phases, and include milestones. Leave buffer room for roadblocks, holidays, and employee time off, as well as for any unexpected changes or challenges.
- Enter the KPIs
Enter the key metrics you will use to track the status and progress of the goals. Examples include social media likes and comments, conversion rates, audience growth, website traffic, subscriber count, and click-through rates. Choose KPIs that align with your goals. For example, if you’re trying to reach new customers through your Instagram posts, a KPI might be follower count.
- Monitor Progress and Measure Success
Monitor the strategy’s progress and KPIs for continuous improvement. Analyze results and make adjustments along the way, if needed.
Creative Strategy Toolkit
Download the Creative Strategy Toolkit
Use this free toolkit to help you build a creative strategy. This kit includes templates for all the elements you’ll need to build a thorough creative strategy that resonates with your target audience.
In this kit, you’ll find:
- A SWOT analysis template in Microsoft Word to identify internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats.
- A customer persona worksheet template in Microsoft Word to detail the characteristics of the target audience.
- A budget template in Excel to track the budget and prevent overspending.
- A creative strategy checklist in Microsoft Word to follow the completion of the necessary steps.
- A creative strategy template in PowerPoint to present your strategy to stakeholders and team members.
Examples of Creative Strategy
Companies use creative strategies to build and grow their brand. When done well, they are recognized and remembered by the public. Here are examples of top creative strategies to inspire your own.
The Disney Creative Strategy is a tool that demonstrates how brainstorming and collaboration produce the most original and innovative results. It involves three roles: the Dreamer, the Realist, and the Critic. Team members move through the three roles together, discussing each phase in a different space. The Dreamer represents the brainstorming phase, where you generate ideas and imagine possibilities. The Realist phase determines which of the Dreamer’s ideas are practical and possible. The Critic phase uses a critical viewpoint to scrutinize the possible ideas and identify the best course of action.
For other ways to strategically move through this process, read about how creative operations management enhances collaborative project management.Apple’s “Think Different” campaign reignited interest in the brand and showed the power of a brand’s emotional impact. The most famous deliverable was a short video featuring images of famous innovators and thinkers paired with the creator of Apple speaking about how the most innovative people in history think outside the box. Apple’s tagline and well-crafted content communicated what makes them stand out from their competitors.
Spotify shows the power of understanding your target audience and how solving their problem increases revenue. The company learned that people gravitate toward personalization, so it incorporated the feature into its music streaming.
For more examples, read our complete roundup of top creative strategy examples.
Evaluating Your Creative Strategy
To evaluate your creative strategy, it’s critical that you review the creative statement or brief with your team members and confirm the deliverables align with the strategy’s purpose.
When reviewing your strategy, ask the following:
Does the strategy align with the brand’s purpose and values?
Have you clearly defined your audience’s demographics, psychographics, needs, pain points, and behaviors?
Have you created SMART goals?
Are the required resources available and within budget?
Do the creative concepts align with the target audience’s interests and needs?
Does the strategy fit into the larger business strategy?
Have we shared the strategy with all stakeholders, and do team members understand their responsibilities?
Is the team encouraged to collaborate and are we considering their ideas and input?
Is there legacy support?
Nick Valentino, the VP of Market Operations at Bellhop, says, “If we want to revisit a creative design for new products or update it in a few years' time, will we be able to work with the same creative team? Starting over with a new team or new client can lead to a lot of headaches and reinventing the wheel.”
Microsoft Word Creative Strategy Checklist
Download the Creative Strategy Checklist for Microsoft Word
Use a creative strategy checklist to guarantee you’ve included the elements for a creative strategy. Check the box once a task is complete. Share the checklist with team members who are involved in the planning so they know what has been completed and what still needs attention.
Best Practices for Developing a Creative Strategy
An effective creative strategy builds a plan that team members can easily follow. It provides creative parameters while welcoming creative exploration.
Here are some best practices for developing a creative strategy:
Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment:
Dustin Sitar, the CEO of The Groom Club and a leader in digital growth and full-funnel marketing, recommends, “Brainstorming ideas with your team and encouraging input from those with different perspectives. The more perspectives, the better because it's all about thinking outside the box. Don't be afraid to try new things. Take risks. Experiment with different formats, channels, and messaging to see what resonates with your audience.”Conduct Thorough Research: Research helps you learn what creative approaches and execution are working well in the industry.
Daniel Meursing, Founder and CEO of Premier Staff, explains, “We make it a priority to stay informed about the latest trends and best practices in the event staffing industry. For example, we recently conducted a comprehensive market analysis to identify emerging trends in experiential marketing and how they impact staffing requirements. This research helped us develop targeted training programs for our staff, ensuring they are well-equipped to meet the evolving needs of our client.”Foster Creativity: Create an environment where creativity is welcomed. A culture of openness sparks valuable open brainstorms and discussions, and it paves the way for innovative solutions.
Meursing says, “We encourage our team members to think outside the box and bring new ideas to the table. We hold regular brainstorming sessions and innovation workshops to foster creativity and collaboration. One example is our Premier Innovators program, which rewards team members who develop innovative solutions to improve our services or streamline our processes.”
Learn about managing the creative workflow process by using four phases.Be Flexible: Flexibility — in timelines, deadlines, and requirements — is important, especially in a creative environment. It allows the team to explore new ideas and approaches and to make improvements throughout the process.
For example, imagine you planned to use a social media trend to connect with your audience. After completing the market research, you discover the trend is quickly declining in views and engagement. Flexibility allows you to change the approach, which will ultimately improve your strategy.
Importance of a Formal Creative Strategy
A formal creative strategy is necessary because it functions as the key document to guide your efforts toward your goals. It provides clear direction to keep your team and stakeholders focused and aligned.
Additionally, a formal creative strategy helps you do the following:
- Maintain Brand Consistency: A creative strategy uses brand identity to inform all creative decisions, so the target audience builds familiarity with the brand and knows what to expect from its voice, as well as its products or services. Building brand consistency helps it become recognizable, trustworthy, and distinguishable to consumers.
- Focus on the Target Audience: Your messaging and imagery should catch the attention of your target audience and engage them. A creative strategy brings the target audience to the forefront of creative concepts, messaging, and communication channels.
- Serve as a Resource: Remember to use your creative strategy as a resource for creative development and decision-making. Because it includes details about the brand and target audience, revisit it throughout the planning process to guide other creative choices.
AI Prompts for Creative Strategists
Creative strategists can use AI prompts to define the target audience, write a core message, and generate creative concepts. Use the prompts below to generate AI example copy, which you can then tailor to build a successful creative strategy.
Customer Persona AI Prompt Example
Use this example of a prompt and its output to create a customer persona using ChatGPT 3.5. Replace the text within the brackets in each section with relevant information to your own project needs and role requirements:
You are a [creative strategist] at a [small startup] that sells [athletic sneakers] in [Seattle]. Your tone is [clear, direct, fun, and adaptable]. You are [opening a new location] and need to [create a customer persona] to better understand your target audience. [Create a customer persona for a new sneaker shop in Seattle]. This should include [demographics, psychographics, behaviors, challenges, interests, and motivations]. The output for this task should be [easy to read and edit, in a table, or paragraph, or list format where necessary].
You can also use this
buyer persona template
to input the information.
Core Message AI Prompt Example
Use this example of a prompt and its output to create a core message using ChatGPT 3.5. Replace the text within the brackets in each section with relevant information to your own project needs and role requirements:
You are a [creative strategist] at a [midsize company] that sells [organic dog food] in [Southern California]. Your tone is [clear, direct, and upbeat]. The brand’s purpose is [to provide high-quality organic dog food that promotes the health and longevity of dogs]. The brand’s vision is [to become the leading provider of premium organic dog food in Southern California]. You are [launching a marketing campaign] and need to [write a core message] to relay the brand’s purpose and how the product benefits your target audience. [Create a core message for an organic dog food shop in Southern California]. This should be simple and memorable. The output for this task should include three options, be [easy to read and edit].
Creative Concepts AI Prompt Example
Use this example of a prompt and its output to create a creative concept using ChatGPT 3.5. Replace the text within the brackets in each section with relevant information to your own project needs and role requirements:
You are a [creative strategist] at a [Fortune 500 company] that sells [computer software] [worldwide]. Your tone is [clear, direct, and professional]. You are [launching a new product] and need [creative concepts] to inspire and motivate the target audience. [Generate five creative concepts for launching a new software product worldwide. This should include [messaging, design, and images]. The themes should align with the target audience’s interests and needs, be original, and evoke a lasting impression. The output for this task should be [easy to read and edit, in a table, or paragraph, or list format where necessary].
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