Planning out what content to create / curate is a tricky part of the ad campaign process but a key factor in getting the most out of your budget and resources. With the correct plan and strategy in place, you can ensure you meet your current goals, whilst also collecting valuable assets for the future. Creating multi purpose content that can be easily uplifted to suit a range of ad platforms will provide added value if planned correctly. But where do you start and what key things do you need to get right?
Bearded Fellows are a creative agency that have been supporting brands, agencies and organisations to achieve their goals through Animation and Video Content for over 8 years.
Here they share their top tips to ensure you get the most value out of your ad content:
1: Define Your Goals & Create Content To Meet Them
Once your marketing goals are clearly defined you can then work out what type of ad content is needed to meet these goals. You’ll need to create specific content to achieve each goal or you run the risk of the content not meeting these needs. Careful and creative planning from the start will ensure you are set up to meet each goal within the resources you have.
2: Do Your Research
It is vital that you collect relevant psychographic/ behavioural data of your target audience for each ad platform. This data will inform many aspects of the content you create and will form the foundation for you to plan from. Understanding these audience insights will enable you to confidently go super granular with your targeting which will increase your chances of conversion and will also help you to plan out device specific content that meets your goals.
3: Define What You Have To Work With
Understanding what design assets you have and the flexibility of your brand guidelines will help you plan what other content you need to collect and curate to achieve your ad goals. Working with designers, production managers and editors from the start will ensure you collect the most relevant content that can be utilised in the most efficient way.
4: Plan For Asset Updates In Advance
Based on the brand guidelines and communications strategy, develop a plan of what outputs and content will be used for future campaigns and what methods could be used to refresh these assets. Certain methods will work for certain brands/ campaigns and your agency will support you in understanding these options. Ie: Ad Templates, animated text changes, colour and treatment changes, image changes. Working out different creative approaches to gathering this content now, enables you to create content that meets current campaign needs, but allows the flexibility to refresh that look in the future whilst remaining on brand.
5: A/B Test Clear Messages
Communicate clear messages that are culturally/ market specific to your customer and the ad platforms you are using. Communicate the key benefits you offer and refine your messages according to the results of A/B tests. Ensuring that you create content that is easily adaptable will enable you to rapidly create and refresh ads that work for your target audiences.
6: Create Platform Specific Ads
Focus on what each platform does best and don’t try to use the same ad for each platform. With careful planning, you can create multiple ads efficiently that meet your needs and that compliment the expectations and wants of the users. Whilst creating a hero Youtube video for example, behind the scenes content can be gathered for instagram stories or to blend into a feed that viewers find interesting. Plan in thumbnails, looping requirements and (fade) music needs in advance. Your agency will support you to ensure this is well planned out and the correct content is collected in the most efficient way. (Adhering to the correct aspect ratios, dimensions, sound requirements, etc.)
7: Plan In Strong CTA’s & Customer Journeys
Ensure that you plan out strong CTA’s and customer journeys that are linked to your goals. Planning these in advance will ensure that you lead your audience to relevant, targeted landing pages and that you provide a friction free experience.
8: Create A Detailed Storyboard
Create a well planned, visually detailed storyboard that is shared and signed off with key stakeholders in the planning phase. This part of the process is crucial and will reduce the likelihood of misinterpretations and of costly revisions having to be made down the line.
9: Nail The Script And Copy
As marketing professionals, the chance is that you know the importance of telling a good story, emotional connection and of helping your audiences feel positive associations with your brand. You know to provide genuinely useful content and you know the power of being authentic. What is critical is that you communicate this in the most effective way for your ads you are creating. Engaging a professional scriptwriter or agency to create a well written, well paced script or copy will ensure your messages get through. Bad script, bad content.
10: Have a Good Hook
We all know that YouTube gives us only 5 seconds to hook in our audience and on social media it’s often less. Sound is often turned off when scrolling on platforms such as Instagram and so plan how to instantly get your viewers attention and make them want to view your ad using creative visual and audio cues.
_______________
Following these guidelines will help you get the most value out of your ads. Success really is in the planning!
