The campaign is set, the creative developed, the list of assets decided. Time to get the copywriters in to do their bit, right?
This scenario is common and can work just fine but what if you want more than fine?
Involving content creators at an early stage can be hugely beneficial when building the overall comms strategy.
But how early, is ‘early’?
Creative development
The creative is a hugely important part of any campaign. It grabs attention and communicates a concept by bringing it to life. The most powerful creatives are cleverly and inextricably built alongside the written campaign messaging.
Developed together, the creative and messaging can fully support each other, rather than risk any compromise as one is forced to flex to fit the other. The true magic happens when really good messaging actually inspires the creative. You only get that when the content creators are in those initial creative brainstorm sessions.
Even earlier?
Market research
So often, market research supports what was already suspected and creates some strong stats that justify the marketing strategy. Useful to ‘sell the dream’ to the powers that be, those stats can sometimes fall a bit flat when attempts are made to use them for end-user marketing. It’s no fault of the market research company – they satisfied their objective. That objective just didn’t necessarily include much thought as to how the data can be practically used beyond the campaign strategy level.
By involving strategic thinking content creators as the market research is developed, to suggest questions, or even to provide subtle changes to how a question is worded, can generate much more commercially useful stats that add serious gravitas to campaign messaging. That’s because those content creators are thinking about how the data is actually going to be used – what words can be put together and in what way. It’s just a case of including another perspective.
Surely not earlier than that?
Product R&D
Taking the last point a step further, conducting research to inform the R&D stage of product development is a rare situation that we have been lucky to experience at Roar. It requires specialist copywriters that have a good strategic approach to their work but delivers powerful insight from a content creation perspective.
At Roar, we work alongside creative agencies, provide consultancy to market research organisations and have capability to deliver reviews of published literature to develop robust proof points that make marketing messages undisputable. We love becoming ‘short-term experts’ as we immerse ourselves in a project!
The ultimate aim is to make everything our clients say, actually SAY something to the intended audience and stand up to their scrutiny. Done right, it’s powerful stuff!
Whether your campaign is already underway or on the distant horizon, don’t wait! Get in touch now for a no obligation chat to see how we might be able to help strengthen its impact: info@roarcontent.co.uk