How Important is Collateral in Creative Marketing?

There is no denying that marketing and creativity go hand-in-hand – good marketing simply does not exist without creativity. The best marketing campaigns always involve some level of creativity and innovation. These are indispensable if you want to garner the public’s attention and remain relevant and memorable.

What is Marketing Collateral?

To put it simply, marketing collateral is any form of media that a brand uses to advertise its products or services. Read more about how to integrate a creative marketing strategy into your advertising. This can refer to videos, posters, brochures, or anything else that the public sees. It includes a variety of formats, and every campaign has differing objectives that will inform what formats are appropriate.

Good marketing collateral does not exist for the sake of existing – it has a purpose and is executed well. Your collateral is informed by your marketing objectives, which determines how to best engage your audience. This is where creative marketing comes in, as it informs the direction of your campaign.

What is Creative Marketing?

Creative marketing is the execution of marketing collateral in an inventive and distinct way. It allows a message to be remembered by the consumers, connecting with the target audience.

While the importance of creative marketing has always been recognized, digital marketing has taken it to a new level of significance. The rise of digital media has led to consumers constantly being exposed to messages about products and services. It is now more important than ever to stay ahead of the game. Creative marketers, through innovative collateral and creative campaigns, can more effectively engage with potential consumers.

Why is creative marketing important?

Your target audience comes across a tremendous amount of  marketing content every day. They will be exposed to various marketing campaigns on social media, billboards, television, search engines, and several other channels.

This is why creativity is important – marketers need to stand out from the crowd and retain their target audience’s attention.

It connects with customers

Creativity helps you form a connection with your target audience. In a recent study on advertising effectiveness, it was shown that creative quality plays the most important role in driving sales. Over 40% of the participants said the creative’s quality is the most important factor determining whether they engage an advertising message or not.

Therefore, creative marketing will result in increased engagement with your target audience. This engagement will translate to forming a connection with your audience.

It builds brand awareness

Creativity in marketing helps to improve brand awareness. Brand awareness is directly related to consumer growth and subsequently increased sales. Arguably, some of the most valuable assets of a brand are formed at its inception: name, logo, and slogan. These elements of ‘branding’ serve an important role in providing your brand with a competitive advantage.

Memorable branding comes from creative marketing. Implementing creative marketing ideas will provide you with strong opportunities to increase brand awareness. Collateral with creativity creates consumers that are hyper-aware of your brand.

It can facilitate innovation

Creative marketing acts as a vessel for innovation. A creative approach to marketing can produce an atmosphere of creativity, encouraging the business at large to produce a more innovative approach. When a business’s marketing team is not afraid to use their imagination, this translates into every piece of marketing collateral. Ultimately this impacts how potential customers perceive your brand.

Why you need integrated marketing

A lot of marketers focus their efforts on choosing the right marketing channels. This includes deciding how to best implement social media advertisements, or how to utilize SEO to drive traffic to your website

There is no dispute that these are important elements of an integrated marketing campaign. However, businesses often neglect to give both the actual collateral and creatives an equal amount of attention. Any type of marketing collateral is  the contact point between the brand and the consumer. Thus a creative approach is important as it connects with the consumer and helps to build brand awareness.

At Senspoint, we emphasize the importance of creative marketing just as much as everything else. We work with brands everyday, becoming part of your team to amplify your voice.