9 Online Creative Strategy Ideas for Businesses

Online marketing depends on many things, whether you are a small business, a large business or somewhere in between. One is creative strategy.

Everyone is trying and buying to get the attention of today’s online consumers. Using tactics that entertain, inform, and provide value, creating a consumer experience, reign the champions.

Marketing content that combines website content, blogging, and social media, among others, are powerful tools that must have a creative strategy.

A creative strategy enables brands to break through the noise and connect with their audience in an impactful, memorable way. It outlines the vision for innovative concepts, messaging, and assets across media formats that align with business goals. Key elements include research, brainstorming creative ideas, and optimizing and testing performance. Strong creative strategies are informed by audience insights, set measurable objectives, and balance innovation with strategic needs. They result in creativity that resonates and achieves real impact.

Here are 9 proven ideas to help your creative juices start flowing:

1. Brainstorm Your Online Marketing Strategy

Schedule a brainstorming session with your colleagues and share ideas, no matter how outrageous they may be. Some refer to this process as a waste of time, but it is the opposite if done properly.

The secret to brainstorming is quantity, not quality. Creativity builds on others’ ideas, and when people with similar agendas for business gather millions of dollars, creative ideas may be born.

2. Get Blogging

Every online business needs a blog because blogs build brands and customer loyalty; utilizing a free AI writing tool can be a valuable resource, allowing you to generate compelling content without needing a professional writer, as long as you understand the interests of consumers in your industry.

For example, if you are an interior designer, share the latest decorating trends, tips and information about the year’s colour. Think about the kinds of things your target customers will be interested in.

Your blog should target users who have a specific problem but haven’t yet made the link so that they can purchase your product or service to solve it.

Use photographs, videos and infographics to make the blog more visually interesting. Post survey results, customer interviews, lists or even comments regarding your opinion about the latest topics.

Share photos of popular celebrities who are following your trend.

Readers will enjoy the creative content and look forward to your message and return to read future blog posts. Use links to your website so readers can see the featured products in the blog and get more information about your company. The goal is as much to provide value to your readers as it is to make a sales pitch.

3. Use Effective Call To Action

Call to Action (CTA) words are verb combinations that create commands readers click to get more information. Common examples are, “Click here for more information,” Download your free guide now,” Sign up to get our emails,” and so on.

However, research on calls to action is more compelling than you think, and using the right words may be the key to getting customers to click and convert. Get to know what CTA words trigger your customers both positively and negatively. It may take some simple research.

4. Keep Up With Social Media

Facebook is the social media leader and will continue to lead in the 2020s. Facebook now owns Instagram and is very popular too. Social media is changing every day, with new platforms, rules and trends showing up all the time.

Newer to the scene is SnapChat, a real-time messaging and multimedia app popular among the younger crowd.

It’s a part of the growing ephemeral content trend.

Their platform has two options: Snap, a photo or video shared between SnapChat friends that disappears within one to ten seconds and a story, photo or video message SnapChat users can view for up to 24 hours as many times as they like.

Businesses can add SnapChat to their creative strategy to engage the younger demographic. Snapchat is just one of the examples of how quickly social media changes, and it is wise to keep up with them so your brand doesn’t get lost in one snap.

5. Select Creative Fonts

Fonts or type styles that were originally reserved for graphic artists and designers are now commonplace and can be used as part of your online branding strategy.

The internet is a very visual place. Marketers have to figure out ways to catch and capture users’ attention.

Creative fonts are one way to make your message more graphic. Creating a brand for your company and product can make or break how easily your message is understood.

Remember that some fonts aren’t viewed the same from computer system to computer system, so your attempts, if used in the regular text instead of artwork, may not be viewed all the same way.

You’ll also have to pay for certain fonts, but there are various free ones.

6. Create a Listicle

A listicle is a blog post or article outlined using bullets or numbers.

Many websites are strictly devoted to creating listicles. Companies incorporating listicles into blogging, websites and creative marketing strategies will be one step ahead of their competition.

Here’s a list of tips to get you started:

• Choose a topic that pertains to your industry and number each thought so readers can easily digest the information
• Use an odd number in your title. Research indicates that odd numbers resonate with readers more than even ones do.
• Keep the list no longer than 29 items. Research by mathematics has proven that 29 is the perfect list number
• Put a list in your listicle. Just like we are doing here, breaking down content into sections works
• Write an eye-catching title to grab your readers’ attention using the number in the list
• Make sure your list motivates, inspires, teaches and is valuable to the reader
• Make your content edgy and controversial so it is more likely to be remembered.
• Use humour, have fun with your listicles, and your readers will, too.

7. Livestream a Real-Time Video

The power of life is priceless, especially for a business’s digital creative strategy. Streaming a live video, whether it be on Facebook or another platform, lets the viewer be a part of the event.

Make the video dynamic by walking around the event, hosting behind-the-scenes coverage or even interviews before and afterwards. A mobile device or tablet is perfect for taping a live video.

Some more ideas for a live broadcast are webinars, social events, how to use a product, a tour of a facility, training, question and answer sessions, candid camera-style videos and demonstrations.

Live streaming video offers endless possibilities for engaging and capturing your demographic and audience.

8. Include Millennials In Creative Strategy

The Millennial generation, people between the ages of 21 and 34, are important to understand because they are changing how we market our businesses.

This group has grown up using the internet and craves content-driven media. They are connected to their mobile devices and aren’t used to waiting for much of anything. They like social media, sharing what they find by liking, pinning, forwarding and commenting.

They also like to collaborate and share their opinions. Millennials support companies dedicated to improving their lives with informative inbound content.

Millennials want worthwhile, valuable information through blog posts, e-books, whitepapers, videos, infographics and other how-to information. If businesses can offer this, they will have a lifelong, loyal customer.

9. Use Strong Visuals in Your Creative Strategy

Visuals are crucial to online success. Millions of graphics, photographs, gifs, infographics and other visuals are downloaded on social media daily. Creative strategy demands content with images because they get 94 per cent more views than content without.

This applies to all industries, niches and organizations. And products in action are valued more than a static photograph or image. Show how a product or service is used and get your readers’ attention.

Photos and videos taken on mobile devices are accepted in today’s mobile world and are as effective as professional photography.

Creative images and graphics before, during, and after paragraphs of copy will draw attention to the content.

Linking an image to your website is also an effective digital creative strategy so readers can click and continue to learn more about the content by visiting your dedicated website. We share our most popular articles on creative strategy and creative ideas for business, which are more important than ever – today:

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More About Creative Strategy

Researching Your Audience:

Conduct user interviews and focus groups to uncover pain points, motivations, and values. Send out surveys on brand perceptions and content preferences. Build detailed buyer personas based on demographics, behaviors, attitudes, and goals. Emphasize insights creative work should address – problems to solve, desires to tap into. Audit competitors’ creative approaches for differentiation. Analyze platform data on current content performance and engagement. Immersive research leads to creativity that deeply connects with the intended audience.

Creative Process:

Facilitate collaborative sessions to generate ideas. Provide clear creative briefs with goals, guidelines, and specifications. Set up processes for iterating on concepts quickly to save time versus prolonged evaluations. Maintain structured workflows and approval steps, enabling transparency. Store creative assets on centralized platforms, allowing easy access. Tap partners and agencies as needed for fresh thinking. Work cross-functionally, ensuring creative and strategy alignment. Guide creative teams but leave room for innovation within brand guidelines. Documentation and structured workflows enable creativity at scale.

Optimizing and Testing:

Conduct multi-variant A/B testing on elements like imagery, copy, layouts, and offers. Analyze performance data points like click-through rates and dwell time. Survey the target audience on concepts through online panels or social listening. Monitor early adoption and sharing behaviour. Uncover cultural trends and feedback influencing iteration. Set up processes to quickly refine creative based on insights. Continually optimizing through testing and analytics leads to high-performing creative.

Creative Strategy: FAQs

Q: What is a creative strategy?

A: A creative strategy outlines the vision and plan for impactful, innovative branding, messaging, and content creation that connects with audiences.

Q: What research is involved?

A: Research like surveys, interviews, and focus groups provides insights on audience demographics, pain points, motivations and media habits to inform creative direction.

Q: How can you optimize creative work?

A: Set measurable goals, gather feedback through market research, analyze performance data, and continually A/B test creative elements like visuals, copy and layouts.

Q: How does creativity tie to overall brand strategy?

A: Creative teams should understand positioning, messaging and business objectives. Creativity should ladder up to achieve brand goals by reinforcing differentiators.

Q: What makes creativity successful?

A: Successful creative is informed by audience insights, balances innovation with strategy, seeks feedback, and is refined based on performance data to drive engagement and conversions.

Creative Strategy: Conclusion

Developing a thoughtful creative strategy enables impactful brand-building and content innovation. Conducting immersive audience research, facilitating collaborative ideation, maintaining structured development workflows, and continually optimizing and testing creative performance is key to success. This ensures creative concepts are human-centric, strategically aligned, and engineered to resonate across channels. With a dynamic creative strategy guiding creative teams, brands can achieve meaningful emotional connections while driving results.

To start building your online creative strategy, contact our digital marketing agency today.