Articles
Feed them what they need: supplying database information to your creative team
By Carol Worthington Levy
Database information is becoming more plentiful and more accurate every day. But most Creatives are never given the information from that database -- the juicy details about the recipients that help them create mailings that are beyond the ordinary…enticing to your target prospect and highly effective.
Demographics are the first step, of course. But when you don't provide more than basic “offer and challenge” information to your creative team, your response is probably less than half of what it should be. Demographics and more importantly, psychographics, can change or effect the look, the feel and the outcome of your creative efforts in the mail, in advertising, and on the web.
For those creating printed work, this visually and verbally personal “Intelligent Creative” will give you higher response. For those with web presence, you'll get longer visits, increased viralness and stickiness, and better back end sales. In email, you’ll get more click through and response.
They’re called Creatives, right? So why not let them be…creative?
Direct Marketing Creatives come from all walks of life. Some are nurtured in schools that teach them writing or design skills, some have started in the sales or marketing side and transitioned into full time creative, and others still come from backgrounds that are more product-oriented, either engineering or perhaps merchandising. Still, the thing that ties them all together is that they’ve NOW got the challenge of contacting prospects or customers, in the way they’d like to be contacted, and in a voice and visually the way they’d like to be communicated with. And therein lies the challenge. Creatives aren’t always trained to think that way.
In art and design schools, for example, most young designers are taught the sensibilities of design as an art form, and it’s carried through into graphic design as well. It’s a rare teacher of typography and design who emphasizes comprehension and developing a creative look to what the prospect is like. Instead designers are taught that their most important goal is to take visuals to ‘a higher level’. While direct marketing work benefits from quality photography and careful typography, often the elite attitude of such design separates the work from the prospect, at the very moment that it should be endearing itself. This can happen similarly with trained writers, who find themselves writing for themselves rather than their prospect.
Given a vacuum of personal information about your prospect, most Creatives won’t dig for that information – instead, they’ll resort to the training that got them their job, and begin doing creative things that are ‘surface level’ creative. While a more seasoned and dedicated direct response creative will start grilling you for answers on who their prospect is, most won’t take that time because they simply don’t know how or don’t have the time. And that’s when you get a mail piece that seems somehow disconnected to your audience. These Creatives make assumptions about your audience…and often those assumptions are simply not right.
The Creative Brief: a creative’s key to your prospect’s life.
We’re all predisposed with certain ‘stories’ about people… we think or believe certain things about the people around us, our family and friends and co-workers. Those stories are dispelled or proven as we’re with them on a day to day basis. But what about our prospects? Your creative team will rarely meet them in person…so how do they get to know them well enough to speak to them in the best possible voice? How can your creative team know how prospects see themselves, what bothers them about your product and your competitors and what are their priorities are that directly or indirectly apply to their buying habits?
The answer is the Creative Brief.
This tool is the most essential part of any creative project, yet it’s something that most experienced Creatives have to beg for. A mere description of a project is simply not enough to get the project right the first time. And while ALL the information in a Brief is important, the most essential information is the part that provides demographics and psychographics.
Here’s my basic creative brief, which I provide my clients to complete if they don’t have a form of their own. Also, if you’d like me to send this form to you in WORD, email me at carol@worthington-levy.com and I’m happy to forward it to you for instant usability.
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CREATIVE BRIEF
1. Project description (Special issue or mailing? Seasonal? What makes this news-worthy?)
2. Situation Analysis (what is the background -- state of the market, customer buying habits, product change, etc.)
3. Marketing Objective (How would you clearly define your reason for mailing...and for someone to respond this?)
4. Audience (who are they? Have they changed? Age, habits, hobbies, NEEDS)
5. What is the audience’s current perceptions and beliefs relative to your product, to this category of products, AND to your most lively competitors?
6. What do we want to change in our customer’s thinking?
What do we want to change in our prospects’ thinking?
7. What can we do to differentiate this catalog or mailing from our other efforts, and from our competitors mailings? SHOULD it be differentiated? Why?
8. What offer can we make to our customers, or what exciting promise? (Your product is NOT your offer. Your service is NOT your offer. It must be something that rewards them for responding.) What is the time limit on this offer?
9. What’s the single-minded thought that you most want your audience to remember from this mailing’s arrival?
10. What action do you want them to take?
11. When do we need to be in the mail (see attached schedule)?
12. Budgetary restrictions:
- What does the client think they want to spend on creative and production costs?
- What is the UP SIDE of this mailing: how much they expect to make per sale?
- Is there a BACK END to the sale or lead generated?
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Another extremely helpful piece of information which adds tremendously to the creative’s view of the problem to solve is the mailer’s Mission Statement. Who is the company who is sending this mail out, what do they stand for, how does this tie in with the product or service being offered?
Taking the time to fill out a creative brief often seems like a burden, and too time consuming…until you get the project moving and watch your Creatives head off in the wrong direction. The subsequent rounds of copy and design revisions AND the incessant questions that they ask (if they are responsible Creatives) all take much more time than developing and presenting a creative brief.
Hmmm…did you say “presenting” the brief?
Yes, the next step after developing the creative brief is to actually have a meeting – and I’m not big on meetings! – to go over the brief. I don’t suggest actually reading the brief aloud in the meeting (or conference call, if your Creatives and team are at a different location)…but I DO suggest going over it point by point. You may even want to include your database wizard to attend the meeting, a step which we’ve often found very helpful in both providing information to Creatives, and bringing up ideas for mailing lists and data searches. Encourage questions as each step is completed. Expect that there will be questions. And consider each question to be a point that will make the direct mail package a bit closer to on-target when it is complete.
What else do Creatives need?
The more you provide your team, the more likely they’ll hit the nail on the head the first time. Other material to provide them, at the same time, or even before you discuss the brief if possible, are…
- PR releases about your product
- Sales sheets
- Prior mail efforts
- Ads currently running or getting ready to run
- Videos
- Web URLs
- Email efforts
Plus, any information you have about whether these things have worked or not… what happened when these elements were released.
Information to creatives is best presented in a straightforward manner – step them through it piece at a time. This is not a reflection on intelligence or even professionalism…it’s instead an acknowledgement that you are probably so immersed in your product that you forget that others are coming in from the outside and need more information than you do.
Also essential to provide both writer and designer are rules and examples of brand elements – the rules of the brand look and “voice”, the reasons for the rules (if available), and as many samples as you can get your hands on for where the brand has been carried out. This is not only helpful, it is essential to get the design and voice right the first time.
For example our work with American Isuzu was highly successful in getting the brand look and voice right the first time because their general agency, Goodby Silverstein, had some very well defined rules of how their brand looked and read, and they had additional research to tell us more of who their customer. We also received sample ads that had been running, and videos showing broadcast commercials that were running or getting ready to run. This was done without a lot of fanfare and it meant that the creative team had a lot to slog through…but we got it right immediately and produced the most successful mail in Isuzu’s history, with measurably massive numbers for the automotive industry. Historically these materials are tougher to get from a general agency, but Goodby proved to be a fine partner in protecting the brand for Isuzu. Don’t be shy about getting these things from your alternate agencies – remember, they are in business to serve you and provide what you need in a timely manner!
A final element that the agency provided us upon request were large boards on which they had collaged images cut from magazines and other places, and key words which were an essential part of the messaging for the prospect. They actually loaned us the boards briefly, providing us an additional peek at our customer. While this kind of activity may seem over the top for a single direct mail effort, it most certainly is not for an ongoing relationship that will involve testing of concepts and offers.
In conclusion, these elements – a creative brief which includes in-depth psychograpics and demographics (to provide a picture of your prospect), samples of prior work and results that came from that work (to provide history), and branding materials (to provide rules for voice and graphic treatment) will be key elements in your pursuit of your new control. In addition, a kickoff meeting with sharing of ideas and research will seal the package, and your Creatives will be set to run off and running.
After this, request step by steps to make sure they are on-track – including thumbnails, a draft with heads and subheads to confirm voice and direction – and you’ll reap the rewards of your preparation toward developing your next breakthrough package.