Three Ways To Contribute To Creative Development

I don’t think many would argue with me when I say that creative is one of the most important pieces of a paid media campaign.

Most social, display, and video campaigns can’t even run without some sort of visual element, let alone drive strong performance. Despite the importance of quality creative, many agencies don’t offer this service as part of their core paid media scope. It’s often a separate service line that requires a different department, contract, and set of fees.

I’ve seen this dynamic create barriers to growth in my own experience. A client might want to launch a new test, but they don’t have the required creative resources in-house. It can be difficult to find a cost efficient creative partner in a timely manner.

That’s why I do what I can to support my clients with creative development. I’m not a graphic designer by any means (more of a data guy), but below I’ll outline how I help to break down creative development barriers in my own work.

Share Specific Recommendations

Developing a brief template with clients has helped to make sharing creative recommendations more seamless. I’ve done this on several occasions, and it allows me to get prescriptive with my creative vision. I can clearly communicate:

• What specific aspect ratios I want developed

• The brand themes or colors I’d like to be included

• Creative styles such as lifestyle imagery vs graphics

• Examples of other ads that I’d like these assets to emulate

• The exact video ad scripts that can be used

By providing as much detail as possible, I’ve been able to work with clients to reduce the number of creative revisions that are needed. This helps us to execute faster, which translates to more rapid experimentation and learning.

Even if I can’t deliver the assets myself in these scenarios, I still work to close the gap between media and creative as much as possible so that the marketing program as a whole can move forward.

Build Your Own Network Of Designers

Helping clients to actually find creative talent can go a long way. Just like everyone else, marketers working on in-house teams tend to have a full plate most weeks. Going on the hunt for a new creative partner that has to be vetted and onboarded might feel like a burden.

I’ve been able to connect with designers that I trust, which has allowed me to speed up the creative delivery process by going to them on behalf of my clients. 

If you have a good working relationship with your client, they’re more likely to trust your recommendation. They’ll almost certainly appreciate the fact that you’ve saved them time.

While you can definitely explore building a network of designers through platforms like LinkedIn or Upwork, I recommend also testing our CaaS (creative-as-a-service) platforms like Design Pickle or Penji. With a relatively affordable flat monthly fee, you can have a whole team of designers ready to go that can accommodate any of your requests. I’ve tested CaaS services, and they usually stick to their tight turnaround times which helps to move projects forward.

Get Your Hands Dirty

Lastly, tools like Canva have made it easy to dive into creative work all on your own, even for people like me who have never had any traditional graphic design training.

While you might not be able to produce the most polished assets on your first try, Canva’s AI features make it easy to repurpose your client’s existing assets to test different variations. 

Canva’s Magic Studio is an intuitive suite of features that can help you deconstruct existing images, then use those pieces to create brand new assets. The learning curve is quick, and I’ve used this on multiple occasions to deliver new ad variations to clients.

Wrapping Up

Creative resources are often segmented away from paid media teams, but I would argue this shouldn’t be the standard. The two are complementary skill sets that can go hand in hand. I’ve integrated these disciplines with my own clients by:

• Developing detailed creative briefs

• Working with designers that I trust

• Delivering creative assets myself

Building out these processes and skills has allowed me to break down some of the more common barriers to growth I had seen over the course of my agency career, and deliver more value to clients.

Have questions, considerations, or critiques? I’d love to hear them! If you’re reading this via email, just hit respond. Otherwise, you can find me on LinkedIn and X (Twitter).