We're closer to the year 2021 than we are to the start of 2020. For some of us, it's hard to grasp just how quickly this year has flown by. For others, knowing that we're closer to the summer of next year — and that we will never see this year again — is what brings peace of mind.
Regardless of where you sit on the spectrum of 'what this year has done to my psyche', it's likely that your plans have shuffled, and you find yourself somewhere other than where you expected to be.
So, as venues close their doors once more, travel becomes a distant memory, and you find yourself with time to spare, an opportunity for personal stocktake becomes apparent. Ask yourself: what have I achieved this year? Are my goals still as relevant today as they were in early January? And from an organisational perspective, how has my business responded to the challenges of today's climate?
These areas of focus are just the tip of the iceberg when reorienting yourself in an unfamiliar entrepreneurial landscape — but their answers should almost certainly renew your momentum, revealing new avenues of growth for your professional life.
If there is one thing to take away from this piece, your content should constantly evolve. Stockpiling an inventory of creative content to be distributed throughout the year might seem convenient and time-efficient, but it'll compromise your campaigns' impact and relevance in the long run.
Content creation is not a fancy word for advertising. Instead, it's the process of extracting your brand's identity and materialising it in the form of digital and traditional marketing collateral. Photographers, designers, copywriters and videographers all fall under this unique category of creative marketing, developing internal assets and primary customer touchpoints.
The image you project, and the words you use to describe it, shape the way potential customers identify your company in a saturated market. Brand assets are designed to distinguish your unique selling points, resonate with your target audience and create an experience that inspires customer loyalty. They can invite new visitors to your store or website, increase brand awareness and evoke a feeling of familiarity or excitement.
Brand collateral — like photography, videography, copywriting, website development and logo design — is intended to create meaning for a target audience. It tells a story, shapes expectations, generates exposure, and sometimes commands a premium. Without a carefully tailored creative strategy, these symbols lack a compelling call to action. For this reason, the quality of your customer touchpoints determines people's relationships with your business and the success of your marketing campaigns.
Working within the parameters of your brand guidelines streamlines your company's personality, tone, values and vision across marketing channels. This assigns value to each icon and sentiment to each statement, ensuring that every piece of content is deliberate and on-brand for a consistently unified voice.
Know the platform you're using, and know your audience even better. Content specialists would feature a product or service using high-quality images instead of lengthy text when marketing on a primarily visual platform like Instagram. This approach would differ from Twitter, which is more commonly used to circulate written content. Formatted and developed for each channel's unique design and user characteristics, social-specific content is what separates a cohesive brand from a scattered one.