Let's be honest, there's no magic recipe for creating content that best communicates your brand message.
And the entire marketing industry (apart from a few lone wolves) has become more and more preoccupied with analytics, metrics and surefire ways to create content that drives traffic, brings in leads and converts them into purchasing customers.
Yet, we sometimes forget about the creative side of things. In fact, when it comes to creativity, there's almost a "leap of faith" factor, which is why few, especially tech companies, are prepared to do something different. Sure, you don't want to create art for art's sake. But it is possible to fulfil actual business objectives, even when you are experimenting and choosing your creative approach. Well, at least, that's what we think!
All you have to do initially is to make sure your creative concept still communicates your brand message and provides viewers with the "next" step – a CTA or a "learn more" button that will lead to your desired landing page.
At SEMrush, we recently decided to do something different for our business and the industry in general (the all-too-strict and serious SEO industry). Our business goal? To let everyone know that we are diversifying our business to transform it from an SEO-focused toolkit into an all-in-one solution for SEO and digital marketing professionals specializing in content, PPC, SMM and SEO. Our content? A very unusual video, using Valentine's day as an "excuse".
We took four people, who use various SEMrush tools, and asked them to imagine a fictional story about how they might use SEMrush's various toolkit to help with their relationships. And that's how "Marketing Actually: 4 Stories About Marketers in Love" was born. It's a fun, light-hearted interpretation of how technology can help you in your personal life. Of course, it's all fiction (or is it?), but there's nothing wrong with a bit of humour on Valentine's Day eve, right?
The video was met with real appreciation among our audience – we had over 200,000 views and most people actually watched the full video and didn't skip it. So, it was a successful attempt to do something different and bring a pinch of creativity to an industry that's not accustomed to ads by Saatchi & Saatchi. Actually, our video even made it into the Drums' Creative Works section – please pardon us for bragging.
Here's the video, by the way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DcsJSS4_To&feature
What do you think?