With the world of marketing, heavily reliant on digital media, it’s expected that visuals go a long way. After all, who doesn’t like seeing pretty pictures and shifting objects? This requires having graphics and video content that catch the eye and garner the right amount of attention. Follow that up with a copy that is both informative and convincing enough to gather the right kind of audience.
As a business owner, you know you’d want to make the process easier. The big ad agencies are a handful, and freelancers tend to come and go. The former can take on the heavy work, but charge too much. The latter is affordable, but can be uncooperative and inconsistent.
So the question that comes about is… how can I promote my brand in a highly competitive market with the use of effective digital content?
That is where Iris Creatives steps in. We aren’t some generic online promoter. We are a Creative as a Service (CaaS). Confused? No worries. Let us explain.
What is CaaS?
CaaS is a service model that brings together various creative talents, for a particular price, under one roof through a provider. Think of it like gathering an elite team for a mission. There is the mastermind, the hacker, the muscle and the getaway driver. CaaS operates in the same way. You have digital marketers, social media experts, copywriters, visualisers, graphic designers, animators, AI specialists and others running the whole operation.
It’s because CaaS covers multiple aspects such as digital marketing, content creation, creative design, video production, branding, copywriting and others, that allows it to grow in scale and maintain its growth. Getting ideation, production, execution and delivery done is easier while you keep your attention on your business.
If you’re hesitant about this, let’s first look at some realities. The competition is on an all time high, where marketing teams need to deal with large amounts of work with fast results. It’s inevitable that creative teams are shouldering too much responsibility, leading to delays, lack of time for other projects and burnout.
Outsourcing to freelancers does seem appealing, but they work as a quick fix rather than give long-term benefits. They generally lack the speed and capability to encourage growth. It’s only a matter of time before a ‘creative bottleneck’ happens.
What is a Creative Bottleneck?
A creative bottleneck is a congestion point that creative teams experience. With teams of all kinds being pushed to create content so frequently, it’s only a matter of time before things start to overload, leading to delays and errors. A bottleneck occurs for multiple reasons, which includes:
- Lack of vision: When there is no sense of direction or idea of what is expected from a creative project, then the targets are never reached by the team. This over time leads to confusion, because no one can come to an agreement on what is expected of them.
- No accountability: When the creative process isn’t defined, then ownership over it, is absent. This can lead to some projects being overlooked or sidelined.
- Less Time: Creative processes are known to take time and require many redos. If deadlines are too short, then the work is always rushed, leading to more errors.
- Undefined Processes: When a team doesn’t keep track or record of processes and how they function, it leads to a lot being forgotten. This can bring the same mistakes on to a new project. The team will be carrying a defeatist mentality when starting all over again, which becomes discouraging.
- Flawed Pipelines: This is similar to the former point. Since you weren’t keeping track of the process, the interconnecting pipes are all over the place. There could be moments where hours are lost working on a design template or a creative deck, only to find out there was already one available. Not only has time been wasted, but someone or another definitely feels like they are in trouble.
- Lacking Retrospection: Whenever a project is finished, it’s important to reflect on it. This helps highlight what was done right, and what didn’t work, so the next project can flow more smoothly. If a team is being rushed to finish a project, they are bound to repeat mistakes.
Fixing Bottleneck Problems
Creatives are expected to face the bottleneck problem, one way or the other. Whether it’s a freelancer or a large based organisation, they are bound to experience it if they don’t have their priorities together. If creative bottlenecks are to be avoided then the management needs to:
- Have a vision
- Create an effective team with set timelines
- Set achievable goals
- Maintain accountability
Have a Vision
Every team needs some sense of direction or purpose, in order to know what they want and how they are going to get it. This is where having a vision helps. Think of this as the overall picture that a team wants to achieve, be it finishing a task, or expanding growth. By looking at the bigger picture, the team can set steps on how they can go about achieving them.
An example of this is getting assigned a creative project. A client wants to know how a marketing team is going to promote their product. Now the team does an entire series of breakdowns while working through ideation, production and execution. Everyone knows what their assigned tasks are, and they are united by a shared goal.
Create an Effective Team With Set Timelines
Frequent mishaps are common in teamwork. Having different people with different skills can be a challenge because everyone has their own way of working. Some are quick about it, others take their time. This is where the leader steps in. Whoever is in charge, needs to ensure that everyone is on the same page.
To do so, the leader will set timelines for everyone on the project and list the expected goals. This will make it clear to everyone what’s expected of them, while collaborating with one another.
Set Achievable Goals
Considering that plenty is on the line when it comes to finishing a project, it’s important for teams not to extend their reach too far, or too little. Some leaders are result driven and want things done fast. This can hinder the work of the creative team as members may need time to ideate and construct a plan.
When goals are achieved, it gives a team a feeling of accomplishment and that success becomes their motivation for the next project.
Accountability
When projects fail, a lot of blame tends to go around. It’s understandable why most wouldn’t want to take charge or responsibility, because it’s them who have to face the music. But if creative bottlenecks aren’t to your liking, (which they shouldn’t be), then there has to be a member that can be held accountable, especially for the goals that were set.
When a member is keeping track of progress, and giving needed guidance, it keeps the team in line towards achieving their goal. Sometimes the feedback helps as constructive criticism prevents errors, and positive feedback instills motivation.
Is More Hiring the Answer?
In today’s competitive environment, businesses need to be up to date on the regular while balancing work that is executed well enough to generate revenue. This can lead to issues as creative teams becoming overwhelmed with work.
The usual suggestion regarding too much work is to hire more workers. From a practical view, this does make sense. Having more help on the project would make distribution of the work easier, however hiring isn’t all that simple.
Bringing in new blood takes time and effort. Anyone who was just hired, needs time to learn and adapt to a new workplace. Due to the fast paced nature of creative work in marketing, the latest additions will struggle to keep up and make mistakes. So hiring new helpers will have its troubles.
Another issue is time when a company is hiring. If your business is struggling, hiring barely happens. Job seekers would want to join a place that is well established and functioning well. If they sense a hint of trouble, they’re out the door. When your company is minting revenue and climbing the mountain towards success, hiring is expensive and slow. Job seekers will have high expectations and the line of keen candidates is likely to be long.
Adding new members doesn’t guarantee that they will be on the same level of creative ability that you might have in mind. Plus, with different kinds of projects coming in, the needed skill sets keep changing over time. These factors lead companies to outsourcing.
Outsourcing has become the norm when it comes to creative agencies. It’s common to find a business that has a strategy team in an office, but they usually send graphics related work to other agencies and freelancers. Since we know the catch of relying on freelancers, this begs the question, how does CaaS make a difference?
Benefits of Using CaaS
Many companies rely on overwhelmed creative teams that have to put up with a lot of troubles. CaaS is a way for you and your business to rid yourself of the expected issues while keeping growth consistent.
CaaS is the amalgamation of talent, tech and flexibility that pushes towards growth. Whatever solutions CaaS provides, are based on the following components:
- Remote talent
- Online collaborative technology
- Subscription pricing
With CaaS, you’re practically taking all the best traits of an agency and freelancers, while removing all the problems that come with them. There are even other benefits you can garner, which include:
- Collaborating with highly skilled professionals
- Improving customer engagement and satisfaction
- Convenient pricing for creativity
- Establishing brand identity
- Improved advertisement
- Rising sales and conversions
- Quick turnaround
- Improved scalability
- AI driven content
Collaborating With Highly Skilled Professionals
If you’re looking to promote your brand in the market, the skill set needed has to be top notch. Whichever team you collaborate with, they should bring something unique to the table. When using CaaS, you’re utilizing the best expertise under affordable costs. With their considerable knowledge, your idea becomes reality.
Improving Customer Engagement and Satisfaction
With access to such skilled creatives, CaaS is capable of satisfying its customers with more ease as the process is broken down to steps. Clients may have some idea on what they are looking for, but it’s generally vague or open ended. This is where CaaS gets the right coordinator who is able to elaborate on the idea more, and forwards it to the team.
The back and forth between client and coordinator helps ensure that both parties are on the same page, hence the customer feels heard and the creative team have a good understanding on how to execute the project.
CaaS agencies make it a point to be in touch with what is trending in the market. With expertise at hand, they can promote your brand using the latest techniques, touching on aspects of practicality and emotions.
Convenient Pricing for Creativity
One issue that can come up for companies, especially SMBs, is the high cost of hiring a creative team. If they seek a partnership with a creative agency it still costs plenty. The large sums required can deter a company from seeking help.
CaaS agencies understand this and offer a way to balance providing top creative services with balanced or reasonable costs. If you want to choose a reliable CaaS agency, then make sure it is giving you access to a variety of talents. That way, you’re not depending on a sole individual with one skill. Instead, you’re paying for a range of creative skill sets, while avoiding overhead costs.
Every business has deadlines, but there are times where creative changes are needed, so you need to find an agency that is flexible and can handle shifting scales of production.
Establishing Brand Identity
If someone were to draw a large swaying tick mark, or show you the face of a friendly, old, mustached man with glasses, you’d immediately know it’s Nike and KFC. This is because both companies invested tremendously in their brand identity. They were able to project themselves through their symbol and image.
This is something many companies aspire to achieve, because having customers recognize you in a plethora of competition, highlights how much reach and awareness your brand has. To achieve this kind of recognition isn’t easy. There is a long history of creative strategies that have been done to get the company’s name far and wide.
If you’re aiming to make your brand mainstream, or reach out to a large audience, the agency you choose will matter a lot. If they don’t have a good understanding of brand development then there is your first red flag. If it doesn’t have a record of maintaining a brand vision, that spells trouble.
Choosing the right CaaS team to handle and promote brand identity, comes down to a group of creatives who have prior experience in branding. This involves making guidelines, adapting to changes in trends and facing unexpected challenges. These key traits make them a profitable addition to your company.
Rising Sales and Conversions
The expertise of a CaaS agency is not limited to simply the creative aspect of marketing. They have members in their team that have an in-depth understanding of how sales and conversion strategies work.
A recurring challenge that exists in the marketing industry, is retaining customers. People are quick to move to another agency if they aren’t satisfied with the service or the competition has more up to date tech.
The services provider needs to ensure that the creative team is using storytelling, visual designs and messaging to its fullest potential. These three elements are what allows companies to engage, convert and retain potential clients.
Quick Turnaround
Established agencies along with freelancers face the trouble of fast paced results. Since a promotion campaign has to go through ideation, processing and execution quickly, errors tend to occur. An established agency is slow to changes whereas freelancers can be overwhelmed.
CaaS agencies have the advantage of being able to provide fast results because they are neither too big or small, and have the needed resources at hand to adapt. Another advantage they have is an established network. In case the team doesn’t have information about something, they can reach their assets, allowing them to react fast and achieve quick turnarounds.
Improved Scalability
Freelancers and large companies operate on a contractual basis. This does keep legal related matters in check, but it also limits their scalability since their agreements are fixed. We know that the market has a pattern of experiencing shifts, and a CaaS’s subscription-based model is more beneficial in a frequently changing environment.
When trends change, or something new enters the market, companies have to undergo things like increasing or decreasing production, or altering between different assets in order to keep up.
CaaS agencies, with their subscription-based model, can keep up with the changing trends and can also create design assets that can be used across different promotions, channels and reasons. This way, CaaS agencies help their clients maintain their brand identity, while every now and then, make slight changes during different seasons.
Time is saved for both the short and long term, because there is a collection of digital assets ready for use.
AI Driven Content
AI is the latest, innovative tool in today’s world. Whether it’s science or art, AI is seeping its presence through different fields. The realm of digital marketing also uses this tool to its fullest potential. Any CaaS agency is bound to garner considerable benefits using AI as it has expanded creative abilities to a large scale, with results forming in a matter of moments.
This helps a CaaS agency save time and further push the boundaries of creative possibilities. They have much faster access to research on consumers giving them an added advantage.
Conclusion
The digital realm has opened the world to a level of competition that is unprecedented. This has made it difficult to set foot into the market, but it’s not impossible either. CaaS agencies are a by-product of the fast changing marketing world, and with their adaptable, fast-paced, result driven structure, they can help your business make a lasting impression in the market.
If you would like to use a CaaS agency to promote your product, reach out to us at IRIS Creatives and we can help your business thrive.
