Are your creative assets fully reflecting your brand? The look and feel of your marketing materials say a lot about you, and a creative audit can ensure they’re saying the right things. But what is a creative audit, and do you need one?
The Basics of a Creative Audit
The goal of a creative audit is to understand whether creative is working or failing to connect with your target audience. It evaluates all examples of your marketing efforts, from print brochures to your website, to see if your creative choices resonate with who they’re trying to reach. Everything from colors to copy needs to be looked at with a careful eye to see if any improvements can be made to better convey your products, services, and overall message.
Who should get a creative audit? Anyone looking to:
- Rebrand or re-energize creative
- Evaluate campaign success
- Set new goals
What to Look For in a Creative Audit
A creative audit might seem subjective–how can you objectively judge creativity?–but a creative audit is not about whether or not something is pretty. Good looking creative doesn’t mean much if it’s turning off the very people you’re trying to attract, so this exercise is less about how your assets look and more how they perform.
In the creative assets themselves, you’ll want to look at:
- Consistency
- Overall aesthetic
- Colors
- Fonts
- Images
- Word Choice
- Tone
From there, you’ll want to see which examples delivered the most engagement, clicks, and sales.
How to Run a Creative Audit
Collect the most recent examples of all your creative assets: print out examples of any digital assets, including:
- Website
- Email blasts
- Social media posts
- Blogs
- Logo variations
- Paid search ads
- Any other materials created for recent campaigns
Look at everything side by side: does everything look like it was created by the same team? Cohesive use of colors, logos, verbage?
Reconfirm your target audience: really dig deep into who they are. If you’ve created audience profiles in the past, bring them up to see if they still match up with your ideal customer or client. Revise as needed.
Bring in a fresh pair of eyes: the best way to get a handle on whether what you’re creating is really meeting the needs of your audience is to get an outside perspective. You know what you’re trying to communicate, but bringing in an impartial judge will truly tell whether or not you’re succeeding. This can be done by showing your assets to:
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- An actual member of your target audience, getting their opinion
- A creative professional who can use a trained eye to gauge what you’re really saying through your design and copy
This exercise should bring some clarity to your creative, showing opportunities for improvement by building on what works. Businesses should plan to do a creative audit on an annual basis, especially when setting yearly goals or launching major new campaigns.
Bring in the Experts for Your Creative Audit
Still not sure where to start with your creative audit? Do you also need help with a full website audit? Not to worry! The designers, writers, and digital marketing pros at Launch Digital Marketing are here to help! Contact us to learn more about our creative audits!
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