Putting A Creative Spin On Retail Promotions

Driving revenue is the bread and butter of retail marketing. Whether it’s a holiday offer or a classic BOGO deal, promotions are key to driving sales. However, there are only so many ways you can spin an offer before they begin to blur. 

It’s time to take a step back. We know the importance of promotions to shoppers. In fact, more than half of shoppers find creative assets with relevant offers to be the most memorable. We also found that 66% of shoppers find brand creative assets to be repetitive. What does this mean exactly for retail marketing? Promotional content needs creative that packs a punch. 

To help you get started, here are a few different ways that retail marketers can put a fresh, creative spin on promotions and how automation can help:  

Play with words

Copy is creative. Sometimes we push it to the side when we focus on art design, but copy deserves a recognized seat at the table. Once the promotional offer is defined, it’s time for CTAs and headlines to be explored. From short and snappy headlines to more thought-provoking messaging, copy plays a huge role in the shopper journey. The majority of shoppers (67%) want a variety of different storytelling approaches so they don’t keep seeing the same ad over and over. With automation, retail marketers can give shoppers exactly what they want by easily producing a variety of creative assets with different messaging. 

Customize for every category

What is retail without expanding product lines and categories? With so many new launches, marketing teams need to be able to keep up and showcase new items. Manual methods of production are slow and what becomes one quick product swap turns into hours of revisions and approvals. With automation, designers can produce assets faster than ever for each product line while maintaining pixel perfection. Creating so many new assets means retail marketers can test creative to see what works best for every audience and try new design elements for every promotion. 

Tap into emotion

Funny. Useful. Beautiful. Inspiring. Those are the four pillars of emotionally compelling content. In “We Studied Brands Around The World. What Consumers Want Isn’t What You Think” by Brian Millar, research showed that the most successful brands use emotion in their creative content to connect with audiences. What does this mean for retail promotions? It’s simple: add emotional appeal. Whether it’s a cheeky headline or truly beautiful design, promotional content can benefit from having an emotional pull to make head-turning creative that drives purchase. 

Animate with style 

Everyone knows that movement catches the eye. Yet, it can be tough to execute animations in a way that makes them pop while being on-brand. Whether it’s border text panning or ambiance features like lens flares or smoke, the most important aspect of animation is quality. When most retail promotions are still, animation allows designers to have more creative freedom with the design. Ultimately, animation adds more view time to the promotion, driving the shopper along the path to purchase. 

If your retail marketing team is ready for high-quality animation, compelling design tools, and creative variety like never before, then it’s time to consider Creative Automation. Our cloud-based software allows for mid-campaign updates in real-time, which means promotional offers can be updated in a flash. When you separate content design, product shots, and copy can be updated to quickly produce new assets. With Creative Automation, teams can produce 3x the creative volume in half the time. To learn more, check out this video or contact us today!