Let’s start by killing two myths with one lesson block.
1. Everybody is creative. Don’t give me that ‘I’m not creative BS’. Creativity is a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it gets. But you have it.
2. Creative strategy is not about being super clever. It’s not about ‘going viral’, award-winning campaigns, or making something that wins at Cannes.
Creative strategy is simply the plan that connects what you want to achieve with the content and communications that will actually achieve it.
It’s the bridge between your organisation and the people you’re trying to connect with. it’s about how you make them feel, what you make them think, notice and ultimately do.
The one question that drives everything
Before the three questions of creative strategy, there’s a more fundamental one.
Who are you actually making this for?
In the disability sector, the answer is always the person with disability, first, clearly, without ambiguity. Not their family. Not their support coordinator. Not allied health professionals or sector funders or the NDIA.
The person with disability.
When you communicate with genuine clarity, respect and usefulness for the person with disability, everyone else in their world becomes more confident in you. Because whilst they aren’t the audience, they are listening. Families trust you because they see their person being your priority. Not doing this is the equivalence of talking about someone in front of them.
Content should be ‘person-centred’ too. Support coordinators refer to you because they can see you understand disability community culture. That’s the multiplier effect of getting your primary audience right.
You can segment within disability, different communities, different support needs, different life stages, and you should. But the anchor is always the person.
The three questions creative strategy answers
1. Who are we talking to? The specific person with disability whose life your organisation is built to serve. Segment within disability don’t just say ‘NDIS participants.’ The deeper the demographics the better.
2. What do we want them to notice, think, feel and do? Four components of reach or impact here, just one thing for each is enough to get going.
3. What’s the most effective way to create that impact? The right message, in the right format, on the right channel, at the right moment.
Every piece of content, every campaign, every social post should answer all three. If it can’t, it probably shouldn’t exist.
Why most organisations get this wrong
Most disability sector organisations try to speak to everyone simultaneously. They hedge their language so it works for participants, families, support coordinators and the NDIA all at once. The result is messaging that genuinely resonates with nobody, is fractured and bland.
Creative strategy means making a deliberate choice about who you’re talking to, and then talking to them. Streamlined, singular and purposeful.
The components of a creative strategy
- Objective: what you’re trying to achieve
- Audience: the specific person with disability you’re serving, and their segment
- Message: the one thing you want them to take away
- Creative platform: the big idea that ties everything together
- Channel plan: where and how you’ll reach them
- Content plan: what you’ll actually make
- Measurement: how you’ll know if it worked
We’ll build each of these over the next six weeks.
Exercise
Choose one communications or marketing goal your organisation has right now. Write it down. This is your live brief for the course.
Then write one sentence describing the specific person with disability this goal is ultimately for. Not the support coordinator, not the family – the person.