The Ultimate Guide To Ad Creative Best Practices For DTC Brands

While the DTC (Direct To Consumer) market is growing at an exponential rate, the increasing competition is creating huge pressure on the brands. The right advertising strategy can help DTC brands to connect with their audience. If you are running a DTC brand, you must be focused on building long-lasting relationships with your customers. Your ad campaigns and marketing strategies should be in alignment with your brand’s mission, goal, and expectations of the target audience. Through this article, you will learn some best practices when it comes to creating ad creatives for DTC brands. 

What is DTC advertising?

DTC advertising refers to the process of creating ads that appeal to the end users. As a majority of the DTC customers belong to the gen-z or millennial age group, the ads must reflect technological advancements incorporated in the products. Moreover, addressing social issues through ads can appeal to a wide range of audiences and also help you creatively put across your point. 

For example, a D2C brand that sells sports equipment and accessories can show how a father gets the products for his daughter to help her excel in sports. It not only puts forward a social message but also improves the brand image and perception among the audiences. 

Best Ad Creative Practises for D2C Brands

The best practices that D2C brands can integrate into their ad creation process:

Focus on Product

The ultimate goal of any D2C advertisement should be on highlighting the product features and specifications. You must convince the audience that your products are better than your competitors. Also, time and budget constraints in creating video ads make it extremely essential to make the most of the available ad minutes. Instead of beating around the bush, your ads must emphasize these things:

• Explain why customers need your products 
• Highlight the product features 
• Describe how customers can benefit by using your products
• Explain how to use the products quickly

The ads must distinguish your products from the products of your competitors. DTC ads must influence customer purchase decisions and focus on creating demand. If your ad creatives are meant to target an audience of specific demographics, they must show how the products will meet their requirements. Finally, the ads must reinforce your brand image and reduce misconceptions regarding your products.

Use brand colors, fonts, and logo

If you have noticed, brands are very particular about using specific colors in their ad and marketing campaigns. The logo, fonts, and colors used in the ads increase your brand visibility. 

For example, food chains usually use colors like yellow and red in their logos and creatives. While red is an attractive color, it also boosts hunger. Yellow stimulates the feeling of positivity and happiness. 

Similarly, you can choose the colors, font, and logo that are in line with your business, sector, and offerings. The images used in your ad creatives must be consistent when it comes to the use of colors and fonts. It helps to establish your brand identity and the audience can relate to your products and brands by just looking at the logo, colors, and font. 

Clear and concise messaging with text overlays

Content is the core of any ad copy. Therefore, you must employ content writers who are skilled enough to script a clear and concise message. While the text must be in alignment with the creative, the headline must be short, concise, and powerful enough to stimulate the buyer’s decision. The word limits associated with headlines, primary text, and descriptions should be utilized in the best way possible to create impactful ads. 

Also, it is observed that many people keep the sound mute while watching the ads. Therefore, adding text overlays or captions is also equally important. It also caters to the needs of the audience who have impaired hearing.

Vivid colors and quirky messages to get noticed

The ad creatives for a DTC brand must be visually appealing and prominent enough to get noticed among the thousands of ads that appear on social media, television, and other mediums every day. For that, you can ask your graphic designers to use vivid and bright colors while designing creatives and banners. 

The messaging in the ads can also be humorous, quirky, and entertaining enough to get noticed by people. This holds more relevance for the brands that have newly entered the market and are trying to create some impact on their potential audience. 

Using stock photos in ad creatives is a norm. However, while using them, you must remove the background. Also, listing product images on a white background is recommended to give the best possible view to the customers. You can also use different angles to provide more perspective to the audience regarding the product dimensions and design. An application that has a background erasing feature can be used to edit product photos and other images to be used in the ad creatives professionally.

CTAs

A CTA (Call To Action) statement should be incorporated in the ad creative to prompt the user to take the required action. The CTA statement can be thought-provoking or something unique to generate curiosity among the users. 

Many brands prefer to use simple statements to inspire the audience to register on their portals, download a brochure, or subscribe to their newsletter. Ultimately, it depends upon the purpose of your ad and the message that you want to deliver to the audience.

Create FOMO with discounts and limited-time deals

If you want to spike your sales through an ad creative, a smart idea would be to talk about discounts and limited-time offers and deals. It will instill a fear of missing out i.e. FOMO in your audience and will ultimately help your D2C brand to generate higher sales and revenue.