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Hello to you and Q4!

For many people and brands, it is crunch time.

Just remember to breathe, drink water, and relax.

That being said, creative will be a main factor for you winning in Q4.

As I talk to brands, many are not ready for the increase in creative needs.

I am going to give you a checklist of everything you need for Q4.

Some items will apply to you, others won’t, but use this as a guide to start getting the content you need together.

The Ultimate Checklist

1. Studio Product Photos

2. Lifestyle Product Photos

3. Studio Product Videos

4. Lifestyle Product Videos

5. Product B-roll

6. Evergreen Video Ads

7. Evergreen Static Ads

8. Sales Videos Ads

9. Sales Statics

10. Themed Photos / Videos

11. Content Production on Standby for Edits, Iterations, and New Ads

12. Clean Feedback Loop between Data and Content Production

13. Creative Strategy Role Assigned and Clear

Now, I will break down this list in detail!

Product Photos and Videos for Emails and Website

Having a refresh of product imagery can help elevate your overall visual brand before this major buying period.

You can use these images and videos for:

• Landing pages and product pages

• Photos for static ads

• Videos as B-roll in ads

• If you have a product launch, you need new photos and videos

• Any themed photo shoots

Especially at a time when more emails are sent, you need fresh photos to work with and design emails.

If you haven’t had a photoshoot in a while, more statics and emails at this time of year means you will exhaust those photos quickly.

Plan ahead.

As you are thinking of elevating the content in Q4, getting some good product shots both in the studio and lifestyle can allow you to do a lot for all use cases of images.

This is also true for videos on the product page and website.

Most brands would benefit from having videos on their site to explain in depth their product.

Why will it work?

Most likely, someone came to your site from social media watching videos, so matching the medium the viewer was consuming prior to coming to the site will help engage the viewer.

Oh - and you can use those videos for ads later.

If you are launching anything new or want a themed photo shoot, now is the time to get that started versus waiting until November or December.

Themed photoshoots are honestly worth it if you are doing a themed marketing campaign like 12 days of Christmas or something like an advent calendar.

Evergreen Ads

• Video ads

• Static ads

• Creative Strategy

Q4 is not all about sales; it is about selling.

Not all your ads can just say sale.

People need to care about your product first to care about the sale second.

So, your focus needs to be producing great evergreen ads now to lock in the winners to scale during Black Friday.

It is imperative to have a great system of creative strategy to find winning angles and get feedback on your ads.

Especially if you are planning to increase budgets, you don’t want to scale losers.

A successful Black Friday starts today by finding winning ads in October and early November.

Beyond the strategy and finding good ads, you need to make sure you have the bandwidth to produce more for your budget increases.

Do you have an editor or an external partner ready?

Sale Specific Ads

• Video ads

• Static ads

You want to be ready to load up your account with your sale offers for Black Friday and the holidays.

You will need some sale-specific content that is to the point and tells people about the sale.

If you already know your sales, you can just get started creating this content today.

We are doing that for one brand already.

Things to be Careful with Creating Content in Q4

• Shipping times to get the product out for filming

• Increased budgets = more content

• More content = more production and planning

• If you don’t have a system now, things will break under pressure

As someone who is doing production every week for brands, a lot goes wrong, whether that’s shipping delays, scripts being changed last minute, talent falling through, etc.

You need to plan for production miscues because there will be a lot when the demand for content is a lot.

Speaking of demand for content, your accounts will be demanding more content as you increase your budgets.

My rule of thumb is 5-10% of ad spend goes to production.

So if you are at 100k/month and bump up to 250k/month, then your production budget needs to be 5k to 13k.

For most people, they are increasing their content production by double or triple in Q4.

With more content, you need to be planning way more and have a good system in place.

Before you start jumping into making ads blindly sit down with your team to make sure you have a good system in place to plan, create, and optimize ads.

If you don’t have this in place, start here first before anything else.

This creation loop will be the lifeblood of your ads’ success.

The Value of A Creative Studio

Creative production is a very different skill set and service than most things in an organization.

Very few brands have the luxury or the need for an in-house content team.

Most will have an editor or two but not a full-on production manager, videographer, editor, etc.

To have a full-on team to help you, you are looking at 20-40k in monthly payroll.

You also need to know how to manage production and these people for them to be successful, which most companies don’t know how to manage creative people.

Hiring a creative studio can save you money and get your content faster without the headache of having to manage another team.

As you head into a busy time, you need a system and volume of production, and an outside team can plug in and help you.

There are a lot of content needs in Q4 - now is the time to get started on planning and creating.

Remember to breathe, drink water, and relax.

You are gonna be great.

Keep creating!

Matthew Gattozzi

PS. If you need help figuring out creative partners, I offer a free call to figure out your needs. Even if we aren’t the right fit for you, I can help point you in the right direction.

I create a lot of content daily on Twitter, so if you don't follow me already, I would love to see you over there!

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My team and I create hassle-free creatives for consumer brands. If you are thinking about getting content, let’s set up a chat.

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