Srebrenica Benjamin is an experienced marketer and copywriter who transforms the voices of brands to drive exceptional results. With over six years of experience in the industry and over 45 businesses assisted, Srebrenica gracefully combines creativity and strategy to help brands stand out with ease and market efficiently through her founded business, The Lively Creative.
Throughout her career, Srebrenica has worked with a diverse range of clients and industries, from start-ups to established brands of larger corporations. She thrives on collaboration, understanding the client’s unique needs and tailoring marketing strategies that align with their brand identity and objectives. When Srebrenica isn’t creating transformative messaging for brands, you can find her baking sweet treats, rollerskating, or traveling around the world as she believes to maintain a creative peak, you must have fun.
Srebrenica Benjamin, Strategic Brand Marketer
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better. Hey there! I’m Srebrenica and I enjoy all things branding and marketing. Being a Cleveland, Ohio native, I am an avid Cleveland sports fan (Go Browns!). I have over 12 years of healthcare experience, ranging from hospital inpatient care, outpatient specialty pharmacy to healthcare marketing as a Marketing Strategist. I obtained my MBA from Southern New Hampshire University which furthered my interests in communications and marketing. I founded my business, The Lively Creative, in 2018 and I am extremely excited to approach year 6 of existence. It’s been a great ride! Although most of my corporate experience has been healthcare-related, the work I do with The Lively Creative has allowed me to explore so many other industries to help translate brand and market messaging. Can you tell me more about the inspiration behind starting The Lively Creative? What motivated you to establish this business? When I started The Lively Creative, I was simply looking for a creative outlet. Writing has always been a natural practice. However, during my college years most if not all, of my writing was academic-based and left little to no room for creativity. So I started a blog. Initially, it was an inspirational lifestyle blog that promoted others to tap into having fun and prioritize doing what they enjoy while also focusing on the business of things. About a month into it, I pitched my work to be featured in two outlets: a local Cleveland blog, and the Medical Humanities Journal of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. To my surprise at the time, both of my entries were accepted. For me, it confirmed I had a way with words that moved people. And it did. When people ask how did I get into the marketing part of writing, my answer is: I evolved into it. I started by writing event recaps through sponsored events throughout the city. The first piece of work I advertised for payment was writing bios for small business entrepreneurs. From there I was able to connect further with the business owners' marketing needs and learned to elevate the communications and engagements of brands.
What specific services or products does The Lively Creative offer? How do they contribute to the creative industry or meet the needs of your target audience? The Lively Creative offers marketing consulting and this upcoming Spring we are launching our first product that includes over 5 years of learned experience to teach others how to brand and market their brilliant ideas with ease. The creative industry continuously evolves, as with any other industry. I’ve noticed many programs and offers showcase frameworks or templates that are too cookie-cutter and leave little to no room for the creative to apply their genius. A great marketer thrives off strategic ambiguity. A Lively Creative is a bold marketer, business owner, writer, or all of the above that wants to know the basis to grow while leaving plenty of room for exploration and adding a unique touch. While there are basics when it comes to branding and marketing, it is best to provide open-ended talk points to drive conversation around ideas. I’ve come across business owners who have shrunken their innovative brilliance to fit into boxes that were never made for them. The Lively Creative empowers businesses and their teams to maximize innovating ideas, while also keeping them abreast of SWOT analysis and ongoing industry and market research. How does The Lively Creative differentiate itself from competitors in the market? What unique value or perspective does your business bring to clients?
The Lively Creative elevates itself in the market through presenting fresh perspectives for the client. So as a consultant, we are viewing the brand and the business from the outside looking in. To foster a productive environment, we encourage our clients to think outside the box- naturally. We present analysis and data in a way that promotes curious conversations that take teams from brainstorming to game planning. Most marketing consulting companies provide data, a black-and-white strategy, and move on. The Lively Creative thrives on building relationships and collaboration. We like to have engaging, yet highly productive conversations when it comes to strategy build and ensure the team understands key roles for the success of implementation. We encourage companies to explore calculated efforts when putting campaigns out into the market. Helping companies maximize the creativity of their marketing team and honing down on the target audience. In what ways does The Lively Creative support and promote creativity within the community? Are there any initiatives or collaborations that highlight your commitment to fostering a vibrant creative environment? The Lively Creative fosters a vibrant creative environment in the monthly newsletters to our email subscribers, and our interactive online community, Creative Corner. In the newsletter, some of the key items include helpful marketing case studies, sharing client success stories, company specific updates, and marketing positions open for hire. In our online community, we delve deeper into details of the newsletters. Lively Creatives are able to connect with other writers, business owners, and marketers; again our emphasis is on healthy collaborations. Also throughout the year, I host private education training on relative marketing and branding-related topics. The Lively Creative also anticipates collaborating with high schools and colleges in the local Cleveland, Ohio area to provide mentorship to students who would have interest in exploring careers in marketing. Allowing students to apply their creative and critical thinking skills to solve case studies and build presentations.
If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why?
The false narrative is that you have to do “all the things” in order to be seen by and engage with your ideal consumer. I believe nowadays with the advancement of technology, it’s easy to overthink how to communicate the overall message of a brand and its offerings. Simplicity is the best and most memorable marketing approach.
There are so many ways to reach a target audience. While trends are, well, trendy, they may not be ideal for the brand and its audience. Getting to the core of the needs and desires of the audience is a sure way to drive effortless conversions and tailor current trends as appropriate.
Looking ahead, what are the future goals and aspirations for The Lively Creative? Are there any exciting developments or upcoming projects that you can share with us?
I look to evolve The Lively Creative into a full marketing consulting firm that provides digital storytelling training to the marketing divisions of larger corporations. In the next 5 years, I’d love to come across a suitable business acquirer that can grow and scale The Lively Creative beyond my current bandwidth. Although I’ve enjoyed building this business from scratch, I look forward to the next company or individual that will take over with care. *smile*
In the meantime, a major upcoming project is the release of our first digital product this Spring. We look forward to releasing the name of this project once we have things cleared by legal.
Really looking forward to this new development and seeing our education plans reach more creatives.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
They say traveling expands your worldview, and I am a testament to that. A pivotal moment in my life that has helped me excel in this current season of my life is my 2019 trip to Bali, Indonesia. I’ve traveled to many places. However, this trip in particular, was a catalyst for much-needed mental and spiritual growth. Having the opportunity to fully step away from all things business and responsibility to connect with nature and the natives of the area allowed me a shifted perspective on how I prefer to approach life and business. My biggest takeaway from that experience is that the simple things drive the best inspiration and action.
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