The last two posts (here and here) were about the importance of creativity in marketing – how to get someone’s attention and keep it long enough to make your idea stick, how to persuade them that you can add value to the buyer’s journey.
Once you’ve communicated your creative idea with the goal of getting and keeping someone’s attention, how do you know it’s working?
It’s easy to get feedback if you are talking directly with another person. They nod their head in agreement, they tell you when they don’t understand something, you can ask questions to check in with them.
You know what their needs are (they can tell you directly), you know whether you are adding value (they can let you know if the information is helping them), and you know what type of person they are (from the visual and verbal feedback you are getting).
But when you communicate with information on your website, feedback is much more indirect. When a person visits your site, there’s so much you don’t know.
- You don’t know what the person’s needs are or even if they know what they want.
- You don’t know what information they need at this stage of their buying process.
- You don’t know what type of person they are.
This is where a structure works in combination with creativity to support your marketing and sales activities. A sales process that matches your customer’s buying process. Personas that match the type of person they are. A site architecture that adds value to the visitor by making it easy for them to find the information they need.
How do you know if your structure is working?
- Measure your actions so you have a quantitative history.
- Analyze the results to see relationships and how results change.
- Understand cause and effect so you can make changes that will improve results.
Structure is how marketing departments establish the context that lets creative people be successful. Structure is what lets you experiment, learn what works best, and constantly improve the value that marketing brings to the customer.
Does this take away from the need to be creative? Of course not. It simply puts the creative focus on adding value to the customer.
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