Asking the right marketing questions

Last week I was at a SES training session discussing call to action messaging.

While I normally attend these great conferences and workshops to stay on top of search engine marketing trends this particular workshop reminded me of the essence of my job as a Creative Director and Marketer.

Essentially - when building a marketing message I explore the following:

• Who is my audience?
• What action do i want them to take?
• What info do they need to feel confident/comfortable to see themselves to take that action?

These fundamentals are always a great starting point when thinking about your creative brief - for any media. But because of the inherent interactivity of web ads and sites, they have an even greater meaning when it comes to online marketing.

Knowing your audience and motivating them to act, designing effective communications combined with developing user interfaces that exploit these is the foundation to effective marketing.

I’ll talk more about those motivators and even UIs soon.