The previous article in this four-part series discussed delivering an effective message through the right medium. We've also covered briefing and concepting, and how they tie together to deliver creative that's focused on generating results.

But our creative needs to go through one last stage before it can deliver measurable results: It has to match the step-by-step lead generation process.

Why Won't They Buy?

Part of being a marketer is recognizing the various stages your customers go through before they commit to making a purchase, and developing lead generation tools that both promote and facilitate that exchange.

You understand the barriers to the purchase decision—such as limited budgets, brand inertia, and, in business, the need to prove that a solution can deliver a return on investment. In response, you've developed a series of offers and promotions to help customers overcome those challenges at each stage of the buying cycle.

But that's a job half done; you still have to put these assets out into the real world to generate demand. And to get the best results, you need a structured approach that efficiently engages the target audience during the key stages of the buying cycle.

Step-by-Step Lead Generation

Results-driven creative is all about developing efficient content that delivers measurable results.

One obvious way forward is to structure your campaigns around the customer's buying process—covering everything from introducing challenges and solutions right through to validation and after-sales support.

For example:

1. Outline common pain points experienced by the customer.
2. Promote the solution and explore what the benefits mean to the end user.
3. Follow up with validation material such as technical reports and peer reviews.
4. Give the audience an obvious call to action attached to an obvious, time-sensitive benefit.

By structuring your campaigns in that way, you are allowing your creative content to touch on every factor that a potential customer needs to consider before making a purchase decision. You're also producing more opportunities for your campaign to resonate with your customers at different points and influence them to consider changing their behavior—usually by purchasing what you are selling.

This structured approach is also a great outcome if you're going to make the campaign available to channel partners, internal sales teams, or third-party resellers, because it ensures a clear, consistent message across the marketplace, and makes it easier for your stakeholders to understand and execute the campaign elements.

But, as a marketer, the value to you is that you can be sure that if a target customer does not buy, it's not due to inefficient creative—it is simply a case of a solution's not meeting their needs at a particular point in time.

And even then you can make the most of that scenario by turning that contact into a lead.

A Holistic Approach That Gets Results

Guiding contacts through a structured campaign isn't a magical solution that delivers better results. Ideally, it becomes part of a wider framework that supports the entire transaction.

To get the best results, your structured approach should include the following:

• Campaign content designed for a multi-touch approach
• A campaign platform that automates the promotion and lead-generation process
• Lead alerts that show who's ready to buy and who needs nurturing
• Marketing collateral that complements all campaign steps
• Professional call scripts that simplify the sales process

Bringing those elements together gives you the best possible chance of sales success by providing a scalable, repeatable approach to the entire buying cycle.

Step-by-Step

The path to success requires campaigns with a single goal, with creative designed in tandem with the framework that supports it. Only then do you get the best of both worlds—creative content that works with the campaign platform, and a platform that enhances the effectiveness of the creative.

Such a holistic approach is what makes your marketing content more efficient:

• Intuitive campaigns mean you can generate leads faster.
• More leads enable better targeting.
• Better targeting drives better sales.
• In-built metrics create measurable results.
• Reliable data allows for constant improvement.

The Proof You Need

As I wrote in the first article of this series, in marketing there is little that's more important than generating ROI, except showing how you did it.

Following a results-driven creative approach means that every aspect of your marketing campaigns is focused on generating a specific outcome—a change in behavior.

That single focus means that it's easier to track the value of marketing activities on a campaign level, and decide which activities add better value and which elements could improve.

In turn, those campaign results can help win larger budgets and resource allocations by demonstrating how marketing activities return value to the business.

So, if you're looking for a way to improve marketing ROI, it's safe to say that results-driven creative offers you a proven way forward.

Articles in this four-part series:

1. Results-Driven Marketing Creative in Four Steps, Part 1: Efficient Creative Briefing

2. Results-Driven Marketing Creative in Four Steps, Part 2: Building a Creative Concept

3. Results-Driven Marketing Creative in Four Steps, Part 3: The Right Medium

4. Results-Driven Marketing Creative in Four Steps, Part 4: Matching the Lead Gen Process