The Best Marketing Tool Isn't AI — It's Human Curiosity
Every single day brings new thousands of marketing campaigns into being. Even though some are immediately forgotten, others are remembered and remain within us for many years. The difference is not due to bigger budget, updated technologies, and new fashion trends. The cause of such phenomenon is much more primitive and essential – curiosity.
Curiosity is what drives each successful marketing campaign. It forces its developer to ask himself or herself the questions which others won’t be able to raise. Why do people stop scrolling through their feed? What motivates them to trust this or that brand? Why does the story encourage to take action whereas another story leaves no trace at all?
A successful marketer should always start by posing questions, not providing answers.
In today’s digital space, there might be an impression that power of algorithms rules everything. People run after numbers, statistics, and analytics. However, all these are mere tools that become handy only if the marketing campaign itself was created properly.
Consider the brands that stick out in your mind. You were most likely connected to their messages on an emotional level – perhaps through humor, inspiration, problem-solving, or memories. This emotional link was carefully crafted not at random, but by a marketer with curiosity and understanding of his audience.
Such curiosity drives one towards creativity. Contrary to popular belief, curious marketers do not limit themselves to following any design trends, but rather constantly try to innovate and experiment with their concepts and storytelling skills. All the failures become valuable learning opportunities, and all the successes prove that innovators are the explorers.
It is extremely important for beginner marketers who believe that you must have a degree, money and experience in order to start doing anything. The thing is that some of the best portfolios start right from passion projects and experiments. A small post on Instagram or a poster design can teach you more than any marketing textbook ever would.
Marketing industry has been constantly developing; new platforms appear, algorithms are getting developed and the consumer behavior changes virtually overnight. The only thing that will always be up-to-date – constant learning because of the fact that curious marketers adapt to changes quicker because they accept change as something positive rather than threatening.
Another strong feature of being a curious marketer is empathy, which is usually ignored by many marketers. It is not marketing that has something to do with the process of persuading people to purchase some product or service. It is all about understanding what needs people have and trying to satisfy those needs. If you will be capable of asking relevant questions and knowing the way how your audience perceives things, you will succeed in developing valuable content. Instead of filling the minds of people with marketing materials, marketers should focus on creating interesting content.
Even though technology makes content development much easier, it cannot substitute human experience and perception of things.
When we become creators, we always compare ourselves with other people: do we have a good, unique, and creative design, writing, idea? But originality has nothing in common with our need to stand out. The only thing that allows us to be called unique is our ability to see something new in usual things.
We should not join marketing trends but invest in understanding people instead. Ask questions, read, observe. Their reactions, preferences, interests. Everything we learn will help us to come up with ideas for our marketing stories.
Digital marketing is not about marketing of goods or services. Digital marketing is about bringing people together through ideas. Only such creators who ask “What if?” will be able to find an opportunity, which nobody sees.
Curiosity helps in creation of both products and successful marketing campaigns.