Creative Thinking in Marketing the

Creative Thinking in Marketing The basic definition of creative thinking is the capability to invent or imagine a new thing. More often, it isn't the ability to create out of vacuum but that unique capacity to spawn new ideas through combining, reapplying or changing existing ideas. The ideas may be unique and brilliant yet others may just be simple, practical and good enough for application (Robert Harris, 1998). On the other hand marketing is the process through which the conceptualized goods and service get to the customer.

It is focused on the customer needs and constantly satisfying these needs. As a principle marketing operates on the 4Ps i.e. product identification, selection and development, price of the product, place of customer reach, and strategy for promotion. In creative marketing, creative thinking holds that for every solution to a marketing challenge, it can e solved again in a much better way. There has been a need to get the customers to know the product of various products and develop a brand community that retains its members.

With the 4Ps in mind, one of the most creative marketing strategies that have ever been used globally is the internet service. Most companies of late have websites that incorporate their products and/or services plus any other relevant information that would make the company gain. The internet has given many companies avenue to regularly change the content of the advertisements in contrast to the regular billboards, print media, flyers etc. which cannot be edited once rolled out in case the company wants to edit the content.

This also helps in the diversification and versatility of the content of the website to keep in pace with the current happenings. The websites have seen the use of advertisement as a tool of marketing move from static, emotionless mode to a mode that evokes the consumer emotions, a significant building block for advertisement. When users browse the websites they find the motion advertisements, which evokes the emotions of the users and in that manner persuades potential consumers. This is different from the still billboards that were traditionally used.

In its diversity, this mode of advertisement gives the companies the chance to change the content of the advertisements time after time by simply installing a new set of data into the website as the outdated ones are deleted. Through this companies cut down on the operation cost unlike the conventional billboards where the used material goes to waste unless re-used elsewhere or recycled.

The website advertisement has gone further to explore the ability to be accessed at any point as long as there is internet connectivity hence it is accessed in homes, hotels, phones etc. In contrast to other modes of advertisement that cannot be accessed everywhere round the clock, one more reason to consider internet a more creative advertisement idea.

'Stickiness' factor in the website advertisement The internet has also been observed as an important tool of marketing, this has seen many website managers, designers and maintainers strive to ensure that clients stay on their websites as much as possible. This in a nutshell is what defines stickiness. It can be defined further as the amount of time first time visitors spend and how often they return to the same website per month. It can also be measured in terms of the number of pages the visitors view (Bruce, 1999).

It is common that if a visitor to a website does not get what they are looking for they are most likely to sign off. To avoid this and encourage stickiness, the websites have to meet the following outlines. The website must be informative and thus the web managers must think of the possible questions the customers may have and put up their explanations in their website. The website should also be easily readable.

Ample spacing should be used, reader friendly fonts employed, the layout should be one easily and seamlessly flowing from one part to the next It should also be in such a format that the visitors can scan through. This can be achieved through inserting headlines, sub-topics and even appropriate captions to pictures used. These will enable the visitors go straight to what they are looking for and not read through every word hence making it more user friendly resulting into frequent visits (Sarah, 2009).

It is worthy to make the website be a search engine as well. Through the use of URLs the website will enable visitors to move seamlessly from one set of information to another particularly when deeper explanations are needed for a particular section. If visitors are assured that by visiting a particular website they will get more that what is in that website then they will frequently log on to that website encouraging stickiness. The website must.