No matter the particular marketing piece, the goal is to drive the user/reader/listener/viewer to take an action.

Your design might be a masterpiece, but it's unlikely to drive revenue to your business if your only goal is for it to look nice. Driving action is about designing for results, not aesthetics alone.

Real marketing is designed based off real data. When designing an interactive piece like a website, using heat maps or tracking click-through rates can help determine what parts of the design are actually working, even if you’re not personally thrilled with the way they look.

Design is subjective, data isn’t.

In this episode of The Messengers podcast, Chris Searles and Rob Seifert discuss the difference between designs that just look nice, and designs that actually deliver results.

They discuss why it’s difficult to separate yourself from your design biases and understand why data is such an important factor in the layout of websites and other marketing materials. They also identify some common data-gathering techniques you can use for your own marketing materials to identify what’s working and resonating with your users, and what elements are missing the mark.