“Our website is just not creative enough,” lamented a new client recently. “It’s stale and lacks spark,” she said. “Can you help us?”

While creativity is a relatively important aspect of all marketing collateral, in and of itself, creativity is highly overrated. Jay Conrad Levinson, the author of Guerrilla Marketing, says “creativity should be measured solely by how well it contributes to your overall profitability.” I agree.

In other words, dancing apes in sequined briefs won’t much matter if you don’t also give your audience a real reason to buy.

Think about two or three creative television commercials you’ve seen recently. Memorable? Creative? Of course.

But let me ask you this: What specific product were they advertising? I’m betting that like me, you came up blank on at least two of them.

Yes, creativity is important and I pour it into everything I do. But it’s not nearly as important as giving your customers a concrete reason to buy. And that means that your website, your advertising and, wherever possible, all of your corporate collateral should spell out clear benefits and differentiators and include a nice, strong call to action. Then, not only will people know what you’re selling, they might even buy it.

Now that’s creative.