In Marketing, You Can’t Put a Price on the Value of Curiosity
By Carrie Cousins
Thank you to Valley Business FRONT for featuring our Vice President, Carrie Cousins, in their May 2025 issue.
A job candidate recently asked me: “What’s the most valuable thing you look for in an employee?”
I didn’t even have to think. Almost all of our employees have three key things in common:
- Self-initiative and drive
- Strong communication skills
- Innate curiosity
Let’s sit on that last one for a minute. What does it have to do with marketing and advertising?
StrengthsFinder classifies this skill as a “Learner.” (Coincidentally, that is my top strength from the assessment multiple times.) They describe this trait like this: “You are energized by the steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence. It enables you to thrive in dynamic work environments where you are asked to take on short project assignments and are expected to learn a lot about the new subject matter in a short period of time and then move on to the next one.”
That last little bit explains why curiosity and learning are so important. As marketing and advertising pros, we are expected to learn a lot of different things – understanding in fairly great detail the complexities of a variety of businesses – on the path to creating great user experiences and conversions.
We have to understand a variety of people and audiences and wants and needs. Layer that with the creation of creative materials that speak exactly to those audiences and meet business goals. And we don’t have much time to figure it out.
Curiosity drives this process and doing this work well. It drives us to think about client needs in combination with their audiences and users.
When I think more deeply about how curiosity impacts marketing, those with the greatest inclination to learn often excel in these areas at LeadPoint Digital – making these folks a great asset on your account!
- They get into the depth of understanding your audience, from the big picture to small details. (Every account manager will be your business partner here.)
- They jump into using new tools wholeheartedly and will quickly abandon those that aren’t successful for ones that facilitate their roles. (That’s why we’re developing in-house AI tools for our team at LeadPoint.)
- They aren’t stymied or frustrated by testing and optimizing campaigns to make them better. (No account is left behind with continuous improvement as a guiding principle.)
- They are driven by unique ideas and angles. (This can make for super creative thinking!)
- They excel when engaged collaboratively. (Learning together, sharing information, and asking questions is at the core of who we are.)
I’ll leave you with a challenge: What are you doing to encourage your sense of curiosity?
Carrie Cousins is the Vice President at LeadPoint Digital in Roanoke. For 15+ years, she has helped businesses tell their stories and get better results online with practical digital marketing strategies. She is also an active leader in AAF, serving on the local and district boards, and is an adjunct professor at Virginia Tech.
