When I was a kid back in the early 70's, marketing seemed simpler. The messages and advertisements were simpler.
But you know what? I still remember a lot of those jingles and slogans. Old Spice, Cap'n Crunch, Budweiser...the songs and messages are still remembered today.
What do they all have in common? Simple themes. Ideas so simple they can be expressed - and understood - in a few short words.
Simplicity is key. But it's not enough for a real sales lead generation campaign. For an idea to really take off - to seize the public's imagination and explode in growth - it must be not only simple but also good.
A bad or dated idea, however simply expressed, is still a bad or dated idea. But a 
fresh new thought stated cleanly can have great power. People hear it and think, "Yes! That's right! That's just what I've been thinking myself!"
By making machines simpler, they become more widely used. By making work processes faster, more people can do the work with fewer mistakes. By making marketing messages simpler, a greater percentage of the population can respond to them.
One of Hemingway's biggest contributions to modern English prose (and one of the main reasons for his popularity) is that he managed to convey complex and subtle ideas in the simplest of ways.
St. Jerome, one of the Catholic Church's top writers, argued against ornate language. "I have revered always not crude verbosity," he said in a letter to a friend, "but holy simplicity."
It took John Huss, the Puritan martyr, quite some time to figure this out. It wasn't until he was awaiting his death that it came to him. On seeing an aged peasant bringing a bundle of twigs to throw on the pile that would burn him at the stake, Huss is reported to have said, "O sancta simplicitas!" ("Oh holy simplicity!")
Don't wait till the last moment to discover this important truth. Here's what you can do today:
Examine your business's basic idea. Ask yourself, "Is it good?"
If it passes the "good" test (which means it's sound and useful), ask yourself if it has been clearly expressed.
Do your customers understand exactly what it is? Do your vendors? Your employees?
Is it translated into a simple sales message - one that can be understood almost immediately? Understood and repeated from memory?
If there is any doubt, you should probably do some work on making it simpler.
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