When it’s your business to sell services like creative and user experience work, you get used to hearing some basic but important questions from prospective clients. They might ask: When’s the right time to buy? What do I get? And what’s really in it for me and my customers?

Just as often, we need to do a bit of mythbusting to convince buyers that their preconceived notions of creative and UX may, on occasion, be a tad outdated. So we’d like to clear the air and offer our response to two of the biggest myths we encounter. (You’re welcome!)

Myth #1: Creative and UX work can be a one-time process

This notion dates back to the early days of the commercial web, when UX started coming into its own. In that era, creating a corporate website was truly a massive undertaking. A platform was built, every page was laid out, and an entire team could be engaged for a year and a half of work.

With that much effort involved, the mentality became like that of building a house—once constructed, it needed to stand for years and years. Even though most of today’s digital launches take far less time to execute, that idea still survives in some organizations.

In reality, creative and UX work are better seen as a long-term investment that requires ongoing attention and resources. Like a house, digital properties need regular checkups and maintenance to stay in good shape over time. Without that upkeep, a homeowner can turn around ten years later and face a major rehab. But a little care along the way makes for a much better living experience throughout that time.

The fact is, both users and user experience are continually changing over the years. Just as tools and modes of interaction evolve, so do businesses. It’s no longer a viable option to build a site or app and leave it untouched for five years. The digital world is changing faster than ever, so experiences need to keep up—or risk being left behind for the next new trend.

This longer-term perspective requires a roadmap. Whether you’re a product-driven brand or a more marketing-focused one, your future will hold new offerings and rollouts. The digital experiences attached to these can’t be just add-ons—for the best results, they must be seamlessly integrated with the product, service design and physical experience.

In the absence of proper planning and budgeting, brands can focus exclusively on the huge internal effort of a new launch and find themselves scrambling to work out the digital experience. The results of a rushed process inevitably fall short of what might have been accomplished with a bit more foresight.

Incremental improvement has another important advantage: it builds internal muscles more effectively over time. With exercise or artistic activity, the more regularly we do it, the better we get. Tending to a brand and a website is no different.

Engaging in creative and UX work on a more ongoing basis gives organizations an opportunity to collaborate more often with their internal teams and external partners. That continuous engagement allows for bigger and better accomplishments and eventually, a higher degree of efficiency. Which all equates to a more cohesive and aligned approach—and better experiences that buyers are more likely to notice and act upon.

An incremental approach is also beneficial from the perspective of serving customers. People are amazingly adaptable and can learn new behaviors over time. But if the same actions become entrenched over years without adjustments, those inevitable changes become more difficult. Ongoing updates are a great way to lead customers along rather than blindside them with the unfamiliar.

Our experience tells us that regular care of digital properties leads to better experiences that perform more effectively for both companies and their customers. So we think it’s time to put the old one-and-done mentality out to pasture.

Myth #2: Creative and UX are only important for digital projects

It’s no secret that digital excellence is key to business success. But applying a creative and UX lens to only digital efforts can create significant missed opportunities—and may even put the performance of a brand into serious jeopardy.

The most effective brands create cohesive experiences that deliver consistently across every realm, from digital to physical. When a customer can interact in a seamless way at every touchpoint, it provides clarity and removes friction from the buying process.

Yet the world is full of disjointed brand experiences. Think of a fast restaurant brand that launches a beautiful app, but the in-person pickup process is clunky. Or an automotive brand that offers a dynamic website, but its sales process makes people uncomfortable. Applying creative and UX expertise in areas like service and environmental design can help bring all touchpoints to a consistently high level.

Constraining creative and UX to digital alone is similar to focusing entirely on one department in a company while ignoring the rest. That one department may rise to new heights, but neglecting the shortcomings of others could end up damaging the organization at large. Better to take a holistic view, examine how all the pieces connect, and attend to every step of the overall journey.

We see examples of this disconnect regularly, especially in business-to-business (B2B) campaigns. A good agency can concoct a brilliant ad concept and design it beautifully, deliver it to the right audience at the right time, and lead prospective customers to a seamless landing page experience.

But the rest of the customer journey requires just as much attention. The client’s backend systems need to store the relevant data properly and route a new lead to the right sales resource. Someone has to follow up quickly with an email or a phone call. Connecting those dots is essential for closing the sale—while neglecting such steps can create a negative impression.

This is why an omnichannel strategy is so important to leading brands. Building a consistently designed, well-architected experience across all potential touchpoints—maybe 15 of them, rather than just 1 or 2—is key to meeting the growing expectations of buyers, who are accustomed to a seamless experience from the highest-rated consumer brands. That predictability in every dimension is necessary to foster trust and loyalty, one moment of truth at a time.

That said, omnichannel can be difficult to do right because of internal divisions. When different channels are owned by different teams, each one might carry a distinct view of what’s most important to the customer. Only a holistic view that considers the full journey—where a customer came from, what happens next, and how it all connects—can overcome such siloes.

Perhaps anything can be digital, but digital shouldn’t be everything. A creative and UX lens can benefit any moment where buyer and brand intersect.

This article is adapted from a recent podcast appearance on The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlstrom.