Are you willing to overlook bad email creative for a good offer?

After 15 years as an Advertising Creative, I tend to view everything through the eyes of a designer, rather than a consumer. That means I get very distracted when I see wonky text formatting, wrong-sized pictures that blow out the margins of the newsletter, hideous RGB color schemes, and layouts that have clearly been created by Mail Chimp neophytes.

In other words, I'm a typical Elitist Advertising Snob! HaHa ~ kidding!

The offer does indeed matter, but in a society obsessed with aesthetics, so does the "look." I don't advocate Style OVER Substance, but as visual artist with a bold brand, I want people to be just as WOWed by the package as they are with the content.

However, as Lin Wormley stated, the delivery methods are changing so much that convenience and content trump production value. This is evident in mobile marketing, Google and Facebook ads, and most of the videos on YouTube.

These days, more than ever, marketers need to build their foundation with a killer offer. Then, whether it's gussied up or stripped bare, it will still prompt the audience to take action.

If the offer is for a product or service that I am highly engaged in, then the creative doesn't matter. It helps if the offer is digestible, but it isn't a show stopper. However, the design plays a key role in how much attention I spend reading the email. If I can't figure out what the offer is, then the email is instantly deleted.

So I'd say, Yes. I am willing to over look bad email creative for a good offer. But as a designer, I appreciate a well designed email.

As it is with landing pages, websites, and direct mail, so it is with email: offer is what drives the response. Some really ugly websites, landing pages, and direct mailers have been real winners in terms of response.

HTML email is more likely to get caught in spam filters and can have rendering problems. Latest MarketingSherpa case study again finds that more text-based emails can be more effective than more graphic-based emails, because they look more like actual communications from another individual: www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=32008

We also found this to be true for a law firm's and a commercial bank's conversion and retention/loyalty programs. Simple text emails that looked like they were created by the customer's or prospect's account rep responded well.

For the law firm, our text email to the C-level motivated 60% of recipients to complete a 6-page online survey. For the bank, our series of text emails consistently generated over 20% response from customers and prospects alike.

Great responses! In my experience, the creative is only there to support the offer; that support could come in many forms, including:

Credibility: Does the look of the creative support what the marketer is saying?

Impact: Does the feel of the creative support the intensity of the offer?

Direction: Does the creative make it easy for the viewer to a) understand the offer and b) act upon it?

Scott | http://www.indiemark.com/

I am 100 times more concerned about the content and offer. As a matter of fact, that is generally what determines whether I stay subscribed or not.

If the offer is the same over and over, I'm gone. There is no value for me. On the flip side, you could send me the exact same creative every day with a different high-quality offer or piece of content, I'm hooked.

The offer often has the advantage as it would normally be what the customer would see on the subject line and if the subject line was enough to make the customer open the email then the effect of bad creative is reduced and the email does it's job.

However I do feel that consistency in creative is important for all brands, as is doing the basics right i.e. a good call to action, formatted correctly and digestible in all browsers/devices.

Nothing worse than opening an email due to a great offer in the subject line and then not being able to find out where the call to action is.

I also believe that more should be done to ask loyal customers how they want the email presented to them. For example how many customers would just prefer a pure text email?