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July 2007

More Than a Pretty Picture

Online Creative Needs to Not Only Look Good But Work Hard For Results

I was reading an article the other day about advertising and promotional creative, and a designer was quoted as saying that all bad creative should be scrapped – even if it produces results for the client. Without taking this particular designer to task too much, in my opinion you never toss anything that produces results.

But this got me thinking. So many agencies confuse advertising with art and vice versa; they neglect to see whether the creative itself is doing the job it is supposed to be doing – not just generating interest in a product but driving your customers to take action. With ever increasing competition in online advertising and the proliferation of consumer messaging, you can’t afford to have creative that merely looks good, it needs to be accountable for producing results. So often the focus is on “protecting the brand” instead of nurturing what works – and so often that proves to be a mistake.

For every campaign we look to test several proven performance driving levers. But while the levers are important to consider when developing a campaign, what is more important is the questions behind the levers and your willingness to test them.

• Copy. Should you use short copy or long copy? What headline should you use? What’s the balance between features and benefits? And how actionable or direct do want to make your copy? 
• Layout. How do you construct the page to focus the user and convey the key message as quickly and effortlessly as possible? What is likely to distract the consumer? What path do you want their eye to take? How will an image impact the user experience? Is the page fold an important factor to consider?
• Offer. Is there a clear benefit or offer for the consumer that you can propose? Considering your audience and the context, what is the best way to reward them for their time and attention? What incentives will be the strongest motivators while still driving ROI for your brand?
• Emotion. This is where the strength of your brand continues to be critically important. What is the intuitive, gut reaction you want your consumers to experience at first glance? How do you instantly convey credibility?
• Context. What is the environment in which your consumer is interacting with your brand? Is it in their personal space – their email inbox? Or is it on a cluttered public website? Are they expecting to see your message? What do they expect to see? Is it the right message at the right time?

Our work with a well-known career site is a great example of putting this approach into practice.

The challenge our client faced: Increasing the number of consumers that stepped up from its free service to the paid offering.

The audience was ambitious, in some cases desperate, job seekers who would do anything to improve their chances of a better salary or a promotion – even if it meant spending some money to get there. In their minds, time is of the essence.

With this information, we redesigned the registration path, making very simple changes that created a much more relevant environment for this high-energy, motivated target audience, and in doing so we were able to instantly increase paid registrations by 50 percent.

What is important to note is not the actual tactics employed, but in this case the willingness to go outside the brand’s comfort zone in an effort to understand what really works. The existing registration path consisted of a nice, clean, single page that preserved brand integrity very well. And it’s not that it wasn’t working, it was. But was it working hard enough? Could it be performing better, and was the client leaving money on the table?

After looking more closely at the audience’s motivation and applying our experience with direct responds tactics, we redesigned the registration flow in a way that went outside our client’s existing comfort zone. But through testing and optimization you don’t have to do anything radical. In fact, you can take small, incremental baby steps, preserving your brand integrity while at the same time learning from actual performance.

There will always be some hesitation or concern about deviating from the status quo, from what has worked in the past or even what you’ve simply grown used to. But in this day of rising media costs and marketing message saturation, you can’t be afraid to experiment with, test, and optimize your creative – in a measured and controlled way. Don’t be afraid to make small changes with your brand. By enabling your creative to work harder for you we guarantee that you’ll be pleased with the results.

Next: Case Study: Simple Email Cancellation Reminder Lifts Trial Registrations 16.4%

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