When writing effective marketing copy, it's all about what you say and how you say it.

Coming up with a concept or value proposition for an offer-with-purchase effort is only half the battle. Having the target consumer "get" the creative side of whatever promotion, event or sponsorship you're planning can be every bit as important as the concept -- even more.

That's because three types of people can be expected to step up to claim any kind of short-term offer you make: those who already purchase your brand and therefore consider the offer a bonus; non-users of your brand for whom the offer is attractive enough to get them to change their behavior to get it; and those for whom the mechanics of claiming the offer present no barrier to purchase.

The right concept, the right offer and the right mechanics are important, to be sure, but it's the creative "magic" that really makes a program go.

An example from the service industry

An IMI International client, a franchiser in the quick-service restaurant industry, had a promotional idea. IMI was retained to determine the strength of the concept and after some testing judged the idea sound with 30 percent of the target market very likely to participate.

Thus the success threshold we set for the creative was, "upon exposure to the proposed advertising, 30 percent or more of the target market would be very likely to participate in the program." In other words, the creative aspect of the campaign should maintain or enhance and not distract from basic concept strength.

To put it a different way, the creative had to be as good or better than the value proposition. Six creative executions were prepared and tested before launch (not a normal practice, but an agency review was underway). The lowest participation after exposure to the creative was 18 percent "very likely" and the highest was 46 percent "very likely" -- a variance of 255%.

Three creative executions detracted from the idea; three enhanced it. Guess which ones the client picked.