First off, we just want to say that we’re over the moon about InVision’s emails. InVision positions itself as a leader in the web design space, and these emails carry that banner confidently. They’re beautifully assembled and on more than one occasion have actually left us slack-jawed with “how the heck did they do that?” goosebumps. No hyperbole here; I still don’t know what’s happening with that confetti, but I want it.

One aspect of InVision’s marketing strategy that shouldn’t go unmentioned is that they nail the tone of their communications. We never feel used or tricked; these emails exude class and real value behind all that gorgeous HTML glitter.

When I talked with Clair Byrd, interim Vice President of Marketing and Director of Content at InVision, she shared a sort-of unofficial mantra that guides the InVision team. It’s pretty simple, and let’s just say we’d love to see it on a t-shirt: “Don’t be gross.”

While there’s certainly a lot more to making an email good than an absence of grossness, it’s a pretty damn good baseline. Clair spoke with us to share more about how InVision defines, avoids, and debates notions of grossitude.

What’s the origin story for this mantra?

Our customer audience — designers, developers, and other product design pros — can smell “marketing” a mile away. They’ve been mistreated a lot in the past, and they don’t like to be marketed and sold to. So “don’t be gross” started as our internal mantra. It’s a promise to make all our marketing useful and solutions-oriented. We focus on the value of what we create, and in turn the value it can create for our users.

How does InVision define “grossness”?

If it doesn’t feel right, we don’t do it. I know that’s not the most scientific answer, but we maintain a high level of emotional intelligence (EQ), humanity, and ethics around what we do. We’re genuinely interested in the success of our community and empowering teams to build great products — beyond pushing our own. To us, that’s the opposite of “grossness.”

At the same time, we’re not claiming everything we do is purely altruistic. We’re looking to generate demand just like everyone else. The heart of “don’t be gross” helps us ensure the things we release serve our community while also working for us on the demand gen side.

A great example of this is Craft, our suite of free Sketch plugins. Downloading Craft does put people into our marketing funnel to receive more information about useful toolsets and our products — but we’re providing a toolset that’s incredibly valuable, so people feel like it’s a community they want to join and a tool that’s worth their time.

Do you as a team ever disagree on what’s “gross”?

Of course. Our team is cross-functional, and we represent a lot of different roles and backgrounds, so we’re certainly not a hive mind when it comes to how we approach our customers.

How do you solve those debates?

Our alignment happens because we’re all dedicated to creating the best possible work we can to serve the product design community. We’re able to use “don’t be gross” as a guiding ethos to ensure our marketing provides tangible value.

If we disagree on whether a particular approach gets close to grossness, we come back to that: “Does this marketing play primarily serve our customer? How would we feel if we received this? What does this content say about InVision as a company?”

In a recent interview, you described your customer as “extremely sensitive to anything that smells like marketing or sales.” Do you think that sensitivity is unique to your users, or a more common trait among today’s consumers?

I think a lot of consumers today are more sensitive to being pitched. People are tired of pop-ups, interstitials, and disruptive ads.

I think the product design community, being so highly tech-involved, is particularly jaded. There’s been a lot of less-than-stellar marketing and sales done in this space, and creatives are particularly attuned to what’s happening behind the scenes of an ad or an offer.

As marketers, we need to do better. The communities we serve deserve better. We shouldn’t have to resort to cheap tricks and bait-and-switch tactics to generate leads. People are bombarded with messaging all day long — everyone is savvier and guards their time and their inboxes more carefully.

Our community creates incredible things every day — if we’re not meeting that standard, we’re not providing value.

What are some particularly “gross” trends you see in email marketing today? What would you offer as not-gross alternatives?

One trend I don’t love is when brands send emails from a “noreply” address. What they’re really saying is, “We’re not interested in talking to you.” It’s an engagement opportunity on one of the largest direct marketing channels, and a lot of teams miss this. All our emails come from a real email address, and a real person gets your response if you have a question, comment, or just want to say hi.

When InVision subscribers are able to connect with a real person and get their questions answered directly, they typically become lifelong customers. If we used something like noreply@invisionapp.com instead, those opportunities would pass us by.

OK, so: you’ve decided a strategy isn’t gross. What other standards does it need to meet for InVision to be proud to send it?

We only send things that are awesome. Another not-so-scientific metric, but really important to us. Our community creates incredible things every day — if we’re not meeting that standard, we’re not providing value.

We also make sure our emails adhere to our company voice and tone, aren’t sent too often, and always provide value to the customer as well as furthering a marketing or sales goal.

What’s your favorite InVision campaign you’ve worked on? Why?

I have to say DESIGN DISRUPTORS, our feature-length documentary about the companies and people who are killing it in the product design world.

It took us 18 months to conceive, film, edit, plan the premiers, and execute the release campaign — and it’s an ongoing effort. We’re constantly updating the film based on feedback from our community. Like all our marketing, this serves a dual purpose for our community and for InVision.

We heard a lot from the product design community about them wanting a film like this, and we set out to make a film the design community could be proud of. At the same time, it’s not just a flashy brand play. We’ve screened DESIGN DISRUPTORS to more than 30,000 people at more than 1,000 community-run events. We’re seeing 4x ROI on the marketing side, and we’ve raised nearly $100,000 for the AIGA Worldstudio Scholarship Fund in the process.

I’ve loved everything about working on this film, and it’s a perfect example of our marketing ethos and remarkable team at work.

Clair Byrd (@theclairbyrd) is InVision’s former VP of Marketing and Director of Content Marketing. Her contributions helped over 2M users become better designers, increased traffic to InVision-owned web properties by over 800% and boosted revenue by over 130% since she joined the company in 2014.