Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes
Last month I was sitting at Eben Pagan’s GuruMastermind Event and during one of the opportunities to ask questions a lady walks up to the mic and says she’s a realtor and has an investor client who wanted to sell these luxury end condos but didn’t want to use proven classified ads because they didn’t align with their highty tighty image.
(I just made up “highty tighty”, but you get the point, right?)
So instead of placing a newspaper ad that would pull interested prospects ready to buy (good ‘ole direct response marketing), they wanted to use an ad with a pretty picture of the condos and a nice logo.
Sure image and name recognition branding certainly have a place – if you have millions of dollars to burn through and don’t care to measure any direct return on your advertising dollars.
But for solopreneurs or small business owners, where is the line between “looking” pretty and having a certain image and making money?
Do you need both?
Well, it depends on the outcome you’re seeking. And I assume if you have an online business then that outcome is to make a profit. Otherwise, you’re out of business. And it goes without saying that the profit should come as a result of giving outstanding value and over-delivering in your products and/or services. That should be a given.
(By the way, even if you’re a non-profit, you’re still selling something. And that something is what you want people to do, which is probably donate.)
But do you need to look pretty to make that profit?
Must you give up beauty for braun? Do you need to sacrifice image to elicit an action and get a response?
Not necessarily. You can have both. And if you only had to pick one, it would have to be braun. Which in this case is getting people to take an action because you’re giving them what they are looking for. Wether it’s clicking a link, or downloading a report, subscribing to your newsletter, buying something, or making an appointment to see those great luxury condos.
But one thing is for sure. You can’t just have beauty.
Otherwise you’re like a great looking guy or gal who you’re dying to meet only to find out when you do, that they can’t hold an intelligent conversation.
So how do you do both? How do you create a story with your image that also gets people to respond favorably.
Well, when you’re building a house you first have to lay the foundation and have the house built, before you can paint and decorate. 
So this is what you need to understand before you work on looks:
You need to know what the purpose of your site is. Start with the end in mind. What is it that you want the visitor to do?
In his ebook Flipping the Funnel, Seth Godin says that a website must do these two things.
- Turn a stranger into a friend, and a friend into a customer.
- Talk in a tone of voice that persuades people to believe the story you’re telling.
Seth goes on to say that a website can only cause four things to happen to your visitor:
- She clicks and goes somewhere else you want her to go.
- She clicks and gives you permission to follow up by email or phone.
- She clicks and buys something.
- She tells a friend. These days in addition to word of mouth this is so easy to do with social media sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, or Del.ic.cious
So as long as any of these four outcomes happen, the way that you do it doesn’t matter. It could be a classic direct response sales letter, or a site that combines pleasing colors and great copywriting with video and animated characters. It doesn’t matter which way you do it, because as technology changes, the means to persuade will change too.
My highest converting website thus far is a simple landing page with no images or video. Who would have thought? Of course, that might change and that’s why constant measuring and tracking is important.
But as long as the foundation is well laid and you keep the above principles in mind (which won’t change), you won’t make the mistake the real estate investor made and think it’s just all about looking pretty.
