Originally posted by
@Trevor Mauch:
@Tim S. Great thread you started here man and I always love it when investors look seriously at their marketing and make sure it's what they want to represent their business.
First off, I'm not sure which sites you're looking at for Carrot but over the years there have been thousands online and once a client launches a site on our platform they can then customize it within our high performing framework... and we've seen some really bad customizations in the past that really did decrease the credibility of their business in my eyes. Wacky colors, bad videos, weird copy, removed our forms and tried to reinvent the wheel... those types of customizations almost always reduce the performance of their site vs. the way we built it.
On the flip side, I'd be happy as heck to send you a list of Carrot sites you can take a look at that are performing insanely well in their markets and are a great mix of modern design and high performance copy / design.
Just let me know on the above :-)
It's a really fine balance when it comes to what to put in a marketing message.
What we feel looks "good" doesn't necessarily always relay the message in the way that our prospect will best absorb it.
When someone has a problem... a real problem... and they're researching... you can better believe that they'll read a TON of information when researching that decision. And as long as the information is structured and written in a way that flows w/ the way they make decisions and it addresses their pains, fears, frustrations, shows them how you can relieve those, walks through your process, builds credibility for you... they'll read it. We all do this when we're researching something we care about.
But if you're not your target prospect... or if you send your site to a friend and they say "I'd never read that... that's so many words"... if they're not your target market or a professional copywriter... I wouldn't put too much stock into their opinion because if they're not going through that problem... the website won't speak to them at their gut level... and they'll just look at all of the words as "clutter" that doesn't add value to them.
I wrote a blog post recently on this topic where I walk through how a motivated house seller thinks and how they make decisions... w/ a small infographic that walks through the 5 Stages Of The Decision Process For A Motivated House Seller. You can find it on my blog. If your website doesnt' address the prospects biggest questions and concerns at each of those stages... you're not delivering the message they need to feel fully informed on their decision... and they'll likely bounce and head to a site that does answer their questions.
Do this...
Just think of the way you make decisions and research big decisions in your life and ask yourself if you read a lot of stuff or would make a massive financial decision based on a landing page.
Here's one last example... Bats In My Attic...
Kinda funny story, but my family and I moved to a house on a river recently and when you live by the river there's all kinds of critters.
So we had hundreds of bats get into our attics last summer and it became a big problem I needed to solve.
So what did I do?
I hit the internet... and started typing phrases like... "how to remove bats from an attic" "bat removal experts" "can bats make you sick" etc. etc. Tons of phrases.
And this site kept coming up all... the... time.
http://batsintheattic.org/ <===
It's an ugly as heck site. Could they make it look nicer? I'm sure they could. But the thing is... that would all be vanity for the site owner... because the gold on that site is in the copy. The content. The message.
I read probably 20 pages on that site... I kept clicking their links and learning... read testimonials... and finally called their "local" number on there to talk w/ a local specialist.
The thing is... this site is just a lead generation site for wildlife control companies. But it got me. And it had tons of value and by the time I was done reading it I knew this company was an expert, they knew their stuff, and I didn't want to trust my families health with a non-expert on this topic.
If I would have saw that site before I had the problem... I wouldn't have read hardly any of it. It would have looked "cluttered" to me. But once I had the problem... it was my savior.
A lesson I learned long ago is go w/ data, testing, and results... not our own personal preferences on what we think looks good. And NEVER ask advice from a friend who doesn't have that problem my copy is trying to solve unless they're a professional copywriter.
I'd be happy to show you a slew of sites you'll love the design of but also that perform really well.
DM me and lets chat man!
