I was reading an interesting thread on the Warrior Forum earlier. It had to do with a prospect’s attention span and how we IMers should do whatever it takes to grab eyeballs quickly (i.e. within seconds).

We’ve all seen the giant red headlines, we’ve all been to sales pages with auto-play videos, and we’ve all landed on squeeze pages with ridiculous graphics (good and bad).

The headline of a sales page is a mini sales letter for the actual sales letter beneath it. If the headline is underwhelming, the reader is likely to exit the page.

So is it important to quickly grab your visitors’ eyeballs as soon as they land on your page?

Absolutely. Not really. It depends.

The forum post that inspired this post (which I will not link to because I don’t want to distract you), talked about how most people will leave your site in seconds without taking the desired action (e.g. purchasing your product, opting in).

That’s why, the person said, you should make it so that your prospects’ eyeballs are grabbed very quickly, thereby ensuring their continued attention for at least a little while longer.

Good point. I agree…kinda.

Let me explain myself.

You see, there are many different types of prospects.

For example, there are random passers-by who couldn’t care less about what you have to say. They’re prospects, although not very good ones.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are your HOT prospects – people who love you and would buy anything you had to offer/recommend.

In the middle, there are people who are partially interested, but need convincing.

You don’t need to hard sell your HOT prospects with flashy graphics, clever headlines, or never-ending sales videos.

But with those “middle people”, you will need to grab eyeballs in addition to building some rapport with them.

Different types of prospects require different types of marketing.

There is no one-size-fits-all strategy.

Don’t just employ flashy graphics or long and boring sales videos because all the other kids are doing it. Keep your marketing strategies relevant to your target audience. As always, test to see what works best. Video might turn out to be the way to go, but what about the auto-play function? What about the length and content of the video? What about the buy-now button?

I didn’t want to turn this post into another “test test test” post…hopefully I haven’t done so

Maybe I wanted to say that relationship building decreases the need for selling.

Or maybe I wanted to say that grabbing eyeballs quickly is not the most important thing you have to do to increase conversions.

Or maybe I don’t know what I wanted to say.

But in any case, I hope you got my point.

Let’s take a look at an example.

Here’s a sales letter I recently came across which I found incredibly fascinating:
http://cheapverytargetedtraffic.com (not an affiliate link – opens in new window)

It’s a service run by Willie Crawford – you may have heard of him?

Humour me for a second though, and imagine that there wasn’t any name or contact info listed on that site. Also, imagine that I hadn’t mentioned Willie at all.

What would your impressions be of that sales page?

Graphics? Pretty tacky and lame.
Headline? Not very believable or effective.
The copy? Again, not very believable or convincing. Quite boring, in fact.

And the funniest part – a $2000 price tag with a butt-ugly Paypal Buy Now button.

Without Willie’s name attached to it, that sales page would be pathetic and ineffectual.

But with Willie’s name attached to it, the need for good graphics, powerful copy, and stuff like that, disappears.

If you know Willie, or know of him, you probably trust him.

That instantly makes his claims believable.

Cool, huh?

Being a good person will save you a lot of time and money in this business

Until next time!

Curtis