The fugliest profitable website I have ever seen
Published: Tue, 07/06/21
i.e., I went old school Gary Halbert black text on yellow.
A combo that has been proven to be the easiest combo to read for the human eye.
Anyway, during the last one I did, I got this email:
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I’m not giving any advice. You can do what you want, but I have to tell you that your sales page is not “easy to read”. It practically seared my retinas, like looking at the sun too long.
I hope it doesn’t have the same effect on the rest of your horde and you make a lot of money with it, but I for one can’t even read it.
All the best from your unsolicited feedback giver,
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OK, Boomer.
Actually, I am not completely unsympathetic to his plight.
But it almost made me wonder if there is some underlying problem with his eyes.
Might want to get those peepers checked, Hoss.
Especially since, exactly 14-minutes after his email, came this:
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Hey Ben,
I already admired your award-winningly revolting site design for BBB2 (while I bought the offer).
Yellow on black definitely seems easy to read, though I'd never have guessed it. It's also nice to see something DIFFERENT from the norm.
Cheers,
~ Pete
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Another thought:
A year prior, when I ran a similar sale, on a page with the exact same fugly black-on-yellow design, the great Kia Arian — one of the few designers Dan Kennedy allows anywhere near his own design, from what I understand, and who does all my book covers — replied with this:
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Your favorite designer thought that web page was actually pretty great. Nice yellow.
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Incidentally, when Kia sent me her reply above, she included an attachment to an article in a national celebrity gossip magazine she saw while waiting at the check out line. The picture of the docs was even "faux" pixellated to look like a low res image.
i.e., purposely murky, hard to make out, etc.
As she put it:
“I was surprised they allowed it in their pretty magazine. Stood out like a sore thumb.”
What do we make of all this?
There are many take aways.
Like, for example, you can’t please everyone.
And it’s an exercise in futility to even try.
I even had a mini debate about my plain text emails at the time, when a customer of mine told my business partner in Learnistic Troy Broussard how easy his emails were to read compared to mine (which is true, his were smooth as silk to read, very easy on the eyes). And Troy was saying my emails are near impossible for him to read, and that’s one reason why he pretties his up with HTML, etc.
He wasn’t exactly wrong, and he makes a good point.
But I’ve purposely used ugly for years.
Ever since I heard the great Gene Schwartz say in a world of beauty the ugly thing stands out.
But, that reason alone is a weak reason to use ugly.
The real reason I use ugly is simply sales.
As I told Troy:
“That customer who praised your font has spent some $4k from my emails.”
Anyway, do with this info what you want.
I’m merely the messenger.
On another design note:
One of the trainers inside our Profit Pirates coaching program is the chick who does ALL of our design for our software offers. Her name is Shiela. And her monthly “Shiela Me Timbers!” Profit Pirate trainings reveal exactly what she does to design everything from simple web pages and logos to entire mobile app and software platforms. (If you are using our SocialLair platform — you are witnessing her genius with every click & tap). Each month she covers secret design tips, tactics, and strategies that are so robust the industry’s top brands use them in their businesses, yet so simple even the “layman” can use them to create designs & branding campaigns that reach off peoples’ devices, slap them in the face, and force them to pay attention.
Okay, enough of this.
The deadline to join the Profit Pirates before we hoist the price up like a grinning jolly roger is Friday, July 9 at midnight EDT.
Here’s the details:
https://www.EmailPlayers.com/pirates
Ben Settle