How slick is too slick?

This seems like the best spot for this thread -

I've been tossing a theory around in my head for a few months...It seems that when I find a site that is extremely well put-together in content and graphics, it almost looks too professional to trust. On the flipside, I've seen some graphically-challenged sites that appear to have been put together using some clipart and a free template. Yet they seem more trustworthy somehow - like you know it's a real person whose interests are the things being written about, not the layout of their site.

Am I off-base with this, or have others found that conversions for more hokey-looking sites are higher?

I never feel that way; I trust a company that is better designed, is free of spelling errors, etc.

This may has a psychological component to it that I hadn't thought of before...people liking "like" products / services. Children prefer picture books where the pictures appear to have been drawn by other children -- for decidedly low-tech products/services or those targetting clientele of that demographic, perhaps a more simplistic, folksy approach would work better.

I might test this out, running a dual e-mail marketing campaign...now I'm curious.

IMO I believe your argument has merit. In marketing you segment your market and offer products and pricing specifically directed at the various segments. This includes the marketing and/or sales approach. If the major or money segment is Joe Six-pack you do not offer your product or develop advertising for Dr. Professor Genius. Our major segment is the conservative business and accounting types and our site reflects that. No typos and infantile graphics of course, but still very plain vanilla.

My sites are not slick... not tech... not savvy... not fast... not too friendly... but I think that I have content that is better than most.

And I am sure that I sell to more six packers than profs :razz:

I have in the past run a lot of mlm websites and spookily enough my best results were from the ones that were hurridly put together by myself.

I did have a copy of the team site with fancy flash and pictures and the majority of the submissions were people thinking it was a scam.
I very rarely got the scam question with my plain jane websites.

Added after:
When i am approaching someone i always go for the average site.
If they have spent thousands on their website and have a list of all the staff on the site including about 10 non producers like Marketing managers and account managers i believe that i will pay too much.
I did it the other day.
I chose a web design company with a reasonable and nice site over another that had all the bells and whistles of a site that must have cost the company a fortune to build.

Hmmm... This is very interesting. Sounds like I may not be coming in from too far off in left field.


As a side note, I'm working on a site whose likely visitors are "manly-men". To that end, I've had a few pictures taken of me wearing blaze orange, toting a shotgun, with this several of the product laid at my feet like bagged pheasants. And another shot with me holding a fishing pole in one hand, and the product in another, like it was a big fish. It screams hokey, but I'm hoping it'll speak to the intended audience (BTW, the product has absolutely nothing to do with fishing or hunting).

It depends on the market. I have several sites whose competition is exactly that of the clip art / beginning html genre. My sites reflect that same genre, albeit with a nicer look. But it is imperative in my topic that it have the trustworthy, made-by-mom, type of feel to it, rather than the business-style professional look. But for other markets, that type of site would fail miserably, so I use the professional look for those.

I'm usually competing against large banks and other established financial insitutions, which is why most of my sites never took that kind of look and feel.

The retail businesses might work though...building another automotive site that is borderline fugly...we'll see if it generates more business (once established) than the professionally designed one.

Cygnus

It's all about the analytics and talking to your audience. Professional doesnt mean better but it does represent the company visually. If for example your targetting big buyers with lotsa money you dont want to push a cheap and ugly website and expect them to respond/buy.

I usually make subtle changes and observe what happens. Sometimes simply changing a page heading can increase your conversions and reach the right people.