Of course, there IS a lot that I agree with in the post: namely that people respond to a story and a tribal affiliation far more strongly than they will ever respond to a spreadsheet.  But I guess from a Web perspective, the idea of granularity and data as a hindrance to belief just doesn’t square with my observations.

What I’ve tended to see is the following:

• People go to the Web to check things out.  They’re specifically researching a purchasing decision and are expecting more data from a Website than from an ad or even a direct mailer.  When you don’t provide that data, people get suspicious.
• Content rich Websites tend to convert better than content poor sites. That doesn’t mean the data should take center stage or should replace a well-crafted story, just that those people who want to drill down on specifics, well, they want to be able to drill down on specifics.  And they’ll find those specifics from somewhere, even if it’s from an ill-informed opinion on a forum somewhere.
• The mere presence of (and access to) data is often enough to provide confidence.  Data can sometimes be like a privacy policy, most people just want to know that it exists and that you’re confident enough to show it to them without really wanting to examine it in any great detail.  The mere fact that you have the information and have provided access to it is often enough to engender buyer confidence.

Can you imagine Newton Running being unwilling to show you the science behind their running shoes?  What would that do to your confidence if they wouldn’t show you (or didn’t have any) data from their tests?

Again, I may not need to study their graphs or watch all of their videos or look up their patents, but the very fact that they’re passionate enough to get into the nitty-gritty details with me – the fact that they do actually have data – makes me far more willing to believe them and to buy a pair of their shoes than if they wanted me to just accept their product/idea on faith.

I also think that passionate proof is an essential element of any high-margin or premium product’s Website, which is one of the main reasons I wrote my critique of Best Made Axe’s lack of proof.

To me, data isn’t a hindrance to passionate belief – it’s proof of it. How can you be passionate about an idea, design, or product unless you’re willing to put it to the test and show off the results?

What’s Your Experience

Of course, I’m always willing to hear thoughts from my readers. What do you guys and gals think?  What’s been your experience? Have you ever had a situation where less would have been better when it came to proof and substantiation?

Flash sites weren’t well indexed by search engines and had a bad habit of turning a pull medium into a not-so-interactive video.  Oh, and their content was often more gratuitous than persuasive in a flash-animated splash page sort of way.

Most all of that has changed, and we’re really starting to see interactive video come into its own, as is the case with Eloqua’s new promotional/lead generation video.  If you haven’t seen it yet, you really should take a few minutes out of your day to take a look.  And maybe spend a few more minutes to poke around different pathways and responses.

Another great example is Boone Oakley’s “YouTube Website,” as demonstrated by their home page that I’ve embedded below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

But make sure to look past the technology to see the copywriting.

Yes, you read that right: I said copywriting. That video – including each and every one of it’s forked paths – was planned out, scripted, and storyboarded. The video is cool; the messaging is brilliant.

Viewed through that lens, you’ll notice that most of the core persuasive points remain the same regardless of whether you click on “Marketing” or “Sales” or “Executive.”  What changes is the focus on this or that feature set, the videos ordering of taking points, and the perspective in which some of the material is covered.  Brilliant.  And a technique that Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg pioneered with text-and-hyperlink-based sites.

So while I love the video and I think it represents new opportunities to inject personality and charisma into interactive “conversations,” keep in mind that technology has to support messaging, and the core interactivity involved is no different than that of regular old embedded hyperlinks.  Proper persuasive planning is still required.

Regardless of how reasonable it is or isn’t, we instinctively attempt to confirm a “brand promise” of attention to detail in the kitchen by looking for evidence of it throughout the rest of the restaurant.

We believe in internal consistency - a belief that’s hardly limited to restaurants.

Clean Bathrooms and Your Website’s UVP

“where should the Unique Value Proposition go on my Website?”

People often ask me that, and – with the clean bathroom theory firmly in mind – I usually reply with a question of my own: “where does the chorus or refrain go in a song?”

Sometimes it comes off as a bit of a non-sequitur, but a little guided discovery quickly establishes the following points about song refrains:

1. The refrain carries the theme of the song.  Even when you can’t remember the name of the song, you’ll usually recall the refrain, because that’s the heart of the song
2. The rest of the song fleshes out, substantiates, and supports the refrain.  The stanzas and the refrain are intimately connected.
3. The refrain is repeated over and over, and in the best songs, each repetition gains meaning and emotional weight from the stanzas that preceded it.

To see how this works online, simply substitute “UVP” for “refrain” and “Website” for “song” and here’s what you get:

1. The UVP carries the theme of the Website.  In other words the reason visitors would want to do business with you should lie at the heart of your online messaging.  If it’s not, you’re spending too much time talking about what you want to talk about rather than what’s important to the customer.
2. The rest of the Website should flesh out, substantiate, and support your UVP.  People will look to see if you back-up what you claim. If the rest of your site doesn’t jibe with the UVP, you’ll lose credibility and, ultimately, lose the sale.
3. The UVP is repeated over and over (though not verbatim or in entirety) from different angles or perspectives, such that the claims and promises gain weight, credibility, and emotional resonance with each click or page.

The Bottom Line:

Treating your UVP as a song refrain helps to insure internal consistency

It forces you to check your own site for clean bathrooms.  So when visitors look to corroborate your claims by cross referencing the various elements and pages of your Website, they’ll become increasingly reassured and confident with each click.

For example, if you are a local contractor specializing in completing basement renovations and garage enclosures in half the time of traditional contractors, your Web visitors will expect to see your claimed specialty and value proposition reflected in your:

• prior work history,
• qualifications/certifications
• gallery of projects,
• guarantees,
• testimonials, etc.

If each of those elements speaks to your specialized focus and your half-the-time claims, you’ll win a lot more leads.  If they don’t support your UVP, your visitors will likely go elsewhere for their renovations.

Also, if you claim to only hire the best, expect a fair amount of prospective customers clicking through your employment pages to see what your REAL standards of employment are. And you better have “clean bathrooms” because this ain’t theory, I’ve sat and watched visitors do exactly that via analytics and services such as Click Tales, OnTarget, and Tea Leaf.

A Videocast Full of Great “Clean Bathroom” Specifics for Websites

A great video-cast/discussion on this topic was created by my fellow Wizard of Ads Partner, Dave Young, when he discusses the credibility cues he intentionally baked into the Website for Roof Life of Oregon.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So go take a fresh look at your Website and ask yourself:

• Have you woven a refrain throughout your Website’s messaging?

• How does each page of your site work to substantiate and corroborate your main claims/UVP?