Ugly Squeeze Page Gets 66.22% Opt-In Rate
This morning my Manager of Member Services came in, quite disgusted at something that I had done.
The night before I had sent out an email with a link to a squeeze page that I had created, and she was completely repulsed by how ugly it was!
(Want to see it? Then click here)
She told me that with the fabulous graphic designer that we have available in-house, I could have had a much better looking squeeze page created for the campaign I was doing.
She even went on to say that my web designer was hurt because I had created such an abomination! (It turns out he wasn’t hurt, he was actually happy to see me create such a piece of dirt as it secures his job further)
I patiently listened to her continue on about how I need to provide better quality websites for the experience of my readers.
After she was done and had gone to work, I looked at the stats that the squeeze page had produced overnight:
66.22% conversion rate!
Why on earth would this ugly squeeze page get a whopping 66.22% conversion rate when well designed pages struggle to get 20%?
Well, I’ll let you in on the secret. The visitors were “sold” before they even got to the squeeze page!
You see, I was emailing my own readers about a new free viral traffic generation tool that is coming out this Wednesday. In my email I explained all the benefits of using this tool, and told them that if they wanted to learn more then they needed to sign up at that squeeze page.
When people went to the squeeze page they already knew they wanted to sign up. Obviously some backed out (33.78% to be exact), but that could have been for various reasons, one maybe being how ugly my page was!
So what can we learn from this interesting experience?
1. Relationship building is key
If you don’t have a great relationship with your readers then selling will be VERY difficult.
2. Pre-selling is king
As my good friend Todd Gross says, pre-selling is key to making a ton of cash through affiliate marketing (or through selling your own products).
Where do you pre-sell? Everywhere! In particular your emails, your videos, your blog posts, your articles, and anywhere else before the visitor is asked to purchase.
Because the visitors to the ugly squeeze page were pre-sold, they didn’t care how poorly written and ill conceived the page was - they already knew they wanted it.
3. Prettiness is not always important
In fact, I have found that the more “good looking” a website is, the lower it performs.
Maybe this is due to the fact that the graphics are distracting, or perhaps it is because little (or no) time is put into delivering a useful, consistent, valuable message. Whatever the reason, I suggest you try removing the header graphics, fancy animated gifs, and other “pretty-factors” from your squeeze and sales pages and see what happens.
You may be rather surprised.
4. YourSqueezePage.com rocks!
Hats off to my programmers for creating a piece of software that would allow me to create that ugly squeeze page in under a minute.
Now, I could have used the same software to make the page look a whole lot better (This is a better example), but I just didn’t care.
It was nice to have a piece of software that allowed me to save time and energy. I didn’t even register a domain name for it!
(And yes, that was an advertisement for our software - you can try it for only $1 at
www.YourSqueezePage.com)
In the end, it looks like this ugly squeeze page is going to make me a nice bit of cash (it’s already done about $250, but I haven’t really sold anything yet).
Matthew Glanfield
P.S. Don’t forget to post your comments!
Hey Matt,
I don’t care what the rate was…it is still UGLY!
Thank goodness we are releasing YourSqueezePage 3.0 soon- then there will be no excuses for ugly squeezepages!
With the new software- it will be impossible not to create attractive pages
Christine
It is truly AMAZING!
The Power of Squeeze Pages.
All the best.
Hi Matthew,
Actually, I don’t think the squeeze page
is half bad at all.
It’s clean, clear, and easy to read -
got a nice pic of Matthew and gets
straight to the point.
As a busy entrepreneur, I don’t have
alot of time for fancy stuff, so this
was right up my alley.
I prefer this way over the super fancy,
slick, too professional type that makes
you wonder whether or not someone
is really behind the page or not.
The only thing I would have liked is to
have audio on the site, which I know
Matthew often does, but in the interest
of time, no problem to have it without.
Other than that - kudos to you for putting
it up so quickly! One minute to put up a
squeeze page is awesome. I’m going to look
into that software myself.
Cheers,
Rich
www.itvprosperity.com
Hey Matt,
Always glad to see what you come out with. Hey I didn’t think it was that ugly. It looks about like what I would have created.
LOL
Keep up the good work. You have helped me greatly over the last year to increase my income and move forward. Can.t thank you enough.
To Your Continued Success,
Brad Dixon
http://www.onlinebusinessgenerator.com
Ha! See that Christine! They don’t even think it was that ugly!
Thanks for sticking up for me guys…
Matthew Glanfield
You Got Me!
Man that was ugly! But you know what? I didn’t look at the design when I opted in. Good Job Matt.
Thank you Matt,
Children are creating awesome fully functioning websites, with video, music, graphics, everything…
When I am looking for working sites for business and education simple is better.
Thanks again.
Trust your gut, man!!!
It comes as no surprise to me…I have been getting around 40% opt-in to my squeeze page with traffic coming from JVs and I have a picture of a dog on my strength and fitness site!
Danny
www.RawStrengthAndFitness.com
Not pretty but not exactly ugly either.
I would rather win ugly than have a flashy squeeze page that doesn’t bring results!
Live Your Dreams,
Jill
Hi Matthew,
I don’t think your squeeze page is ugly. The blue BBO pages I don’t like.
Sorry Christine.
When will YSP3 be released?
Kind Regards,
Agnes Bissmann
Matthew, this blog post is amazing.
I’m big on relationship building with my list using all forms of media, but I’ve never really thought about the pre-sell. That’s brilliant!
Some of the web programmers out there think that the flashy graphics and animations are what attracts views and sells their producst. I agree that it totally distracts me.
As for your graphics team… that’s a bit different. Their stuff isn’t pleasant and adds to your work.
But instead of paying your team to design me a more appealing looking site, I should pay them to make it uglier than it already is
Keep up the great work Matt. You’re educating the heck out of us, but more important this post has caused me to take some serious instant action on the preselling.
Scott Tousignant
www.Unstoppable-FatLoss.com/blog
I really like the ugly speeze page it’s simple and to the point. I really think the copy is what makes a squeeze page. If you have good copy on the page and the correct target market your page will do well no matter what it looks like.
Hi Matthew,
Most important is the relationship building and the value of the stuff that will increase the conversion rate. Yes good graphics are important but you had done well even with good graphics.
John Tan
www.7dollarkillertemplates.com
Hi Matthew,
Your site reminded me of Marketing Makeover Generator without the audio or video. Was the 1054 Hits to your site coming from your personal list or was it Paid Per Click or another form of advertising? I’m sure with your own personal list or members that these results are true. And if that was the case then maybe you should have had higher conversions from your own list.
Kudos on the pre-sale copy before the squeeze page.
Keep up the great work Matthew.
Quincy Scarborough
www.SecretCashVideo.com
LOL…I think ugly squeeze pages are fun, to be honest - but I agree, people should probably be pre sold as far as possible - you don’t want them to feel like they are wasting their time visiting your site, just to discover that its not what they want.
On a slightly different note, can I ask why you’re not using permalinks? Its a complete ‘must do’ with Wordpress, and gets rid of the ‘ugly’ urls you’re using at present.
If I can be of ANY help whatsoever, as a blogging and coding expert, just holler
Hi Matthew,
you are a good teacher!
A hoop to hear more of you.
Your free products on internet marketing is top.
a like them and a hope to get some more to but on my site
Koen Belgium
Kai: We do actually use permalinks. I only use the ?p= URL for emails as it is nice and short.
Matthew
matt, 123shela here, i really like your squeeze page and enjoy learning from you thanks 123shela
Hey Matthew,
It’s not that it is so ugly but just plain like, plain with nothing to distract the visitor from their main reason to be there. I think the word FREE getting used 5 times helps to get your point across too. (You missed using it one more place… “That Actually Builds Quality Traffic To Your Site for Free?”)
Thanks for another great tool that I just added to my html swipe file. Not to worry, I will change the photo when I use it for one of my promos.
You are very correct about the relationship building that needs to happen first. I learned that early from Jeff Mills. That’s why I use my http://www.whoishenry.com so that I can let folks know about me and make myself real and of value to them.
Looking forward to meeting you next month at the Midwest Super Conference here in Minneapolis, MN.
Henry Griner
Technology Consultant
P.S. Hey Christine, ease up on the boss. I’m sure he has lots of other stuff for you and the design team to work on that he does want to have look and read better than this page. I’d say, just humor him… but be careful not to encourage him in doing too much on his own.
I wanna know more bout YourSqueezePage 3.0…I hope this isn’t one of those…
“if it ain’t broke…fix it” things…
The current YourSqueezePage 2.0 seems to be doin quite well as it is…LMK…
~~Stepper~~
Always Drink Better Coffee
SpotaJava Coffee
Hi Matt,
I feel the page doesn’t look that shabby at all
(I’ve seen worse). Nonetheless, it could use more
design-finesse with inputs from your designer
indeed.
The main reason I think why it works is cos, like
what you mentioned, the prospects already know who
you are. So it’s easy for them to “see pass” the
“ugly” page and go straight to the content. They
already know it’s good stuff, coming from you.
However, had it been sent to brand NEW prospects,
they may be more skeptical due to the lack of
professionalism. Then again, if the copy is
enticing they may opt-in to check it out.
My 2 cents.
Sherman
This reminds me of a student of mine many years ago who made THE ugliest page I have ever in my life seen. I mean it had screaming colors, an animated background that swirled across the page, clashing pinks and chartreuse and text in HUGE sizes.
He made it as a joke - frustrated after trying to meet the design criteria for that week’s lesson. It was so incredibly ugly I swear it made your eyeballs bleed.
BUT that danged page outsold everything else that was done by 30 students that week. We jokingly said the surfer signed just to get that ugliness off his screen!
In actual truth they signed because it was so different than the zillions of pages they saw selling the same products. He also injected a lot of humor into that page - “Want this horribly ugly page to disappear and never be seen again? SIGN UP HERE”
The other reason they signed in record numbers was because they were presold - this page was the end of a long sales funnel.
I get pretty tired of squeeze pages - I see them everywhere and I’m hitting my scroll button furiously to get to what **I** want to read - what will it do for me? how much will it set me back? and why should I buy it from you?
The “ugly” page you wrote is such a breath of fresh air in the glut of info overload that I was tempted to click it just because it was so clean and clear!
That was ugly? Well I was presold any way so I didn’t notice.
I’m actually working on my first list and I was looking at the way that was laid out and I think its good.
Of course no one know’s who I am so I’ll have to impress them a bit. One thing I learned though from this… impress them before they get to the squeezepage.
Thanks
Jay
[…] name and email address at the squeeze page to get more information. (You can read more about this here if you […]
As always, nothing that comes out of Your Squeeze Page is ugly. You can make it as plain or as fancy as you want, which is really cool.
The best part is, you can see what is working and what is not, and the software makes sure that the one that is working gets shown more often…
I make sure I am constantly testing my squeeze page headlines and graphics and offers and … you get the point.
Have an amazing day!
Micheal Savoie
jvalertnews.com
productinaweekend.com
Matthew,
I tried to watch 2 videos relating to this subject & a warning came up they were infected & to close the show!
It also says 2007 at the bottom of the page…is this still relevant info?
Thanks,
Poppie
thx for sharing!