How much does “beauty” matter in marketing?

One episode made me think about the usefulness of “beauty” in marketing.

In the last few days the revision of an old car with which I go for nearly 3,000 km per year (maybe less) was expiring. It should be scrapped, but I love it.

So, I went to a garage and explained to the mechanic that the car is old but very good.

The mechanic went around a couple of times, he touches a tyre on this side and a light on that side, then stopped and told me:

– “Well, it doesn’t look good…”

Damn it!

But do cars have to “look good” or do they have to have tyres and brakes and engine working?

Anyway, this comment by the mechanic made me think about the ” beauty ” in marketing.

Does aesthetic beauty count in marketing?

For example:

It’s better to have a nice website that makes the visitor leave immediately…

…or a bad website that holds the visitor for minutes and minutes?

It’s better to send an email with a cool image that doesn’t say anything…

…or a bad email with content that conveys something?

A beautiful landing page that generates few registrations is more effective…

…than an ugly landing page that generates recordings?

The De gustibus mode in marketing doesn’t work.

There is a much more objective way to answer: just define a measurable goal for your marketing tool. Do you want to improve the time spent on the website? The number of clicks in the call-to-action of the email? The number of registrations?

Once you have defined the goal and you have the meter, ” beauty ” counts if it produces better results. Otherwise, it is useless or harmful.

So, whatever marketing tool you want to use (a banner, a landing page, a sales video, etc.), compare an ugly and a beautiful version, measure the results, and then continue with the winner.

Take the B2B Club Newsletter: paper instead of digital, black and white instead of colour, printed on photocopy paper instead of coated paper, stapled instead of binding pages.

In short, not aesthetically “beautiful”. But full of marketing and sales techniques and strategies that work in Italy today.

The September edition is about to go to press.

P.S.:

The revision was then overcome in a great way.

P.P.S.:

Here’s a website that presents many interesting comparative tests, with which to test your ability to guess when something worse works rather than something more beautiful: https://www.behave.org (formerly whichtestwon.com)