How clients look at you.

[Tom]

Been doing some research on how potential clients see you. Things like certain colours, shapes and layouts of paperwork, websites, business cards describe you as a business. Find it quite interesting.

Something like Food. You'll notice that companies like McDonalds, KFC, Coca Cola, Red Bull ect mainly use the colour Red, where as more corporate businesses like Google, HP ect use Blue, a colour used to describe strengh and power.

Remember reading somewhere that Google used various different shades of blue for their logo while not telling anyone. The shade of blue you see now is the shade that got the most clicks.

Just thought I would ask does anyone else think about things like this in how they advertise and sell themselves?

[yourdj]

3 colours - nice simple fonts (like gill sans).
Lots of space and no unnecessary crap.
Honest content. Thats my rules.

[rth_discos]

Just thought I would ask does anyone else think about things like this in how they advertise and sell themselves?

Yes, massively.

How you look is so important. I see many DJs spending lots of money on a great set up that looks amazing, but then pay no attention to how they look in the sales process, eg, website and marketing materials.

Most disco owners are fairly technically minded, so are able to put together a website in Wix - but does that mean it is effective at converting visitors into customers? Are they letting themselves down with a poor website?

The website is one of the first things a potential customer sees, and even though you may have the most impressive disco setup, if the website is poorly made, it will give completely the wrong impression of your business.

3 colours - nice simple fonts (like gill sans).
Lots of space and no unnecessary crap.
Honest content. Thats my rules.

I hope you take this the way it's intended, but even your website (whilst it looks professional), is letting you down - even on the home page I can see a number of areas where you will lose potential customers...

[funkymook]

I hope you take this the way it's intended, but even your website (whilst it looks professional), is letting you down - even on the home page I can see a number of areas where you will lose potential customers...

And in the same spirit - that sounds very much like the opening of a sales pitch, which would put me right off....

[rth_discos]

And in the same spirit - that sounds very much like the opening of a sales pitch, which would put me right off....

Put you off what??

[funkymook]

Put you off what??

You know sort of emails everyone gets from SEO companies telling you how they can help with your website ratings because they looked over it earlier and identified areas for improvements but it’s really just a generic email...

From a customers POV that would put me off...

[SC Events]

My branding is blue

I think image is the most important thing - well designed website, business cards, contracts, invoices etc have certainly helped me and gained lots of positive feedback from clients. I even had someone book some equipment through me because they said I had a well designed email signature, so if I was prepared to go to that detail, I must be good!

I also think that when on-site, appropriate uniform that looks smart is a must too. Getting uniform embroidered rather than screen/vinyl printed looks a lot more pro too imo.

[rth_discos]

You know sort of emails everyone gets from SEO companies telling you how they can help with your website ratings because they looked over it earlier and identified areas for improvements but it’s really just a generic email...

From a customers POV that would put me off...

I totally understand the generic emails, but I don't understand what that has to do with this thread.

I'm not trying to sell anything, and it wasn't a generic comment - it was after I had looked at the website, that was being hailed as an example of a site that was designed for the customer, but was actually missing some very important things to help improve its conversion rate.

The thread is all about "how customers look at you". Tom commented on how colours, layouts and shapes describe a business, and how the multinationals even look at the minute details of colours etc.

Ultimately it all comes down to conversion rates and how to improve them. Which for a mobile disco is very important. I'm sure every mobile disco would prefer to convert £100 of advertising spend in to 4 discos instead of 2 for example? And that's ultimately what affect the "look" of your business can have.

I know it's all very boring and not as exciting as which speakers sound the best and which lights look amazing, but it's this aspect that can make a massive difference to the success of your business.

[funkymook]

I totally understand the generic emails, but I don't understand what that has to do with this thread.

I'm not trying to sell anything, and it wasn't a generic comment - it was after I had looked at the website, that was being hailed as an example of a site that was designed for the customer, but was actually missing some very important things to help improve its conversion rate.

The thread is all about "how customers look at you". Tom commented on how colours, layouts and shapes describe a business, and how the multinationals even look at the minute details of colours etc.

Ultimately it all comes down to conversion rates and how to improve them. Which for a mobile disco is very important. I'm sure every mobile disco would prefer to convert £100 of advertising spend in to 4 discos instead of 2 for example? And that's ultimately what affect the "look" of your business can have.

I know it's all very boring and not as exciting as which speakers sound the best and which lights look amazing, but it's this aspect that can make a massive difference to the success of your business.

No offence meant, but as the thread is about perception it was just an observation on how I perceived your post...

Go on then, I’m sure Toby would appreciate knowing what tweaks you’d recommend and why and we would all probably benefit from the case study..

[rth_discos]

No offence meant, but as the thread is about perception it was just an observation on how I perceived your post...

As I wasn't trying to sell anything, I wasn't worried about perception

Go on then, I’m sure Toby would appreciate knowing what tweaks you’d recommend and why and we would all probably benefit from the case study..

Here's 4 immediate changes I would make to Toby's home page:

1: Get a phone number on the home page. Whilst email is a popular way of getting in contact, a phone number provides reassurance to a visitor that they can easily contact you.

2: Make some of the aspects of the 10 reasons clickable to provide more information, eg, click on the "7 venues" to view what those venues are. I know it's above, but visitors may not have seen that scrolling down the page - don't rely on them recalling information/having to scroll back up. What is PLI and PAT? If you can click on it to explain more, it would save the visitor wondering what the acronyms stand for. "Thousands of happy clients"... great opportunity to link through to the testimonials/reviews page to back this up.

3: Meet the team - make each person clickable so you can find out more about each of the DJs. Each DJ should have their own page about them.

4: At the bottom of the page there is no "call to action". Where do you next want to visitor to go? If they want to contact you, how do they do that. Make it nice and easy for the visitor, guide them through the website. Make it easy for them to contact you.

There's a few changes I can suggest - there's likely more, but those were my initial observations from a glance across the home page.

Not a bad site at all - these are just recommendations for improving the conversion rate.