curb_appeal Archives - Successful Blog

GAWKER Design: Curb Appeal as Customer-Centered Promotion

February 22, 2006 by Liz

The Qualities of Great Curb Appeal

Great design is branding that whispers. Like a house with fabulous curb appeal, a uniquely-inspired stained glass window, or the fine lines on a fabulous car, design is promotion that draws you nearer. It entices customers or readers to come closer–to see for themselves what’s being offered.

Don’t think for a minute that looks don’t count. First impressions tell customers that a business understands who their customers are and that the business knows what their customers are looking for. GAWKER understands curb appeal and uses it to deliver customers to their own front door.

Product is the what and the how. Product is the content and the quality that gets customers coming back. But whether it’s a blog, a bistro, or barometer, product is nothing if it never gets to a customer. If no one comes to read it, or dine there, or buy it. Then how can you say that the product is good?

That’s where design–curb appeal–comes in. Design is the why and the romance. Like quality product, good design starts with the customer. It tells the customer what this product is and who it’s for. Design done well makes the promise that the product keeps. It says, “Come here, and try this. You won’t be sorry.” If the product is quality, you’re not sorry. You’re delighted you tried it.

Gawker and the Curb Appeal Checklist

GAWKER passes a Curb Appeal checklist with flying colors.

The name of the product, GAWKER, is big, bold, and colorful. GAWKER speaks to the audience that the product is made for. Cover all but that word–GAWKER–and you still know this blog is not meant for your grandmother’s golf team or your little brother’s playschool. GAWKER looks and sounds slightly irreverent and obviously self-content.
All things on the page speak to 21-34 year old, mid-high to high income professionals. GAWKER shows their achieving, metro-readers an environment they’re comfortable with, one that says, “you belong here with us. We speak the same language. We do the same things.”
Even the ads make readers feel cool. As the New Yorker pointed out, you won’t see pharmacutical ads in GAWKER, because all GAWKER readers are “young and beautiful.” At least, that’s how they want to see themselves.
In other words, you can tell by looking, that GAWKER has one BIG IDEA–CELEBRITIES ONLY–Content and Customers. You’ll read about them and feel like one too. No confusion here. Customers know right away whether this is their gig or not. GAWKER doesn’t waste your time if you don’t want what GAWKWER”s got.

In terms of the curb appeal the closer a reader gets, the better GAWKER looks. GAWKER has mastered brand-niche marketing.

Promise and Product Perfectly Wed

As a reader, I find exactly what I expected–the jazzy, snarky, celebrity gossip that makes me feel like a slightly smarter, sharper celebrity than the folks being talked about. GAWKER passes the test because everything they do says they know who their customers are. That knowledge shows in every detail of their product. The promise and product are perfectly wed.

The key to GAWKER-level design is knowing your customers so well that your customers can see themselves in every detail of what you do. Top-notch design and product-driven packaging require complete attention and constant awareness of customervalues and customer needs.

When was the last time you checked in with your customers about the curb appeal of your blog or business? Are you sure your product and promise are perfectly wed?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Blog Promotion: Checking Out Curb Appeal

February 13, 2006 by Liz

Steve McKee writes the Smart Answers column in Business Week. Last Friday he was talking about how everything a company does comes down to marketing. His column was replete with examples and well made points, but I was particularly taken with this story.

. . . The other night, my wife and I decided to try a new restaurant. But when we turned down its street, we just kept on driving, never even getting out of the car. It was the sign that gave us pause. It was simply a flat, translucent panel with an amateurish, one-color logo slapped on — the kind of sign you would see on a check-cashing operation in a seedy strip mall. The sign was of low quality and in bad taste — imagery not well associated with a fine-dining establishment. With plenty of other good choices we simply didn’t want to take the risk of spoiling our dinner date.

For all I know, the food would have been amazing and the chef an undiscovered gem, but the restaurant never got the chance to prove it because we naturally assumed the experience would be as unprofessional as the sign. As a result, we passed.

Perhaps after a few more quiet weekends the proprietor will realize that marketing is everything and will do something about the sign. Perhaps not. But I’m determined to apply the lesson to my own business and think about marketing in a much broader context. Are you?

–Steve McKee, Business Week, Smart Answers : All Together Now “Marketing Is Everything,” February 10, 2006

Checking Out Curb Appeal

After I read Steve McKee’s story, I started wondering. How many readers are choosing to drive by our blogs–the same way Steve and his wife chose to drive by that restaurant–because they lack curb appeal? We do make assumptions based solely on how a blog looks. Try this test to see how blog curb appeal works for you.

memory, dragons,

fortune.

2. Do the search on Google Blog Search, Technorati, or another blog search engine. Keep your search results window handy in case you need to return to it.

3. Randomly choose 3-5 blogs from the search results.

4. Without reading a word, rank the blogs in the order you predict they might rank based on linkage from other blogs.

5. Then do a link search for each blog on Technorati Advanced Search or another blog search engine to get their actual link stats. ( On Technorati–>[Search>Options>Links to This URL] On Others–>[link: domain.com] )

6. Rank the blogs again based on your findings from the links search.

7. Compare your prediction to reality. Did your prediction come close?

Curb appeal changes how we value things. To say it another way. Perception changes reality.

Granted curb appeal isn’t everything. Curb appeal gets folks in the door. Content keeps them. Even without curb appeal, if you can folks to read quality content, they’ll come back again. Still that doesn’t change the fact that curb appeal makes a HUGE difference in whether a stranger stops to read word one.

Curb Appeal in the Technorati 100

In the Technorati Top 100 Blogs, 10 are My Space Blogs. Who says a template blog can’t have curb appeal? Here are three My Space Blogs from the Technorati Top 100 and their link stats as of today.

Technorati 19 has 16,141 links from 4864 sites.

Technorati 81 has 6673 links from 2214 sites.

Technorati 96 has 5792 links from 2290 sites.

Obviously readers find these blogs have enough curb appeal. Like beauty, curb appeal is in the eye of the beholder. Our blogs need to match what our readers expect to see from a blog like ours. A Disney Blog shouldn’t look like Brooks Brothers or a hiphop blog for that matter. We all have sense what our readers will find confusing or won’t find attractive. Don’t we?

Steve McKee’s story stuck with me because my decision tree always starts with eliminating the negatives. That way I have fewer choices to work from. I might be missing something spectacular, but I don’t have the time to kiss all of the frogs I’ll meet just to find that spectacular something.

So many blogs and so little time. Don’t let me drive right by yours, just because I didn’t see the quality on your sign out front. I’m going out to check my sign one more time right now. How’s your sign looking these days?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Success in a Blink and a Blink Test

January 31, 2006 by Liz

In 2005, Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book “Blink.” introduced the idea that we make make decisions about people and things almost instantaneously– long before we do the cognitive thinking about them.

Last week, Reuters reported that Canadian researchers have found that people make just such decisions about Internet sites, deciding in less than a blink whether they will stay or click away from them. Here’s a link to the article.

I wonder what Reuters was thinking to write an article so short that you miss the whole thing if you blink?

A Blink Test

Before you blink away, you might try this the next time you bring up your blog or web page. Try to see your blog as if it were one you’d never seen it before.

1. Close your eyes for a minute. Then open them once the page is up.

2. Pay attention to where your eyes fall first. Is that where you want them to?

3. Look at a blank wall or a blank piece of paper for a minute. Then look back again. What attracts or distracts you? Does anything make you want to stay or leave?

Use what you find out to make sure your blog gets a “yes” in that first blink.

THIS JUST IN:
Gary an SOB over at Blogoplex did a test on several blogs including this one . . . Click through to read his blink test results. See whether you agree.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Re;ated articles:
Blog Promotion: Checking Out Curb Appeal
Five Design Basics to Never Forget
Blog Design Checklist
Great Photo Resources to Support Readers