Why Ugly Clients Cost You Money
Brian McGovern
I know I’m going to regret this. It sounds so mean, calling people ugly. (I’m no beauty either)
But take a look at your portfolio – and take a serious look at your website. Should you really have ugly people on your website?
I met with a photographer at his Tribeca studio last week. David spent a lot of time, energy and money re-launching his website. He bought ads, pay-per-click traffic and sent out postcards. He increased his traffic by 20 times, but he didn’t make one sale. He hardly booked any appointments.
This was serious. My client borrowed big time on his credit cards 
to boost his traffic, but traffic without conversion is useless. I knew what the problem was, but I had to be careful.
“Let’s take a look at the site again, what landing page did you send the traffic to?” I asked.
“What do you mean, ‘landing page,’ I just send them to the website,” he said.
That’s a common mistake, sending your traffic to your homepage. If you advertise for “Wedding Photography,” then you should only send traffic to a page about weddings. Don’t confuse the visitor with artsy photos of nudes, your cat, or urban decay.
Show them happy wedding photographs.
“Let’s take a look at your wedding portfolio page,” I said as I got ready to break the news. I clicked. A very slick flash page twinkled and lo and behold, there they were. The ugliest couple in America.
“Are these friends of yours?” He was standing behind me as I used his computer, so he didn’t catch my grimace.
“No, I just love that photograph. It really captured the emotion, it came out perfect,” he said. He rambled on about the lighting, placement, composition – how it told a story.
“This guy,” pointing to the groom’s ill shaped head, “is he related to you?” I asked. Other than a pronounced uni-brow and extra chins, there was little resemblance to David, but I had to be sure.
The Lovely Couple
“And the bride,” I scrolled past her buck-toothed grin and over the skull tattoo on her generous arms, crossed just beneath her “she’s not family?”
“No, not at all. I just loved working with that couple. They were wonderful people, and like I said, the shot is perfect.”
I took a deep breath and gave it my best shot. I’d have to be diplomatic. David is a deep and spiritual man, who sees the inner beauty in all of us. How do I put this?
How should I say it? Maybe your website visitors would identify with a different image? Perhaps what you see in this image isn’t the same thing a shopper sees? While you and I certainly see the artistic value of this splendid composition, perhaps we should try a different approach?
I just started talking and this came out, “Uhm, Dave, the Jerry Springer couple … the picture is perfect – but it’s a perfect picture of a very ugly couple. If you want to book some jobs fast - put your best looking people on the first page. I’m sorry. The majority of the world is shallow. They respond to better looking people. They want to see themselves as handsome. The bride needs to see herself as prettier than she really is. I know, I know. It’s shallow. But it’s fact.”
Dave was quiet for a moment, “What do I do?”
“Let’s test it,” I said.
We set up an alternate wedding page. It looked and functioned just like the original, but instead of the Addams Family, we put up a nicer looking couple. They were younger. He was muscular and square jawed. She was stunning.
Next, we inserted some code from Google’s Website Optimizer. This free code let’s you randomly split traffic from your control page to your test page. When a visitor clicks on the “Book Appointment” page, Google counts that as a success.
Seven days later, the results were in. The shallow, perfect couple produced seven appointments, the inner-beautiful people, zilch. A month later, the difference was even more dramatic. I believe the “perfect couple” booked over 30 appointments versus only 4 for the “real people.”
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How do you argue with those results?
If you don’t completely hate me by now, why not download a free copy of “More Clients Now?” It will show you how to market smarter and attract more clients fast.
Images http://tackyweddings.com
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Brian, I can’t tell you how thankful I am that you wrote this post. If another photographer sends me a book (or to their website) featuring scary looking people, I’m going to scream! As much as we hate to think of ourselves as “lookists”, what you say is completely true. For a wedding celebration, the client wants to elevate themselves and step up to a level above the everyday.
Yes, it’s sad, but it’s true. I’ve watched it happen in an office full of otherwise kind and generous souls. Lay out a few different versions of the same design picturing different types of faces, and people naturally gravitate toward the design that features the “pretty people.” I don’t think most folks even consciously realize this is happening. Reminds me of the constant flow of opinions I see printed in consumer magazines about “stick-thin” models and the like. We can all write offended letters to all of the consumer magazines about their choices of models, but the fact is, pretty sells.
You nailed it. Even thought I don’t like it, the fact is that people do judge a book by its cover. And we’re all guilty of it too, unless we take the time to evaluate things carefully. But with so many decisions to make in a day, we go with the emotional brain.
That’s why I like to test images, headlines and layout. It’s fascinating work – you never know what people will react too.
PS – Great book on the subject: Buy-olgy by Martin Lindstrom. He shows that while sex may get attention, it isn’t the best way to sell.