Your Prospect = A&R Guy/Gal...

You lost me on your opening paragraph - need something snazzier.

j/k!

I look at a lot of sales pages etc. I prefer a simple page with a nice headline. Nothing flashy

There always seems to be something we can be doing to increase conversions.

Think of Jason Moffatt and his "strategic laziness". He knows his conversions could be better and he probably knows a few ways to improve them.

The benefit to testing is to increase one's conversions. The cost is time, and possibly money (but this isn't important compared to time).

So there is a limit to the amount of testing that you should do unless you actually enjoy doing it.

Of course, I'm getting a little off-topic...

Regarding the 3-second and 30-second rules...they're but a piece of the puzzle.

For example, the quality of the prospect would change many things such as how receptive they are to begin with, how much of a chance they give you, and how much longer they're willing to spend on your page.

We've also got to consider the fact that people don't usually buy on their first visit. It's not like when you need something specific, where you don't need any more selling to persuade you to buy it, because you've already made that decision.

Marketing isn't as simple as yelling "SEX" at the top of your lungs when entering a crowded room.

Consumers aren't, for the most part, drooling idiots who direct their attention at whatever is shiniest.

There is much more to selling (and buying).

Therefore, it would be a bad idea to change your marketing so that your primary aim is to grab someone's attention.

Shouldn't your primary aim be for the prospect to trust you and then to buy something from you (opt-in, etc.)?

Granted, this doesn't apply to all forms of online marketing.

The whole attention-grabbing thing would definitely work better for paid advertising. That's probably a big reason why we see so many ridiculously dumb ads online (e.g. What's your IQ? Shoot 3 turkeys to win an iPad. These girls want you.) - they're great at grabbing and keeping your attention.

So in some cases, I would agree wholeheartedly that grabbing eyeballs should be one's primary focus.

But in other cases, such as a sales page of any kind, I don't think that's such a good idea.

I have seen many piss poor sales letters, opt-in pages, and emails.

But some of them are extremely effective.

Why?

Honesty. Trust. Some prior relationship or knowledge that I had of the person before I even landed on their page.

Perhaps that's something we should worry more about than how red our headline is.

Curtis

I think you just need a catchy headline... a "hook" like "Friends dont drive friends to drinkin"... Ask a rediculous question... engage them.

@Curtis: I agree that relationship building is another key component. I guess I should have better clarified "Prospect"; not talking about "Customers". I'm an advocate for the "intelligent website"; the site that can distinguish between a Prospect and an actual Customer and serve content relevant to that relationship.

A Prospect doesn't know you from Adam, (no offense Adam); while your Customer should know you enough to serve them totally different content. So, with that in mind... wouldn't it behoove you to grab eyeballs of your Prospects?

(and no, I am not leading up to selling said system; its mine mine mine mine! )

@John: indubitably; the 'hook' is universal. Can't have a winning tune/sale without a decent hook.

tec i sold over two hundred copies of "offline on crack".

I cringe every time I read it, but people click on it, and "good for them" dammit!

Perry Marshall calls compares autoresponders to "Chinese water torture"...tap tap tap...

IMHO, it's that regular tap, tap, tap - i.e. follow up - that consistently yields the most conversions. I think at the end of the day, probably the single most important thing to affect conversions are:
a) follow up
b) authority (this is why Oprah can endorse a product once and it becomes an instant sales success)

I