Why Beauty Suddenly Matters Online

The other day, my amazing copywriting director, Michele PW, shared something that really got me thinking.

She told me that the tide has turned and that beauty has finally come into its own.

The reason? Women.

Ugly Used to Sell

In the old days, copywriters, like Michele PW, who studied under the Dan Kennedy School of Copywriting, were taught that ugly sold better. He was referring to those long, page sales letters with typewriter style fonts and arrows pointing everywhere.

I know, it sounds odd, but Dan compared it to a flea market, where the best-selling booth was also the messiest. Everything was strewn all over in a chaotic fashion and, for some reason, that was the booth everyone shopped at.

Well, Michele recently learned that now it's beauty that sells. Your online sales letters and videos have to have lots of graphics, plenty of white space and be very pleasing to the eye.

Why the Tide Has Turned

Now, I'm not slamming Dan at all. He taught what really was working, and did work for years; it's just no longer the case. Dan is the first to change his teachings when the numbers show him that things have changed.

And, as Michele says, things have changed. Back when Dan was doing much of his original copywriting and testing, men were the main buyers of products and services. Now, women are more prominent as buyers and sellers, and women appreciate beauty.

That doesn't mean that men don't value beauty as well, but maybe they see beauty differently than women.

And because of that, they just might be less interested in how the sales copy and product packaging looks and more interested in what the content says.

Women, however, are very conscious of how a sales page or product looks -- especially the design of their own marketing materials.

This is not to say that women don't care about content or that you don't need good copywriting anymore.

You still need strong, persuasive writing on your sales letters and web pages.

But the difference is now you also need to consider the graphics and layout on those pages as well.