David Ogilvy was a great advertising guy.

In 1962, Time magazine hailed him ‘the wizard of modern advertising’.

He was responsible for many memorable adverts and worked with companies like Schweppes and Rolls Royce.

He was a pioneer of soft-sell ads that were full of information and didn’t insult the intelligence of the reader.

Ogilvy knew the point of advertising.

… it is useless to be creative, original thinker, unless you can sell what you create.

What did Ogilvy know that we need to know today.

• cleverness didn’t sell more products.
• wittiness for the sake of it didn’t sell more products.
• design, for design’s sake, didn’t sell more products.

If you aren’t clear about who to connect to and how to sell to your audience, then any amount of creativity is a waste of time.

So what does this mean to you and your website?

Creativity doesn’t have a point if all it does is confuse people. And reduce your sales.

Why do you have a website?

No, it isn’t to ‘get your brand out there’!

The purpose of a website is to get more customers and make more sales.

Have you noticed how much our buying patterns have changed. It’s crazy. It won’t be long before the Yellow Pages will be extinct. That we’ll say I need to ‘Google that’, and not I need to search for that.

We don’t want to search. We want to find.

And when we find, what are we doing?

We are making decision. In fact, 80% of people decide who they want to spend their money with through online searches.  By looking at your website.

So who does your website stack up?

Is it creative?

Or does it sell?

If 80% of people are making their buying decisions on the internet, is your website connecting with them as future buyers?

When I see so many websites, they are beautifully creative, pretty soft hues. Designed to creative perfection.

And yet the business owners are unhappy. Miserable. Going out of business.

Is your website:

• built for the ‘finder’? The future buyer of your products or services?
• answering the finder’s 3 important questions?
• answering the finder’s 3 important questions in 7 seconds?
• knowing what the finder needs and how to give it to them?

Ogilvy was clear on his purpose. To create advertising that sells.

Is your website clear on its purpose?

So when you tweak, or even overhaul your website, who will you call first?

A creative person?

Or a sales person?