Principle of simplicity: Less is more:

underwater deep water with light flowing from above

And then when I thought I heard the worst,
my customer told me:
“Your website is a STINKING PIG STY!”

Psychology tell us that, if we’re given two similar options, we tend to find the BEST version is:

the cleanest version …
the simplest version …
the most coherent version

Let’s start off with an obvious example: a kitchen …

Which kitchen do YOU like better?

I’m not a designer. I don’t even play one on TV. So I can’t reveal the deep secrets of color matching and combinations.

But from my experience in business and with sales, marketing, and advertising since 1985, I do know this:

Clean and simple design and layout with just a few colors makes a powerful, positive impression on people and opens their mind to paying more for whatever you offer.

Your packaging or presentation
can make them LUST WITH HUNGER
for your product:

The emotional impression of the presentation is as important or even more so than the meaningful content inside. The Japanese even have a saying for this regarding their food:

In Japanese: “Me de taberu”
Translated: You eat with your eyes

If you look carefully, that gorgeous arrangement has only about 50 calories on it! But because it’s such a feast for the eyes, you’ll gladly hand over $25 … $30 … or more (then head down the street after lunch for a couple of $1 e-coli burgers to kill that gnawing, hungry feeling).

And by using certain darker, richer colors (such as dark blue or dark red), you can convey a feeling of elegance, refinement, and sophistication. And this sets the expectation of a higher price — because that association of darker, richer colors and higher prices has already been established in society — which you can then charge:

When everyone zigs … ZAG:

The benefit of “white space:”

I got this ZAGGING idea back in the mid-1980s from famed marketing consultants Al Ries and Jack Trout in their classic book, Positioning. The essence of positioning is to set yourself apart by taking a different “position” so prospects can easily remember you.

Their examples include: 7-Up: “the Uncola” … Avis: “We’re #2. So we try harder” … the original VW Beetle during days of Detroit’s monster cars: “Think small” … and Burger King’s: “Flame broiled, not fried.”

I used this during my real estate brokerage days to advertise only two listings per week in the Sunday paper classified section of single-column ads, making them “available by appointment only” (I absolutely refused to hold open houses, thereby making me more exclusive, but also because I valued my free time).

My secret? I had the newspaper classified ad department indent my ad around all sides, adding premium “white space” and elegance in a place you never see it: the ugly, cluttered one-column classified ad section. The newspaper was happy to do so, since it made my ads longer and made them more money.

How can ZAGGING help you? First, let’s see the ACTUAL ads from the early 1990s and see if you can spot my ads among the others:

classified newspaper ads

And how can adding white space – or ZAGGING in general – help you?

BENEFIT #1: You set yourself apart in a commodity or overcommunicated market:

If you’re in a business where you have competitors … with all of you claiming to do the best job possible and be the only choice … and the public perception is that there’s no real difference between any of you any more than the difference between one brand of table salt versus another, how does an uninformed prospect tell you apart from all the others?

By your packaging and your shallow, surface-level appearance: your clothes, your hair, your speech, your collateral materials, your office, your ads, your car, your associations, your college, your high school, your personal interests and hobbies … all the things that rationally don’t matter whatsoever really make all the emotional difference when comparing salt vs. salt.

BENEFIT #2: You present something unexpected for its context:

As I showed you clearly in Shoes and socks and the Law of Association, people expect to see classified ads as densely packed words shoved to the edges of each column, with each column looking the same, day after day, week after week, year after dreary year. (NLP or neurolinguistic programming calls the out-of-context presentation a “pattern interrupt”.)

By adding the “white space” of extra margins, these ads force your attention on them. You could spot my 1-column ads from 30 feet away!

BENEFIT #3: You can accidentally attract business from hot-to-buy prospects who find you:

I got business from geographical areas I didn’t cover from people I wasn’t marketing to and who didn’t come through a referral. How did they hear of me and why did they call me? “We liked your ad – it was very easy to spot. That’s the kind of broker we want.”

ZAGGING in a print ad:

I harnessed the same “ZAG” factor with my ads in the real estate magazines – which usually only push listings for sale and look for buyers — with the same wonderful results by trolling for sellers. When have you seen a real estate ad like this?

I also ZAGGED some more with my ads by doing the following:

First: I targeted only women, which even the women real estate brokers didn’t do on a publicly visible level

Second: I made sure to dominate the publication without paying a premium, by requesting to be on the top of the right-handed page as close to the front of the magazine

Third: I featured myself in HUGE professional photos: A couple of female friends told me I was good-looking, so assuming their opinion held with the general female population, I had a fashion model photographer shoot me for a series of ads. (And yes: I did get some calls from gals interested in me personally, but I won’t reveal to you if I closed the sale with them.)

TODAY’S TIP:

Psychology tell us that, if we’re given two similar options, we tend to find the BEST version is the cleanest, simplest, and most coherent.

Your packaging or presentation can go a long way in giving you the edge.

And by using the principle of positioning, or ZAGGING, you set yourself apart from the crowd of me-too contenders without resorting to flashing neon lights, turning up the volume to ELEVEN!, or using irrelevant bikini-clad models to catch people’s attention.

All of these can help you support a higher price.

If you’re delivering materials in the physical world, such as brochures or proposals:

think of custom designing and printing the large envelope that holds your collateral materials. That way, you get away from those ugly kraft brown 11×14 envelopes …
Even consider custom-designed and printed pocket folders to hold your collateral as if they are holy and precious religious documents

If you’re delivering these in the online world, do as much as you can to convey the same physical equivalent in your virtual packaging.

I see this presentation tactic work as a book collector: put a newly published $50 book on an IKEA table in Borders and people treat the book like used Kleenex.

BUT . . . Bring in a locked case like a Ancient Egyptian museum display, tape a “Rare Books” sign to it, then put your 200-year-old, leatherbound, $50 book in it, an elegant card next to it just like the museum does, and first-timers to book collecting will expect they need to wear white gloves and hold their breath while handling it.

(To the right: “Juridisk Arkiv No. 4” … published 1805 … Contemporary 1/2 leather and brown marbled boards … $45. Free shipping from NY.)