Just found this website. Seems interesting.

I just redid the website for my custom artwork business and I'd appreciate your thoughts on it.

Custom Products - has an article about our creation of a 12 foot tall snake off the cover of a motley crue album.

Custom Products - our product page with links to sales letters.

Thanks in advance everyone.

I would suggest more margin around your text. The story part is okay, but it doesn't really have a focus or goal -- other than to get your story out.

A lot of "how to," not much "why to."

On every page you need to answer the question why a customer should do business with you, above and beyond anything else they could do -- including the option of doing nothing.

You put up a giant skull and sales increase 37%, repeat business is up 58.2% ...that's a reason why. You have to show a connection between "dude that's cool" and the ringing of the cash register. If you can have a customer tell that story (in a testimonial) you're on your way. News coverage, even local, is also usable.

Right now your story is still too much here's how we do things around here. You have to do more to tell the client's story, before and after your product. Yeah, maybe it'll last thirty years, but I think you're making a mountain out of a mole hill with that. It's interesting to you, but trivial supporting data for everyone else.

At least play up the anti vandalism angle for locations in high crime areas. Explain your 'secret formula' which removes every trace of the top tagging materials. Show a before/after demo of one of your pieces after a only a ten-minute cleanup. That's telling your story for clients, not to them.

Related:

How to Find the “Selling Story” Buried in Your Business

The Banjo Minnow site has testimonials and tells their story from the customer's perspective.

Thanks John. The club hasn't opened yet but I see your point.

So, In a few months, I should get a testimonial saying how customers come back because they want to show their friends the snake. Or something of the nature of the club doing more business (making more money) because they installed the snake?

Thanks again.

Yeah, that is the general idea. You can go far, far, beyond that.

You could, for instance, try to generate some sales promoting controversy. The "legend" of how the sculpture was built, and your attempts to dispel the rumors, head off any protest planned due to this rumor ...etc. In other words, if you're going for shock value or to make an impression, don't go half way.

This is nothing more than a play on the Gary Halbert's "Tova Borgnine Swears Under Oath That Her New Perfume Does Not Contain An Illegal Sexual Stimulant" What can you 'swear under oath' about that'll bring everybody and their neighbor running into that bar?

With "the Tova ad" there was also a contest on the seven secret steps (again, legend building) for the perfume, giving away seven diamonds as prizes. I'm not suggesting diamonds but something that fits the proper audience for whatever business and image the installation goes into.

A technique would be to start a contest to name the sculpture and turn it into a mascot for the business. This somewhat fits in with a bar promotion, is cheap, fosters camaraderie (and if you do it right -- repeat visits).

Your business is not a great fit with the science behind a giant computer-controlled router bit. It is a great fit for the entertainment economy, promotion, building a "cult brand" and all that. My advice is to downplay but not eliminate the computer geek stuff and the polyurea, and play up a promotions angle.

All the mention of polyurea made me think of was if I'm going to have a thousand protesters outside my business trying to shut me down due to my ecologically unsound business decision.


Related Reading:

Cult Brands Get out of the CNC fabricated polyurea sculpture business and into the cult brand business. Think less like a manufacturer and more like a service business, artist, and marketer.

I'd be much more interested in how you work with clients to visualize and develop everything before the large scale sculpture. As a client I'm thinking about the scene in Spinal Tap where they order an eleven foot model of stonehenge and get one only inches high because they wrote " instead of '. How do you work with clients to get their creative ideas on paper and avoid mistakes? It's not exactly like a typo on a flyer you can get reprinted or swap out the graphic on.

I'll have to wait a few months for the club to open for that. I like your snake naming idea, I've passed it on to the club owners.

I edited some of the copy for our prop product page taking into account the advice you gave me about focused story writing. If you would, and I do appreciate the focus you're giving me, take a look at it and tell me what you think?

3D Props