Yesterday I was working with the CEO of a small newsletter publishing company whose flagship publications' travails just recently caused the break-up of an 11 year partnership. Sadly, the money coming in could no longer support both partners.

However, this is not a story of sales decline caused by the market downturn or increased competition. It's a real life example of how seemingly minor mistakes in business can end up causing big problems.

The newsletter we were concentrating on yesterday has been around since 1997 and has a very healthy  subscriber retention rate (over 80% at $479 per year). However, for as many subscribers and the great reputation for producing outstanding content as they have, it simultaneously has a stunningly low amount of new subscribers signing up (approx. 1 per month). And, it's not like they're not trying to get new subscriptions. Here's a sample of what they're doing each month to generate new business:

• 16,000 monthly emails to targeted lists, offering free 2 month trial
  
• The emails generate 30 free trials per month (1/10 of 1% response rate)
• Phone calls to free trials to try and upgrade to paying subscribers
• Multiple emails to free trials to also entice upgrading
• Result: Avg. 1 new subscriber per month
  

The Question: With a quality product that so many in the industry are very happy with, why is there such anemic results getting new qualified prospects to take a free trial? They're not even asked to give a credit card or make any sort of commitment to get the trial.

The Answer: While there are a number of factors contributing to these lackluster results, the dominant culprit may surprise you. When the company launched, to keep expenses low, the owners did the design of the newsletter and marketing materials themselves, using simple software like Microsoft Word. Because they had significant success out of the gate, they concluded (wrongly) that producing great content was all that mattered. The design was on the level of what my high-school daughter would produce for a school project.

It's important to keep in mind that in business decisions are made on both conscious and subconscious levels. When I get on an airplane and I see a coffee stain on my tray, consciously I think the clean-up crews attention to detail is lacking. Unconsciously I conclude the maintenance crew of this airline is not checking their engines.

The amateurish design of the newsletter and unsophisticated look of the marketing material and website landing page is causing people to conclude (often unconsciously) something like "if they design their stuff like a 10th grader, their content is probably put together by 10th graders too."

That's a factually incorrect conclusion, but the facts are irrelevant.

The Sea Monkee Lesson: Anyone who's ever bought Sea Monkees knows that its the worst product in the world. They never work. So why have I bought them more than once as a kid...and then bought them again for my kids? Ok, maybe I'm an idiot...but every time, against my better judgement, the packaging has gotten me. Their packaging has made them successful for decades.

We all need to learn the lesson of the importance of packaging and design. People DO judge a book by it's cover. That's reality. Forget trying to change it and instead use it to your advantage to subconsciously create the desire to experience in your prospects mind.

It's a much better plan than blithely believing "Content is King."