Second Life Selling Tip 03 of 15: Creating Good Product Art
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 | 
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Ari Blackthorne™
One of the frustrating things shoppers face is having to decipher product specifications and details when they shop. To help make it easy as possible for buyers to give you their money, ensure your "product art" is visually as well as "rezzably" optimized to help sell the product for you.
As already mentioned, your product must be the focus of the image; a clean, neutral background works best. But also, when taking snapshots of your product, learn to use the zoom feature (CTRL-0 and CTRL-8) to set a good view. Be consistent in the style and presentation across the genre of products and then secondarily, across your entire line of products.
Always include the permissions of your product on the artwork, but not the price. The two most important informational items shoppers want to know are the permissions and the price of anything they are considering. Having the permissions prominently displayed takes away the first curiosity (which could very likely be a deciding factor - so it's a good idea to offer two versions: one with copy and the other with transfer permissions.)
The reason you don't want to put the price is that you must redo the texture if you ever change your mind - especially if you ever choose to raise the price. Pricing is easy enough to figure-out simply by clicking the 'buy' button. However, forcing customers to do that is lazy on the part of the merchant. Post a sign somewhere and always include the price in the informational notecard. As a last resort (and I do mean last) use hover-text. This will make it easy to change the price of your product at a later time with minimal work, effort and cost.
Also include a few bullet points to highlight the most important features on your art. Not all the features, you have notecards for that - just enough to entice the shopper to look at the notecard. That is where you make your sales pitch - not on the product art itself.
To summarize: your product art should be fast-rezzing (256x256) - include the permissions details, focus on the product and not a complicated, confusing background and finally include a few bullets on the best features.
The product art should be simply designed to get the shopper's attention, give enough information to know what it is and does and hopefully entice the shopper to grab the informational notecard where you will make your actual sales pitch.
**********
Want the whole kaboodle? There is far more detail in the 'how' and 'why' in my book: Successful Business in Second Life (SBSL - Second Edition for 2009/10; 270-pages) is available at XStreet SL. The book includes both, an in-world and eReader version. There also is an Amazon Kindle version, (you receive both: ereader and in-world versions no matter where you purchase it.)
Even though your product art is nice and clean and clearly displays your product, save the sales pitch for the informational notecard!
Always include the permissions of your product on the artwork, but not the price. The two most important informational items shoppers want to know are the permissions and the price of anything they are considering. Having the permissions prominently displayed takes away the first curiosity (which could very likely be a deciding factor - so it's a good idea to offer two versions: one with copy and the other with transfer permissions.)
The reason you don't want to put the price is that you must redo the texture if you ever change your mind - especially if you ever choose to raise the price. Pricing is easy enough to figure-out simply by clicking the 'buy' button. However, forcing customers to do that is lazy on the part of the merchant. Post a sign somewhere and always include the price in the informational notecard. As a last resort (and I do mean last) use hover-text. This will make it easy to change the price of your product at a later time with minimal work, effort and cost.
Also include a few bullet points to highlight the most important features on your art. Not all the features, you have notecards for that - just enough to entice the shopper to look at the notecard. That is where you make your sales pitch - not on the product art itself.
To summarize: your product art should be fast-rezzing (256x256) - include the permissions details, focus on the product and not a complicated, confusing background and finally include a few bullets on the best features.
The product art should be simply designed to get the shopper's attention, give enough information to know what it is and does and hopefully entice the shopper to grab the informational notecard where you will make your actual sales pitch.
**********
Want the whole kaboodle? There is far more detail in the 'how' and 'why' in my book: Successful Business in Second Life (SBSL - Second Edition for 2009/10; 270-pages) is available at XStreet SL. The book includes both, an in-world and eReader version. There also is an Amazon Kindle version, (you receive both: ereader and in-world versions no matter where you purchase it.)
Even though your product art is nice and clean and clearly displays your product, save the sales pitch for the informational notecard!
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