Corporate Persona Vs Personal Persona

[saleemster]

Well I could not think of a more appropriate title.

My question is that when trying to sell a product or a service - do you think its better for the site to give the identity of the person behind it, a picture, their own story, etc OR take more of a corporate type approach and speak to the customer as a company rather than a person.

My gut feeling is that people prefer to deal with a person, one that they can see and know about...

Going one level deeper is having a website that seems overly corporate (design wise) a bad thing?? Could it lead to mistrust?

For instance check out www.proactiv.com then check out my site www.acnegetaway.com - although mine does not have a 'personal persona' (yet) as such it does not have a very HYPED up design and feel...

If im correct Doug feels that giving a website a personal identity is a good thing???

Look forward to your comments...

[french dread]

If you are a medium to big company, I dont think it is useful ,apart perhaps having the CEO editorial of the month.
If you are a little business I thing it can be good to increase confidence when one have no notoriety. ANd it add to the relationnal experience.

[scirceo]

For a sole proprietorship that provides serivces, having a photo and giving the site some personal touches can help build the trust needed for such a relationship. If I'm going to be doing business with _you_ I want to know who _you_ are, what _you_ look like, etc. Same if I'm buying your self-published writing.

If it's important for you to be found by search engines (which, from you postings elsewhere on the forums I know it is), you have to go with structure over style. For your particular product, knowing who you are, unless you are the inventor, is not important, IMNSHO.

Of course, the big difference right now between proactiv.com and your site is the huge celebrity endorsements on proactiv. I think for acne medication, that should go a long way.

--Steve