In this blog—I’m gonna break down what you can learn about website design & marketing from High School Musical.
You’ll learn:
- Why you should publish your website now & adjust the design as you go 💻
- What you need to have above the fold on almost every website page 🗞️
- Why your website navigation needs to be normal 🤓
- How get’cha head in the game when your hearts in the song ⛹🏻♂️️ 🏀
(Never watched High School Musical before or need a refresh? Click here, here, here & here for the summaries.)
(PSA for this newsletter, I won’t be going over HSMTMTS because, trust me, no one has time to read *that* email 🙃)
Let’s start with the marketing & launch for High School Musical.
The OG High School Musical movie premiered in January 2006 (today marks the 18th anniversary 🎉)—followed by High School Musical 2 in August 2007, High School Musical 3: Senior Year in October 2008 & Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure in April 2011.
It’s pretty rare for sequels to do better at the box office than the OG, but interestingly enough each High School Musical movie did better than the last in viewership until the Sharpay spin-off premiered.
So it’s unsurprising that High School Musical 3: Senior Year broke records as the best opening day in theaters for a musical film when it premiered in October 2008 (#funfact I saw it in theaters on opening day 😎).
The third movie was originally supposed to be a Halloween-themed film—which would’ve made that October release date a good choice for a spooky movie *cough* Hocus Pocus *cough* (The irony that Kenny Ortega was involved in both of these films is also amusing but I digress 😉)
And while that’s not normal for that to happen in the movie industry…
It’s normal in business for your skills, offers & even your website to get bigger & better the more years you’re in business.
^^^ That’s why it’s so important to publish your website as you go instead of waiting until it’s “perfect” to launch—because as your business grows your website should also.
One of the things that improved with each High School Musical movie was getting to the point of the plot quickly in each movie.
^^^ And despite the nostalgia of me watching it when it first premiered on Disney Channel, TBH the first movie did a very poor job of this. It takes a good 10 minutes before the plot comes to light compared to the third movie when the viewer is dropped right into the thick of the plot.
It’s just like when someone lands on your website for the first time—except you’ve got maybe 5 seconds to catch their attention.
That’s why it’s so important to make the above-the-fold (the area of a website page you can see without having to scroll) on every page of your website.
Depending on which page we’re talking about, it’s going to vary slightly what kind of content is needed above the fold. BUT on 90% of your website pages need to have at least 1 call to action button.
Here are some notable quotes & plot points from the scripts of High School Musical that can help you with your website design & marketing.
Lyrics: Stick to the Status Quo: “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, stick to the stuff you know, if you wanna be cool, follow one simple rule, don’t mess with the flow, no, no, stick to the status quo”
Business Lesson: When it comes to your website copy, brand color palette, fonts, even some of the layout—you don’t want it to look the same as your industry peers. Otherwise, you’ll blend in too much with the crowd.
BUT when it comes to the navigation of your website, you *actually* should stick to the status quo so that your website has a great user experience. Some examples of this are: having the burger menu on the right side of the page on mobile view, leaving your cursor a normal cursor shape instead of a basketball-shaped cursor, not enabling sideways scrolling, etc.
Quote: Sharpay Evans: “The apartment didn’t say anywhere online that they don’t allow dogs.”
Business Lesson: ^^^ You’ve probably heard the saying “To be unclear is to be unkind” & that’s exactly why you need to clearly explain your terms to your clients as much as you can on your website.
This is why having set packages for custom work can be beneficial because then all the info can be displayed on your website. But if you deal in mostly custom quotes, try your best to include 90% of the details on your services or sales page. <<< This will also help repel clients that you don’t want to work with.
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