Yesterday in Funny Business I wrote about a mysterious advertising message. While that particular message might be a little too mysterious, the principle behind it is sound. Sometimes, the less said, the better.

People are naturally curious. If you tell them too much too early, they won’t have anything to be curious about. Bombarding prospects with facts and figures can be a gigantic turnoff. Much better is to engage the prospect by telling a story. And as we all know, one element of an engaging story is mystery.

Lexus has been doing a superb job of creating mystery with the rollout of its new LS 460 luxury sedan. Initially, Lexus sent out high quality teaser post cards with copy that didn’t say much and photos that didn’t reveal much.

Then, they mailed fancy invitations asking the recipient to visit a personalized Web site for an exclusive view of the LS 460. The content and photos were only slightly more revealing, but the underlying message from Lexus was, “This car is so incredible, you won’t believe it when we finally let you see it.”

When another letter came inviting the recipient to an exclusive dealer preview, people whose curiousity was sufficiently aroused had plenty of incentive to attend. If the dealer preview had been the first mailing, how many people would have cared to show up?

Generally speaking, the closer a prospect is to making a buying decision, the more interested she will be in facts and figures. That is why it is a mistake to overload primary Web site pages with dense, informational content. Use those pages to build mystery, and when the visitor is engaged, she will dig deeper into your site to find the necessary facts.