Overcoming The Fear Factor In Online Sales – Internet-Marketing
Overcoming The Fear Factor In Online Sales
No I am not talking about the classic board game, that Aunt Hester bought you the past two years for your birthday! Risk is what first time visitors to your website views your product as. Before they spend their hard earned money they want to know that your product is worth it. Shoppers today see so many offers, so many sales pitches that they are trained to be skeptical about many products.This is even more the case when selling over the internet because many of your potential customers do not know you. In the offline word they could walk into your store and talk to you, online you are just another person fighting to take their money.It is proven that if you alleviate the fear associated with making a first time purchase your initial sales will increase by 10% and these customers are more likely to purchase from you in the future. Why? Because you stand behind your product and they know if they are unhappy you will give them a full refund!If you are confident in your product, show it to your customers by offering a strong guarantee that removes the risk associated with the purchase. If you can offer a lifetime no hassles, zero questions asked guarantee do so! I know you think this sounds risky, but it really is not.How do I know this? I did an extensive test with very similar products offering different lengths of money back guarantees. I was surprised when I found out the longer the guarantee the less returns I received.Having a short guarantee makes the customer rush through using your product, so if they are unhappy they can return it within the allotted time period. With a longer guarantee they can use your product at their own pace which will allow them to see the great results of owning your product.So what is the absolute shortest guarantee I would offer? Well 30 days is too short, the bare minimum I would say is 90 days, but remember the longer the better!Are you still scared about offering the longer guarantee? Shame on you! Not really, that is a valid concern. In general most customers use the guarantee as an additional reason to buy your product; it makes them feel safe and secure. Unless they simply hate your product or service people are usually too lazy to return it, or they put it off until tomorrow, which usually never comes. But just in case the guarantee is their shining like a big block of gold!All in all, as long as your returns are under the 10% that you have increased you sales by (which any quality product should be) you have nothing to lose by offering a RISK FREE guarantee.About The AuthorDerrick Pizur runs ResellerEdge.com, a high quality multiple domain, user friendly, web hosting company that offers a 90 day money back guarantee on all hosting services. A truly risk free web host!derrickp@gmail.com
The Long Sales Letter: Should You Use it In Your Advertising? – Internet-Marketing
The Long Sales Letter: Should You Use it In Your Advertising?
If you're a web marketer and you've done your homework, you've probably come across the Long Sales Letter in your internet travels. Top web marketing experts like Yanik Silver, "The Copy Doctor" Michel Fortin and countless others use it to pitch their comprehensive instructional kits. You may have even made a purchase based on what you read in one of these letters.Powerfully persuasive, the Long Sales Letter employs carefully targeted copy to draw the reader in, emotionally identify with them, create a need for the product, and incite them to make an immediate purchase. The Long Sales letter, in all its verbosity and sensationalism, gleams with promise. It appears the surefire way to make sales come pouring in.But is it? Should you fork your hard-earned cash over to a copywriter who will create a hypnotic and riveting sales letter that goes on for pages and pages hyping your product? Should you grab for your credit card and buy one of those comprehensive teaching packets that tells you everything you ever wanted to know about writing a Long Sales Letter yourself?Answers often come in the form of questions. Here are some questions I typically ask my clients:What are you selling, and how much does it cost?Does the product you offer on your website fulfill immediate short-term needs?Or is it something that might help someone reach a long-term goal?Items that satisfy immediate yearnings for a low price don't require a rousing speech to attract buyers. What these products do require is visibility. How funny would it be to receive a letter in the mail from the CEO of Bubble Yum, urging you to buy his product! Totally unnecessary; Bubble Yum does a fine job of selling itself on the "impulse buy" rack by the supermarket check-out. Music CDs and clothing are things that don't cost huge amounts of money, and virtually sell themselves. Your customer will know in a matter of seconds whether they want what you have. In such a case, skip the letter. Instead, showcase these items in a high-traffic area where they will be seen.Who are you marketing to?I did some work recently for an e-greeting company who had me writing a long and persuasive letter. I posed the question: "How much do we really need to convince people to buy these e-greetings? Either people will like them, or they won't." My client in turn made a good point: the sales letter wasn't needed to toute the actual product on the site. But it would certainly come in handy for potential affiliates and promoters. The sales letter was a handy tool that depicted us an intelligent group of people with a knack for selling - and that could very well be the driving decision for those who might want to represent us.
So yes, a sales letter may actually work to your benefit, depending on the audience you plan to address.Would your product or service be considered 'an investment?'An investment is a possession acquired for future return or benefit. Items that offer long-term benefits cost more money. They promise a brighter tomorrow; an investment for the future. They also require more convincing to get people to buy them. I recently met a career coach who features a goal achievement system, in the form of an e-book, for purchase on her website. Her e-book is moderately priced for its category, and well-written in my opinion. Would I advise her to use a sales letter to pitch the e-book? Yes, but I'd make the letter an overview of her entire service offering and not just about the e-book.The trick is to convince people that a career coach will help them reach their personal and professional goals, which in turn will do wonders for their career, bolster their confidence and improve their quality of life. If you can sell them on this broad concept, then they'd likely sign up for career coaching sessions, and at the very least purchase a goal achievement system e-book. With your sales letter, you can build a case for maximum investment, and at the very minumum, make a few supplemental bucks with a supporting product.How much information can you fill your letter with?As much as you have to build a solid argument. Start by openly addressing the customer's frustrations and fears. "Are you tired of throwing away money on lukewarm ads that just don't sell?" The reader is hard-pressed to disagree. Next comes the aspirations; the hope for a better tomorrow: "Imagine an ad campaign that can triple your sales at a minimal cost to your business!"Pose your company as having solution; the secret key, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. "Watch your sales rate explode!" "Discover the secrets that successful marketers know!" They're not really secrets and nothing is literally going to explode, but such language creates a sense of excitement and urgency. Build your credibility with testimonials and success stories. "Bob Luken had this to say about our system:" (list testimonial). "Marla Thompson lost 49 pounds in three months thanks to our weight loss program!"Finally comes the call to action: "Buy now, and get on the path to a more properous tomorrow!" "Click here to start saving immediately!" A word to the wise: once you make your point, wrap it up. Beware the hypnotic effects of repeated ideas and words, and endless streams of mind-numbing copy. Not everyone succumbs to such trickery! I speak for myself when I say that after four or so paragraphs, the reader is likely losing interest. At this point, one of two things may happen. They will scroll all the way to the end and click BUY NOW, or they will grow disgusted and leave your website.How strong of a message do you require?The flashy, all-I-need-now-is-a-megaphone Sales Letter doesn't work for everybody. Take the hospitality industry, for example, which calls for a bit more subtlety and finesse. You don't want to appear frenzied or desperate to make the sale, or you may scare away the customer. Strong language can do just that. Some Lengthy Sales Letters use what I consider marketing brainwashing tactics. The brainwashing comes when you start repeating what you've already said, but in a slightly different way. Or when you follow the formula I've outlined in the previous paragraph, but do it no less than 12 times in the body of your letter. This is a form of "loud" advertising in itself!If you ask yourself the right questions, you'll get a better idea for whether a Long Sales Letter, or any other type of advertising strategy you might have learned about, is the best approach for your own company. Be honest with yourself during the questioning process. It also helps to "put your feet in the consumer's shoes." In my ten years as an advertiser, one thing rings true as far as I can see: the more aggressively you push your products and the "busier" the ads, the more lowbrow or "low-confidence" consumer you'll attract. As a general rule, when creating ads, less is more. So if you have a good point to make, make it in the best way you can, but don't go to extremes. If your ads are always long-winded, bold and frantic, you'll attract plenty of attention. But it may not be the kind of attention you want.Copyright Dina Giolitto 2005. Use with permission.Dina Giolitto is a New-Jersey based Copywriting Consultant with nine years' industry experience. Her current focus is web content and web marketing for a multitude of products and services although the bulk of her experience lies in retail for big-name companies like Toys"R"Us. Visit http://www.wordfeeder.com for rates and samples.