Tell people the facts …. and keep it simple

Changing the look and feel of your website can make a massive difference to the response rate (i.e. the number of sales you make).

In the early days of the Internet, people discovered this by trial and error. Today, there’s a growing ’science’ around web page conversion. But few website designers have any real idea of what makes a web page convert visitors into customers.

Here’s an interesting case study by Carlos and Lupe Garcia of how changing the look and feel of a web page made a huge difference to sales from the site.

This is the web page as it originally was - a sales letter with very few graphics. Even though this is a well written sales letter, it only converted 1.6% of visitors to page into buyers.

Actually, 1.6% conversion is a lot better than most websites do. But it’s still very weak compared to what is possible.

One reason is, this page looks like hard work to read through. This is enough to put many people off.

After Carlos and Lupe Garcia worked their magic on the page, they transformed it into the page below.

These changes saw the page’s conversion rate jump to an impressive 3.3%.

See how the amount of words on the page has been slashed to the bare minimum. Just a compelling headline: “Did you know you can legally watch over 3000 channels on your PC?” It tells visitors immediately what benefit they will gain from the product.

The headline is absolutely vital to your website. In fact, most visitors will read the headline, gain a quick impression of whether they like the ‘look and feel’ of your site and decide whether to stay or leave.

People want the facts. Short and sweet. If you don’t give them a powerful reason to stay, they’ll be gone. That’s the harsh reality of the Internet.

The ‘After’ version of the page also has a video, which you can’t see on the static image. Video can be very compelling on a website, as long as it’s presented correctly.

And then there’s a form where people can sign up immediately. It’s right there, in their face. They don’t need to scroll down and hunt for it.

The ‘After’ version looks professional and not as ’salesy’ as the original page.

This is just one example of many I’ve been studying recently on how to improve the conversion of web pages. I hope to share more in future posts.

How to market your business with integrity and personality

Many small business owners have a great aversion to marketing. They confuse marketing with the stereotype of a pushy salesperson and with the thought of “selling” themselves.

But the reality is, if you want to succeed in business, you won’t get far without marketing. Fortunately, the Internet has opened up a whole new world of marketing opportunities, where integrity combined with your own unique personality can really set you apart from the crowd.

It really is a massive opportunity but very few businesses are using even a fraction of the Internet’s marketing potential. Of course there are professional Internet marketers with slick sales pages leading to an ‘Order Now’ button and all sorts of persuasion techniques to get you to buy.

But these kind of websites only work in a limited number of markets. There’s a far, far bigger untapped opportunity in most markets to win customers through a softer style of marketing, which allows your integrity and personality to shine through.

This kind of marketing is based on truly believing in your product or service and wanting to share it with your potential customers.

Above all, on the Internet, you need to build trust. And the truth is, people will trust a website that looks like it has a real, genuine person behind it, rather than a slick salesy type of site.

So, here is a fundamental secret to marketing yourself online.

It is based on “attraction rather than promotion”. It means you want to attract customers or clients by marketing yourself and your business authentically and from a place of genuinely wanting to offer them something of value through your product or service.

Consider these two types of business owner. The first is motivated by making money. He (or she) sees his customers simply as a source of income and he wants to use every possible trick in the book to get people to buy. The second business owner is different. He truly believes in his product or service and wants to share it with the world.

Now, which of these two business owners is going to come across as more trustworthy on their website? Well, if the second business owner can grasp just afew basic principles of selling online, they will run rings around their money-driven counterpart.

Here is the secret. Tell your story with honesty and integrity, and inject as much as possible of your own personality. Love yourself, believe in yourself, and put yourself out there on your website. Use photographs of yourself, your staff, your premises, and use audio and video too, if possible.

Because you and your business are unique, your website will be unique. It will stand out from the bland and boring crowd. You’ll be run off your feet with business!

Don’t believe me? Try it and see for yourself. I’ve proved this to be true time and again with my own websites and those of my clients who have followed this approach.

It’s a guaranteed winner.

Why I hate it when marketers try to “upsell” me

There’s a trend in Internet marketing to present buyers with what are known as “upsells” after they have ordered a product online.

It works like this. A buyer clicks on the Order button but instead of being taken directly to a place where they can enter their credit card details they are faced with a special ‘one-time’ offer. This is usually along the lines of “spend a bit more” and you’ll get a deluxe version of whatever it is you’ve just ordered.

This kind of upsell annoys me intensely. I feel cheated and lied to because the marketer has not told me the full facts on the main sales page. Only after I’ve clicked on the Order button do they present me with this new, improved offer.

In most cases, if I am presented with an upsell, I feel so infuriated that I decide not to purchase. In my head I’m thinking, “Why are you messing me around? I have just read your sales pitch and I’m ready to buy. So just let me buy!”

In fact, when I’m hit with an upsell I go from a ready-to-buy prospect, about to make a leap of trust, to an upset prospect who is unlikely to trust that marketer again.

Based on my own experience, and the opinions of other marketers whose views I respect, I believe that adding an upsell results in fewer sales than taking people straight to the order form.

I predict upsells will be a passing fad. It’s far better to be upfront with your prospects and tell them on your main sales page the sum total of what you are offering them.

As one smart marketer puts it, the job of your sales letter is to get the click to your order form. The job of your order form is to GET THE CASH. End of story. So don’t mess me around with upsells!

‘Make Your Site Sell’ - A Classic On Selling on the Internet

Ken Evoy’s ‘Make Your Site Sell’ was first published in 1999 and then revised in 2002. That’s a long time ago in Internet terms but the fundamental principles in this book are just as relevant today as they were in 2002.

‘Make Your Site Sell’ is a classic that you must read if you are serious about selling on the Internet. It is often referred to as “The BIBLE Of Selling On The Net”.

It is an e-book containing seven volumes and more than 1500 pages!

One of the fundamental messages in the book is that you need to look beyond simply “building a website”. Today, it is relatively cheap, quick and easy to put up a site. Anyone can do that. But what then?

For 95% of small businesses, the initial buzz of seeing their website online is followed by a slow, expensive failure, due to an inability to drive traffic. In other words… no business.

Ken Evoy’s approach to web marketing is summed by the acronym CTPM. This stands for Content > Traffic > PRE-sell > Monetize.

This is a fundamentally sound and timeless way to think about selling online.

Click Here to Download ‘Make Your Site Sell’ (The downloaded file is automatically labelled “myss2002free.exe”. Unzipping it will put a folder called “myss2002free” onto your desktop.)