Thursday, June 27, 2013

Benefits, bonuses, guarantee, order - Your sales letter- E-Business Success Blueprint Workshop - Part 18

#Success
#Success
Previous lesson...

Here are the final steps of sales letter.

Each of these sections has to be implemented in order indicated.

Tell who you are and use “Social Proof” to establish credibility

Most people know what establishing credibility means, but what is the social proof?
Social proof is the concept which is behind our actions. It is a principle which causes us to act. These are shortcuts in our thinking, when we rely on somebody’s behavior or recommendations to make our decisions.

Testimonials are an example of social proof. When other people talk to us in a positive manner about a product or service, this influences our behavior. If we place a picture on our site of a celebrity who visited our business or even visited us just because we happened to know him or her, this will influence our visitor’s behavior and actions. If you can show how many people bought your product to date or how much money it generated for you, this will establish your credibility. All those examples are part of social proof which helps bringing visitors closer to us.

Explain to your visitor why you are doing what you are doing to gain their trust. If you truly want your visitors to identify with you, tell them why you created your solution. This will enhance their interest and demonstrate how much you value them.

It will also show why you stand behind this product or service and will demonstrate that you’re truly an expert in this specific domain.

Benefits of your product or service
#Benefits
#Benefits

Now, we’ll discuss how to use excitement to convert your visitors into customers.
By now, your visitor has read some of the testimonials, and knows who you are.
They know what is the main benefit of your product and now is the time to list all of them.

List one after another. They can be in form of questions or bulleted points. It is good idea to list them in a way so that they truly stand out. This can be done by using highlights or bolded text. This will ensure that even readers that are just scanning the pages, will be able to pick up the strong benefits. Which reminds me, when including benefits, make sure that you do not include features. For example, feature of a cordless phone is that there are no attached cables however benefits would be that cordless phones enable you to move freely with this phone throughout your house while talking.


Closing

Up until now, you have not mentioned your price. This is because you don’t want to talk about the price of your product until you create enough desire for your visitor to own it. In your closing, you want the desire to go on fire. Therefore, you shouldn’t mention price yet. Instead, you have to stress your main benefits again and then make sure that they are screaming from your pages. You also have to make sure that you present options. For example, you must include how much your product is worth and how much work you have put into it.

Be careful to list all the savings, a potential owner will have and show how much others charge for a portion of what you’re delivering. Finally, offer them a steep discount. After the discount, you can mention the price and add that the discount is limited so they have to “act now” for a “limited time only.”

To increase urgency even more, you must run a time limit based offer. For instance, you can offer the product for 7 days and then you can either bring the price up or you can offer an added bonus for purchasing the item now. Either way, be very honest about what you say and later do. So, if you say that product will be taken off the market in 7 days then make sure that it is taken off.

Add tons of bonuses and freebies



#Bonuses and #Freebies
#Bonuses and #Freebies
At this point, your customer might be having second thoughts even though they initially wanted your product badly. They might be getting afraid of getting a lemon or not really sure if they can afford the price. They like what they see but they might be panicking.

With this in mind, you must offer them something for nothing. Offering a free item really helps cinch the deal. It makes them feel better about the purchase. The key is to add something of value. If you do then you can literally skyrocket your sales. The bonus should be related to your key product. Some free things that you can offer are:


  • Free report or e-book
  •  Subscription to your newsletter
  • Access to archives of your newsletters
  • Half hour private consultation
  • Free technical support for three months
  • Classified or banner advertising on your website
Start piling on those bonuses. Add as much value as you possibly can. Sometimes you may want to include so many bonuses that their value exceeds the value of your products. If you do this, make sure that you mention the value of your bonuses. You should also indicate that your bonuses are only available for a limited time only. If you word it right, your customer may purchase your product primarily for the bonuses.

Sometimes you can approach companies which offer products which enhance or complement yours. They might be interested in offering coupons or discounts which you can throw as part of your bonuses.

Strong Guarantee
#Guarantee
#Guarantee


In addition to bonuses, you must also use a strong guarantee that differentiates you from your competition. A strong guarantee will alleviate the anxiety your visitor might have when buying over the internet or spending a large amount of money. The better your guarantee, the less likely someone will be inclined to ask for a refund or return the item. In my opinion, you should offer at least a one year guarantee. If you want to show them how confident you are in your product, offer them a lift time guarantee. Either way, challenge yourself to give your customers the best guarantee that they’ve ever seen.

There will be always group of customers who will ask for a refund so it is best to offer it in the beginning. Whenever you return the money, ask for the reasons why they didn’t like the product. Use this feedback to help you improve upon the product or service. If you find that the person’s expectations were unreasonable or that there was nothing wrong with the product, don’t worry about it. Move on and feel confident that you delivered great customer service.

Ask for the order
#Order

At this point, you are about to mention the price of your product and offer ways to pay for it. Restate that strongest point of your guarantee. For example, you might state, “this purchase is totally risk free and you can return it if you don’t like it within the next 60 days for a full refund.”

Make payment options easy. Include payment options like credit cards and checks.

The best third party processor to utilize is Paypal. They offer secure and safe payment options using secure servers. For those customers who are leery about inputting personal information into the computer, you should add your phone number and mailing address so that they can send you the information via phone or snail mail..

P.S.

Study after study shows that P.S. is a very important component of your sales letter. A “P.S.” has a positive effect on those who are still hesitating and are already at the bottom of the page and still haven’t made a decision to purchase yet. Therefore, in your P.S., you can add an additional guarantee or bonus to overcome any objections. Give them an offer they cannot refuse. Again, add urgency to get them to utilize your product and increase effectiveness.

In order to get the best conversion rate (the number of visitors to your website compared to those who made a purchase), In next installment I will discuss several technical pieces which will make the difference in your sales copy. Knowing them will have a tremendous impact on your final outcome.


Next lessons...

Bogdan Fiedur
Adlandpro.com Copyright 1998 - 2013 - All rights reserved .
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2 comments:

Unknown said...

As always, Bogdan, you have written a masterpiece for us all to benefit from. I have always admired your tenacity and strength of purpose. You are always a good example for us to follow.

Bogdan Fiedur said...

Hi Becky, thanks for commenting and giving me your vote of confidence. Hope to see you more often at Adlandpro community.