Keys To Successful Online Sales Letters
New websites are being launched at an enormous rate. You can find just about anything online including thegood, the bad, and the utterly tasteless. The choices truly are mind-boggling.
3. Understanding The Online Audience
“Primarily writing good copy is essentially the same no matter where it’s presented but writing for the Internet requires one important distinction. That distinction is less verbiage with more impact.”1. Understanding The Culture Of The Internet
Charlene Rashkow
To make the most of your website sales letter you need to understand the Internet, its culture, and the people who use it on a regular basis. It’s one huge smorgasbord of information and opportunity -- one that grows larger every single day.
New websites are being launched at an enormous rate. You can find just about anything online including thegood, the bad, and the utterly tasteless. The choices truly are mind-boggling.
For the consumer, it’s a rich resource of information and a way of bringing the world home, via their computer screens. For businesses, it’s a dirt-cheap tool for reaching previously inaccessible customers and markets. Many offline businesses have an online presence as well. It’s just another tool in their respective arsenals. Still, other businesses are being created exclusively for the web. It’s also a chance to add convenient at-home shopping to virtually any product or service.
With millions of people already online and more added daily, it’s not surprising that new sales-oriented websites are popping up at an alarming rate. For the consumer, this means even more choices, making it more challenging to spend a limited amount of cash. For businesses, it means increased competition.
Despite the growing competition, setting up a sales-generating site has massive appeal worldwide. It seems that everyone and their cousin already has at least one website. Yet, some of the simplest sites are among the most successful. Yes, it is possible to succeed with a ‘mini-site’ -- if you do it the right way.
Marketing online is about gently wooing prospects – ‘pulling’ them inside your site, as opposed to ‘pushing’ a product upon them.
Doing business online means selling in a ‘virtual’ environment. Buying and selling online is a totally new concept -- a major shift from traditional shopping. Since most people naturally resist change, you face an added challenge when marketing to the unseasoned online prospect.
The most effective way to win over new online prospects is to make your offer more tangible, real, and credible. Make it easy for buyers to envision exactly what they’re getting and let them know when they’ll get it. Create an ordering process that’s fun, easy and natural – one that simulates buying from a catalogue, direct mail piece, infomercial, or the shopping channel. Give your audience somethingthey can touch – something that makes the whole process of buying online more like the real world they’re used to.
Traditionally, the lure of the Internet has been due to the vast resources freely available to anyone with a telephone line and computer. Surfers quickly get used to this unlimited accessibility to massive amounts of information, free of charge. A fair amount of it is useless junk, but for many, the lure of anything ‘free’ is too tempting to resist.
One approach is to tap into this tradition and provide helpful information on your site in addition to your sales copy. You don’t have to give away the store by any means… but by feeding the frenzy, you’re apt to be more accepted in the online marketing world.
2. Building An Online Business Is About Building Relationships
Marketing is largely a process of building relationships – regardless of the media or method. But the online population seems particularly sensitive to ‘in your face’ marketing. Respect this reality, or you’ll pay a hefty price.
Think of your business as an on-going enterprise. Yes, you want to generate sales immediately… but more importantly, you want to build a successful business. Real riches come not from first-timers, but from your repeat customers and the referrals those customers send your way. This can only happen when you’ve truly
satisfied the customer initially – where he willingly becomes an advocate of your business.
Selling online is about doing everything in your power to persuade targeted prospects to make a purchase. But this can never be done at the expense of a relationship. So if you use deception, trickery or shady practices to get the sale, you cannot create long-term customer success and without this, you will imminently fail.
The most effective way to win over new online prospects is to make your offer more tangible, real, and credible. Make it easy for buyers to envision exactly what they’re getting and let them know when they’ll get it. Create an ordering process that’s fun, easy and natural – one that simulates buying from a catalogue, direct mail piece, infomercial, or the shopping channel. Give your audience somethingthey can touch – something that makes the whole process of buying online more like the real world they’re used to.
Traditionally, the lure of the Internet has been due to the vast resources freely available to anyone with a telephone line and computer. Surfers quickly get used to this unlimited accessibility to massive amounts of information, free of charge. A fair amount of it is useless junk, but for many, the lure of anything ‘free’ is too tempting to resist.
One approach is to tap into this tradition and provide helpful information on your site in addition to your sales copy. You don’t have to give away the store by any means… but by feeding the frenzy, you’re apt to be more accepted in the online marketing world.
2. Building An Online Business Is About Building Relationships
Marketing is largely a process of building relationships – regardless of the media or method. But the online population seems particularly sensitive to ‘in your face’ marketing. Respect this reality, or you’ll pay a hefty price.
Think of your business as an on-going enterprise. Yes, you want to generate sales immediately… but more importantly, you want to build a successful business. Real riches come not from first-timers, but from your repeat customers and the referrals those customers send your way. This can only happen when you’ve truly
satisfied the customer initially – where he willingly becomes an advocate of your business.
Selling online is about doing everything in your power to persuade targeted prospects to make a purchase. But this can never be done at the expense of a relationship. So if you use deception, trickery or shady practices to get the sale, you cannot create long-term customer success and without this, you will imminently fail.
3. Understanding The Online Audience
Why are people online? What is it they want to get out of their online experience?
According to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, nearly 75% of users went online to seek out information. The type of information most sought had to do with their hobbies, special interests, and purchases they were planning for the near future. 64% visited travel related websites… while 62% went to weather sites. 54% sought data and information about health and medicine… while just over 50% conducted educational research.
What does this tell you as a marketer? It says that once online, people are goal directed. They seek out certain things of interest to them personally. If you want to succeed, you better cater to the wishes of the marketplace. This means giving them what they want, when they want it. It’s all about facilitating the search by getting straight to the heart of the matter.
People don’t want to be entertained… anyone can get their fill of entertainment from television. Forget flash introductions and splash pages – that only eats up precious time. Instead, help people get the information they seek immediately. Give them clear, attractive benefits, backed up by real data. Make it easy for prospects to comparative shop. Give them the solutions they want, backed by logical straight talk. Make it easy for visitors to convince themselves. Quick, easy information of relevance – with no fluff and no filler -- that’s the way to serve the online user.
People today are time-poor. Evolutionary changes in the workplace have resulted in heavier workloads and higher stress levels. There just isn’t enough time between work, family obligations, and chores to do all the things they’d really like to do in their busy lives.
Yet the available choices of new products and services keep multiplying at a rapid pace. Everyday exciting new products are unveiled -- right before your eyes --fueling temptations and unleashing desires.
When consumers do get online, they want to make the most of their experience. They’re in complete control of the surfing experience. They know what they want and are acutely aware when it’s not delivered quickly. Online consumers make fast decisions about how and where they’ll spend their time. Just because a visitor shows up at your site, doesn’t mean he’ll still be there 10 seconds later.
Cater to their ‘wants’ and you have a fighting chance of sustaining attention and interest. Eliminate any possible obstruction or time-waster. Make it fun, fast and easy to explore your website. Respect the time and intelligence of your visitors. They’re in control and they know it. With unlimited choices just a click away, if you don’t feed those ‘wants’ immediately, they’ll quickly go elsewhere.
4. Target Your Approach
According to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, nearly 75% of users went online to seek out information. The type of information most sought had to do with their hobbies, special interests, and purchases they were planning for the near future. 64% visited travel related websites… while 62% went to weather sites. 54% sought data and information about health and medicine… while just over 50% conducted educational research.
What does this tell you as a marketer? It says that once online, people are goal directed. They seek out certain things of interest to them personally. If you want to succeed, you better cater to the wishes of the marketplace. This means giving them what they want, when they want it. It’s all about facilitating the search by getting straight to the heart of the matter.
People don’t want to be entertained… anyone can get their fill of entertainment from television. Forget flash introductions and splash pages – that only eats up precious time. Instead, help people get the information they seek immediately. Give them clear, attractive benefits, backed up by real data. Make it easy for prospects to comparative shop. Give them the solutions they want, backed by logical straight talk. Make it easy for visitors to convince themselves. Quick, easy information of relevance – with no fluff and no filler -- that’s the way to serve the online user.
People today are time-poor. Evolutionary changes in the workplace have resulted in heavier workloads and higher stress levels. There just isn’t enough time between work, family obligations, and chores to do all the things they’d really like to do in their busy lives.
Yet the available choices of new products and services keep multiplying at a rapid pace. Everyday exciting new products are unveiled -- right before your eyes --fueling temptations and unleashing desires.
When consumers do get online, they want to make the most of their experience. They’re in complete control of the surfing experience. They know what they want and are acutely aware when it’s not delivered quickly. Online consumers make fast decisions about how and where they’ll spend their time. Just because a visitor shows up at your site, doesn’t mean he’ll still be there 10 seconds later.
Cater to their ‘wants’ and you have a fighting chance of sustaining attention and interest. Eliminate any possible obstruction or time-waster. Make it fun, fast and easy to explore your website. Respect the time and intelligence of your visitors. They’re in control and they know it. With unlimited choices just a click away, if you don’t feed those ‘wants’ immediately, they’ll quickly go elsewhere.
4. Target Your Approach
Though there are hundreds of millions of people connected to the Internet, only a fraction of these people are prime targets for your offer. It’s self-defeating to think otherwise. If you’re one of those people who figure you’ve got something that nearly everyone would love to own – think again. If your product is directed at the general marketplace, you need to re-frame your proposition.
What works best online is a targeted approach to marketing. Narrow your niche. Find those who are best suited to your solution. You want capable, eager and qualified prospects only.
Target marketing is precision marketing. You simply find an untapped, underfilled or poorly served market that already exists and shape your offer to fit like a glove to those already established desires. It’s simply a matter of identifying those people whose hunger hasn’t been adequately satisfied – people who are likely interested in your unique solution and have the means to acquire it.
Online users seek information related to their interests. Do-it-yourself home renovators visit sites that help with their kitchen, bath, basement, and deck building projects. They’re most interested in new products and helpful information to make these repairs and upgrades to their homes. Camping enthusiasts plan and book trips online. Home gardeners look for tips on growing bigger, juicier tomatoes than the neighbor next door.
What market do you serve? Identify your niche and then make a commitment to dominate it. Make your unique product the ultimate solution for that specific market and ignore the others. By doing so, you’ll make an impact on those who can benefit the most from whatever it is you offer. You can still target separate markets, but do so with separate websites that cater exclusively to each.
5. Direct Marketing With A Twist
What works best online is a targeted approach to marketing. Narrow your niche. Find those who are best suited to your solution. You want capable, eager and qualified prospects only.
Target marketing is precision marketing. You simply find an untapped, underfilled or poorly served market that already exists and shape your offer to fit like a glove to those already established desires. It’s simply a matter of identifying those people whose hunger hasn’t been adequately satisfied – people who are likely interested in your unique solution and have the means to acquire it.
Online users seek information related to their interests. Do-it-yourself home renovators visit sites that help with their kitchen, bath, basement, and deck building projects. They’re most interested in new products and helpful information to make these repairs and upgrades to their homes. Camping enthusiasts plan and book trips online. Home gardeners look for tips on growing bigger, juicier tomatoes than the neighbor next door.
What market do you serve? Identify your niche and then make a commitment to dominate it. Make your unique product the ultimate solution for that specific market and ignore the others. By doing so, you’ll make an impact on those who can benefit the most from whatever it is you offer. You can still target separate markets, but do so with separate websites that cater exclusively to each.
5. Direct Marketing With A Twist
The best model for website sales letters is direct mail. Why? Direct response marketing is all about getting an immediate response, not building an image. Direct marketing strives formaximum measurable returns on a minimum investment – every time out. With your online sales letters, you should also strive for a sale (or response) right away.
If you fail to win an immediate reply, chances are the prospect will forget about your offer and never order at all. In direct mail, however, the prospect has your letter, order form, envelope, brochure and lift letter in hand. It’s something he can easily place on the coffee table and pick up again later, when he’s ready to seriously consider ordering. Each piece in the package has the capability to grab interest, increase desire and convince the prospect to buy.
But online, you don’t have that luxury. For the prospect to go back and read your letter, he must either print it out on his own paper and using his own ink and burning his own money… or he needs to make a conscious decision to return to your site later. Sure, ‘book-marking’ might mak it somewhat easier to return, but if the page is merely placed among hundreds of other favorites there’s a good chance your page will be overlooked altogether.
So the main disadvantage of online sales letters vs. off-line, is that they only exist as pixels on the user’s screen – unless or until the prospect decides to print it. Even then, your sales letter gets printed on familiar paper -- usually of the plain white variety – so there’s no chance of creating the same ‘feel’ or special effect that a multiple-piece direct mail package can.
But the obvious advantage is the cost savings. Online there’s no postage, traditionally the single most expensive element of any direct marketing campaign. Since your sales letter exists only in cyberspace, there’s no printing cost whatsoever. Additionally, you never have to worry about how much material you can stuff into an envelope without exceeding standard postage costs. In direct marketing, exceeding the limit by even a slight margin can be devastating to your entire campaign by multiplying actual costs.
Online, the amount of space available is virtually unlimited. You can include as many pages and go into as much detail as you want. Additional space can always be acquired at a very reasonable cost. The challenge is that the online prospect has a limited attention span… so your letter needs to keep him on the edge of his seat or he’s gone elsewhere.
It’s no surprise than that so many have been attracted to the Internet as a means of marketing products and services. It has a worldwide reach and the cost of setting up business is a tiny percentage of what it would take to set up in the real world. It’s an open invitation to every breed of marketer to jump in and take advantage of this huge opportunity. The result is that for some, the web has become a massive new avenue for advertising. They attempt to entice people by delivering a barrage of messages in the hope that one ‘sticks’. Or they employ glitz and flash with the mistaken belief that they can somehow ‘trick’ people into paying attention to their message and buying their product.
Truth is… this approach would never fly offline. It would be a complete waste of money to even try. But because it’s so cheap to set up shop on the web, some take a ‘let’s try it’ approach. They simply don’t understand the online environment and the low tolerance of users for such an approach.
If you fail to win an immediate reply, chances are the prospect will forget about your offer and never order at all. In direct mail, however, the prospect has your letter, order form, envelope, brochure and lift letter in hand. It’s something he can easily place on the coffee table and pick up again later, when he’s ready to seriously consider ordering. Each piece in the package has the capability to grab interest, increase desire and convince the prospect to buy.
But online, you don’t have that luxury. For the prospect to go back and read your letter, he must either print it out on his own paper and using his own ink and burning his own money… or he needs to make a conscious decision to return to your site later. Sure, ‘book-marking’ might mak it somewhat easier to return, but if the page is merely placed among hundreds of other favorites there’s a good chance your page will be overlooked altogether.
So the main disadvantage of online sales letters vs. off-line, is that they only exist as pixels on the user’s screen – unless or until the prospect decides to print it. Even then, your sales letter gets printed on familiar paper -- usually of the plain white variety – so there’s no chance of creating the same ‘feel’ or special effect that a multiple-piece direct mail package can.
But the obvious advantage is the cost savings. Online there’s no postage, traditionally the single most expensive element of any direct marketing campaign. Since your sales letter exists only in cyberspace, there’s no printing cost whatsoever. Additionally, you never have to worry about how much material you can stuff into an envelope without exceeding standard postage costs. In direct marketing, exceeding the limit by even a slight margin can be devastating to your entire campaign by multiplying actual costs.
Online, the amount of space available is virtually unlimited. You can include as many pages and go into as much detail as you want. Additional space can always be acquired at a very reasonable cost. The challenge is that the online prospect has a limited attention span… so your letter needs to keep him on the edge of his seat or he’s gone elsewhere.
It’s no surprise than that so many have been attracted to the Internet as a means of marketing products and services. It has a worldwide reach and the cost of setting up business is a tiny percentage of what it would take to set up in the real world. It’s an open invitation to every breed of marketer to jump in and take advantage of this huge opportunity. The result is that for some, the web has become a massive new avenue for advertising. They attempt to entice people by delivering a barrage of messages in the hope that one ‘sticks’. Or they employ glitz and flash with the mistaken belief that they can somehow ‘trick’ people into paying attention to their message and buying their product.
Truth is… this approach would never fly offline. It would be a complete waste of money to even try. But because it’s so cheap to set up shop on the web, some take a ‘let’s try it’ approach. They simply don’t understand the online environment and the low tolerance of users for such an approach.
No comments:
Post a Comment