Increasing Online Sales

The words you choose make you win or lose

How many times have you been to a website that you think sells what you are after, but leave the site a minute later too unsure whether to buy?

For most of us, this is a common and perhaps frustrating experience. Either we couldn't find what we were after on the site - though we were sure it was there somewhere - or when we did get the description of the item we wanted the text or description was either poor, misleading or confusing and put us off buying.

This is a common experience, and whilst for the buyer it is frustrating and forces them to spend more time looking elsewhere, for the person who owns the site it is a lost sale. It is cash that they could have had in their pocket that they've left lying there on the website.

Online sales processes for the moment lack the personal touch of a person actually responding to questions and concerns in real time and moving to address common questions or mis-givings. Therefore the online sales process needs to be very clear and precise, and also concise. As you cannot be there in person to tell the customer what is going to happen in the sales process, you need to make it easy and obvious for them.

Making your sales pitch more effective

There is one big point that most online sales pitches miss - and that is the benefits of the product. Normally written by someone too close to the product, the sales pitch is full of features like this:

- widget 2007 contains 57 pre-programmed songs
- widget 2007 also has 6 flashing LEDs on the front, which flash as its wheels move
- widget 2007 contains a water boiler and facility to store tea bags
- widget 2007 contains a slot that can store a cup in it

OK that might be an impressive list, but what on earth is it going to do that I will find useful? Why would I want a water boiler? You need to rather sell on the benefits - what widget 2007 is going to do for me! Re-write your pitches based on the benefits for increased success:

"Having Widget 2007 means you'll never be thirsty or bored again. And that means you will always be entertained by great music and have a cup of tea to drink at the same time! Ultimately, your leisure time will be forever enhanced."

Which one of those two makes the Widget 2007 sound more appealling and attractive?

If you find it hard to work out the benefits it may be that you are too close to the product. Explain it to someone else and ask them what they think the benefits are.

Top Tip: if you run a decent sized company get this years graduate intake, or even better interviewees, to come up with a list of perceived benefits and do the work so you don't have to!

OK, you now have a fantastic sales pitch and everyone is clicking that big 'BUY ME' button - because you did make it obvious how to actually buy the product, right? Incredibly, some sales processes have a tiny text link buried at the bottom right of the page after several scrolls, so even when you have sold the product to someone they still can't buy it. Don't make this mistake yourself!

Online Sales Process

As for the sales process itself, which comes once you have secured the sale and they clicked 'Buy widget 2007 right now' make it painless and as quick as possible. Have a list of steps at the top to manage expectations, e.g. Step 1: your personal details; Step 2: your card details; Step 3: finished! That way they know how far through the process they are.

Also get them to enter all the data that you require, but never redundant fields that you won't use - if you don't need their date of birth, don't ask for it! And remember to validate the data that is entered, but don't be overly restrictive and risk losing people because the validation rejects perfectly valid data that they have entered - this is hard to spot, the customer will rarely feed it back, but it could lose you lots of sales. So test, test, test every combination that people might enter in your forms to check the validation is flexible enough.

The final point to note is that you should cut out all distractions on the sales processes. I'm always amazed to be half way through a sales process and see they use the same template as the rest of the site. Seeing the big flashing advert in the right-side navigation as I'm about to buy Widget 2007 advertising the beta Widget 2007B product makes me think twice about completing my purchase.

So cut out all distractions during the sales process - make it so they either complete the sale, or leave the site. This way again you should drive up sales. And ensure you have the minimum number of steps of course - no one wants to spend half a day filling out the data you want to order your product.

If you want specific tips on how to sell your product or service online, then please visit Clarity Media and get in touch. We'll be happy to help you enhance, streamline and optimise your online sales processes.

Increasing Online Sales

Author: Dan

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Last Updated: Sep 1st 2006

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