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World's
Most Usable E-commerce E-zine
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SITE-SELL! Issue #002
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SITE-SELL!
The World's Most Usable E-commerce E-zine
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>A free, twice-monthly e-zine dedicated to showing you ...
> ... how to MAKE YOUR SITE SELL!
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August 10, 1999
Issue #002
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PLEASE SHARE THIS E-ZINE WITH FIVE FRIENDS...
... AND ZERO COMPETITORS! ;-)
OR SEND YOUR FRIENDS TO...
>> http://www.sitesell.com/site-sell.html
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> MAKE YOUR SITE SELL! (MYSS!)
No matter what you offer on the Web, your site must SELL!
Web authorities have proclaimed MYSS! to be "the best book
about selling on the Web at any price"... and it's only
US$17. You'll never see a longer listing of impressed,
professional reviewers and delighted,"OVERdelivered" readers...
>> http://www.sitesell.com/testimonials.html
And MYSS!'s "100%-for-any-reason" GUARANTEE makes this
purchase "all reward and no risk."
>> http://www.sitesell.com/guarantee.html
MYSS! is all you'll ever need to know to truly SELL on the
Web. Order at ...
>> https://secure.sitesell.com/order.html
If you order now, you'll also receive a free, lifetime
subscription to "Sales from the EDGE." The EDGE is our
"push-the-limits" Web sales newsletter. We'll soon charge
for The EDGE -- it's that good.
Together, SITE-SELL!, MYSS!, and Sales from the Edge *WILL*
do exactly what the title of the book says...
... Make Your SITE SELL!
Wishing you great success in your Web efforts,
Ken Evoy, M.D.
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Each issue of SITE-SELL contains USABLE
content in 1 or more of these categories...
CATEGORY IN THIS ISSUE
SITE-SELL XPRESS --> YES
HANDS-ON SITE SELLING --> YES
SITE-SELL! SPOTLIGHT --> YES
BEST OF THE REST --> NO
TEST YOUR SITE --> YES
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SITE-SELL XPRESS -- News
What's new in the world of sitesell.com...
--
1) The MYSS! BOOK.............................
The printed version is just around the corner. Stay tuned
for the announcement!
-----
2) The 5 PILLAR AFFILIATE PROGRAM.............
Allan Gardyne, *THE* accepted authority on affiliate
programs (www.AssociatePrograms.com), called the 5 Pillar
Affiliate Program "the BEST revenue sharing program out
there."
If you'd like to see why we get so much e-mail that agrees
with him, please see...
>> http://www.sitesell.com/affiliateprogram.html
Affiliates receive the "5 Pillar MANUAL," which reveals
exactly HOW to turn the 5 Pillars into profits, FREE.
Here's what Allan said about it...
"The BEST manual for affiliates is FREE."
You won't find better information about how to succeed
at an affiliate program, at *ANY* price. We give it away,
free, to 5 Pillar affiliates. :-)
But only to affiliates.
-----
3) The PRODUCTS.............................
We're going nuts, getting new products ready for the fall.
That's when the 5 Pillar Program really kicks to the next
level.
All new products are automatically included in the 5 Pillar
Program -- so your "lifetime customer" keeps generating
commissions for you. And so does your lifetime Team!
Many 5 Pillar Affiliates are building a solid base of
lifetime customers and an affiliate Team. As the new
products come on stream, they'll reap the lifetime value
of our delighted customers.
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HANDS-ON SITE SELLING
Based on our own experience, or on yours (send e-mail to
hands-on-column@sitesell.com), this column features
original, in-the-trenches info that you *WILL* put to good
use... IMMEDIATELY.
--
HOW TO INCREASE YOUR SITE'S CONVERSION RATE
>"How can I make my site sell more?"
How many times per day do I see that in my e-mail? The
answer is simple. Lean in close, because I'll whisper this
so no one else hears...
To make your site sell more, YOU must...
... MAKE it sell more!
Not impressed with that answer? Wait! Before you
unsubscribe, note the ALL CAPS on "YOU" and "MAKE."
Here's what everyone forgets -- YOU really have to study
your site, put yourself into the shoes of your customer,
figure out what's wrong, and then...
MAKE your site sell BETTER!
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There are two important ways that YOU can MAKE this happen...
1) Put aside a morning. You, and your smartest staff (if
you have a staff -- otherwise, do it alone), pretend you're
the customer. Start at your opening paragraph and move
through it in the way that a customer would.
That's the "you as customer" approach.
And here's the second way to do it...
2) Do usability testing with real, live customers. This is
absolutely invaluable. But it takes more effort to
organize. So most people never get around to it. Too bad.
I'm always amazed at how much we learn from proper usability
testing. I mean it -- you just can't foresee what "total
strangers" will do...
They get lost. They don't see a button that you wanted them
to see. They complain out loud as they move around. You'll
learn tons, and you'll emerge with a better site.
Most of you will read this and do nothing about it. Those
who do, will e-mail me...
"Wow. You were right. We made huge changes thanks to the
usability testing!"
Usability is a huge, ignored issue. MYSS! discusses
usability testing in detail, so we won't address this
further in this issue.
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Instead, we'll focus on what *YOU* can do to *MAKE* your
site sell BETTER!
OK, you've picked a nice, quiet time to review your site --
allow no interruptions. Go online, with a 640 x 480 monitor
and a 56K modem and a cup of coffee. Start your site review.
Review Chapter 20.8 of MYSS! Have you got these "11 Steps
to a Site that SELLS!" nailed down? This important summary
lays it all out. Get these correct, and you'll be way ahead
of most sites already! Now...
What sucks? What is actually killing sales? Any weak or
counter-productive phrases? Do your pages take forever to
load? Chapter 6.10 of MYSS! lists all the ways you can
accidentally kill sales. Did any of these sales-killers
creep into your site? Eliminate them.
See the Spotlight below for a real-world, hands-on, very
specific and strong example of how to improve your site's
sales power. As you'll see, this is all very do-able --
but YOU have to MAKE it happen. :-)
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And there's a third way to increase your CR, one that I have
not written about in MYSS!. First, though, a bit of
background...
Our sitesell.com site has a great Conversion Rate ("CR" --
the percent of unique visitors who deliver your Most Wanted
Response). Depending on how well the affiliate
"pre-sells" (a critical concept outlined in the 5 Pillar
Affiliate Manual), the CR ranges as high as 20%.
But so what? It's kind of like the baseball player who
earns $68 kazillion for batting .333. He gets paid to fail
2 out of 3 times!
"What does that have to do with sales?," you ask?
Good question (as usual)!
Even with its excellent CR, our site *FAILS* to get the
order more times that it SUCCEEDS. Remember, visitors don't
stumble into our site out of the ethers of cyberspace...
***EVERY VISITOR HAD AT LEAST SOME IDEA THAT
SITESELL IS ALL ABOUT SELLING ON THE WEB.***
So why wouldn't such a visitor purchase a book that...
o ... only costs US$17.
o ... is now widely accepted as the best book at ANY price.
o ... has a glowing page of book reviews and testimonials.
No other product comes close to the quality and
quantity of DOCUMENTED/VERIFIABLE feedback.
o And the guarantee is 100% rock-solid.
When you consider all that, it amazes me that our Conversion
Rate is not 80%. Still, there must be reasons. Maybe...
1) The book is too cheap = low perceived value. I have
noticed that sales off my first successful site increase
when we increase the price.
Or maybe...
2) It's in Adobe Acrobat only. Sure, we have good reasons
for this...
>> http://www.sitesell.com/why_acrobat.html
But maybe visitors don't care about *OUR* good reasons --
maybe downloading Acrobat from Adobe is just too daunting
for some.
Or maybe...
3) They just don't care enough about WEB-SELLING. But then
why would they be on our site?
Or maybe...
4) Something on the site (a "sales-killer") somehow lost the
sale. Perhaps they hate the "look and feel" of the site?
There are a zillion possible reasons. Remember, "you don't
know what you don't know."
Or, as my old med school professor used to say...
"You can't treat what you have not diagnosed."
In medicine, doctors make a list of possible diseases, just
like I did above. Docs don't just "decide" that you have
pneumonia. We do blood tests and X-rays to make the
diagnosis. And that's what we'll do to our site very soon...
To make the diagnosis, we're about to start a study to find
out why visitors don't buy. This is a study unlike any
other. If you visit the site, you won't even see it
happening.
The single most important piece of information that any Web
vendor must learn is "Why does the majority not buy?"
Think about it. Let's say that we survey 1,000 people. Now
suppose that there are 1,000 different answers. Well, we
know that we can't address 1,000 different reasons.
But what if 200 people would have bought if we offered an
html version? Or what if 500 people found the site "too
hard-sell." Or if 300 people just didn't trust us to refund
them?
If we find big blocks of common answers, we'll have a strong
lead on how to improve the site. If we can overcome or
eliminate common reasons, we'll be able to multiply our CR.
We'll be publishing the results of this study in "Sales from
the EDGE" (see above for info on the EDGE).
For now though, here's what you should (?must) do...
-----ACTION STEP-----
Review your own site right now...
1) Start with your MWR (Most Wanted Response) -- does it
meet all the MYSS! criteria of being a great MWR?
2) Skip back to your Opening Paragraph -- does it do all
that it should do? Your opener is critical. Never, ever be
satisfied with it.
3) Follow the pathway right through to the Closer. Are you
doing everything well? Are there special areas that could
be killing visits? Are there areas that can be strengthened?
-----END ACTION STEP-----
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SITE-SELL! SPOTLIGHT
We feature part of a site to illustrate a particularly
powerful way of "GETTING THE ORDER."
--
This remains a tough one. There are so many sites with all
kinds of fancy graphics and elaborate navigation schemes.
And with thousands of products for sale.
But I still don 't see a heck of a lot of "selling" going on
-- and by that, I mean...
... good, straight forward, benefit-oriented sales efforts.
A "turn to sales" may not happen for quite a while. As long
as Web sites remain in the hands of techies and designers
and marketing managers, things won't change.
These folks focus on traffic and graphics, not on Conversion
Rates. Seriously, involve your sales team intimately in your
Web site... if you want it to sell.
And please, if you spot a site that does a GREAT job of
GETTING THE ORDER, let me know. I'll write it up here.
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For now, let's give you a practical example of increasing
your site's CR...
I have just subjected our sitesell.com site to the exercise
outlined above (review from Opening Paragraph to MWR). We
had not had the time to even look at our site during the
three months after our launch. That's a good thing -- our
eyes were "fresh" -- ready to really "see" the site again.
We made a whole bunch of little changes (improvement in
wording, updating information, etc., etc.). Nothing really
earthshaking -- just a general polishing.
But while doing this, something major hit me! I noticed
that we were *not* making full use of our tremendous
testimonials. Since we first put the site up, we had
received some truly thrilling words of appreciation.
The testimonial page had become too long. How did I know?
Simple -- I did not feel like clicking on them all to read
them. So we did two things...
1) We dropped the "blander" ones.
2) We "pulled out" a key, provocative phrase from each one
and used it as a headline. Take a look...
>> http://www.sitesell.com/testimonials.html
See how certain headlines hit you and pull you into the main
quote? Those testimonials become potato chips -- you can't
just eat one. :-)
>And we made one more important change....
We had received several "super-duper" testimonials that hit
key benefits in important ways since we put up the site. We
had updated the "Testimonials Page" with them. But...
We were using "lesser" testimonials in other critical parts
of the site. So we replaced the "lesser" ones with the
super-duper ones on...
o the Home page...
>> http://www.sitesell.com/
o the Guarantee page...
>> http://www.sitesell.com/guarantee.html
o the Free Download page...
>> http://www.sitesell.com/freedownload.html
o the Affiliate Program page...
>> http://www.sitesell.com/affiliateprogram.html
And most importantly...
o the Order page...
>> https://secure.sitesell.com/order.html
See how these testimonials add power by fitting in with the
context? For example, on the Order Page, we feature a
testimonial from the well-respected Paul Myers