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SITE-SELL! Issue #012
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SITE-SELL!
The World's Most USABLE E-commerce E-zine
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>A free, occasional e-zine dedicated to showing you...
> ... how to SELL on the Net!
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August 22, 2000
Issue #012
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>ALL-TIME FAVORITE ARTICLE
If a friend forwarded this copy of SITE-SELL! to you, here's
our readers' all-time favorite SITE-SELL! article. It's a
powerful example of how to makeover your own site to...
... SELL on the Net! :-)
http://articles.sitesell.com/bhh/
If you like what you see and want to keep getting more of
the same, please visit...
http://myss.sitesell.com/s-ezine.html
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>READER'S CHOICE...
Care to see the VERY BEST ARTICLE (according to reader
feedback) from each of our OTHER two e-zines?...
http://articles.sitesell.com/
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>TABLE OF CONTENTS
o SITE-SELL! Xpress News
1) MYWS! Launches
2) Dynamic Pricing Is "Up and Bouncing"
3) SiteSell University Opens Its Doors... and It's Free
o Featured Articles
1) New Thoughts on Testimonials
2) International Sales Issues
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>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SITE-SELL XPRESS NEWS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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--1--
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MYWS! Launches
Wow! What a start for Make Your Words Sell!. Rather than
boasting about how proud I am about MYWS! (I am!), please
allow me to share a few thoughts from readers...
David Carter, from Web Essentials Today
(webmastersdirectory.com), said...
---------------------------------------------
"It's all you'll ever need to write
order-generating, lead-getting,
sales-clinching words. If you ever find you
need another copywriting book, just use Ken's
money-back guarantee to finance that purchase."
---------------------------------------------
And Allan Gardyne, of associateprograms.com fame, summarized
it like this in his excellent newsletter....
-------------------------------------------
As you know, SiteSell OVER-delivers, packing
incredible value for money into every product.
"Make Your Words Sell" is no exception.
Whether you're an affiliate or a merchant,
you need this book, because everyone who has
a website needs it.
-------------------------------------------
And reader Sydney Freeman (mom@homemoneymax.com) had this
to say while she was STILL reading...
-------------------------------------------
MYWS is masterful! I love it! Last week I
bought a bunch of "how-to" books on
copywriting, just because I want to get
better and better. I'm going to take all of
them back.
(And then she sent a second e-mail...)
I have been trying for days to write this
wretched article/webpage on ebooks. I just
couldn't make it right - until MYWS!'s SWAT
technique came along. In an hour, it was
thousands of percent better than anything I
could create before.
-------------------------------------------
Reader Denis Poncelet, someone who thought he could never be
a copywriter, also felt compelled to write TWICE, while
STILL reading...
-----Subject of e-mail = WOW!!!-----
From: Denis Poncelet, denis@passion4life.net
I'm up to page 109 of MYWS...brilliant book.
I can tell it's going to make a world of
difference on my site. I've been effective
at getting targeted visitors to my site but
no takers on the MWR. That's all about to
change.
(The next day, Denis sent another...)
It's me once again.
I just finished MYWS. I started Friday
morning and couldn't put it down until now!
One word describes this book - unbelievable!
As an engineer, the art of copywriting has
never been a strong point for me...and my
website (& business) has suffered. But now
you've given me something I'm used to working
with...a formula that is guaranteed to
produce the results I want.
My congratulations to you and Joe for an
extraordinary masterpiece. I'll rewrite my
site this week and keep you posted of the
improved response.
-----Subject of e-mail = WOW!!!-----
Denis "gets it." MYWS! *WON'T* show you how to write the
next Harry Potter bestseller. But it will convert you into
an e-persuader who "gets the sale."
And Neil Shearing, from scamfreezone.com, had this to say...
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I just *had* to drop you a line and say that,
even with a new son just 5 days old to care
for, I could not put down MYWS! I read it
cover to cover and boy, oh boy, I just don't
have enough superlatives! I've always wanted
to know how great copy was written, and now I
know. Scratch that, now I know how to *write
my own!* which is much more important!
Thanks!
Another "screamingly successful product"
launched onto an unsuspecting Web! ;-)
Neil Shearing, shearing@scamfreezone.com
-------------------------------------------
Not much more to add, I guess. This may just be our best
work yet. For more info on MYWS!...
http://makemy.sitesell.com/myws/
Dynamically priced.
Which brings me the next news item...
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--2--
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Dynamic Pricing Is "Up and Bouncing"
In the last issue of SITE-SELL!, we discussed Dynamic
Pricing, a radical concept that will change the face of
e-commerce within a few years. If you missed it, it's
important...
http://www.sitesell.com/site-sell-backissues-011.html
I also mentioned that we'd be launching Dynamic Pricing on
two of our own products. And so...
Dynamic Pricing is now up and running at...
http://makemy.sitesell.com/myps/
And we've launched our brand new product, Make Your Words
Sell!, with Dynamic Pricing...
http://makemy.sitesell.com/myws/
Review the site, then click to its Order Page...
Voila! Dynamic Pricing, in all its glory. Read through the
Order Page carefully, and follow the links, especially the
link for bidding "below the market."
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What's the Point?
-----------------
Great question!
If we were just dynamically generating a price, that would
be "coooool," as my 9 year old likes to say. But so what?
Let's boil it down to the nitty-gritty...
... Greater Profits.
Why?
Because Dynamic Pricing extends a merchant's market, for
two big reasons...
1) PRICE FLUCTUATES Consider the customer who would not
buy at your fixed price. The product is too expensive. But
if the price of the product fluctuates, s/he is more likely
to try to buy it at a lower price, either by visiting during
"off-hours" or by bidding.
2) BIDDING... COMPETITIVE AND FUN Ever bought anything at
eBay? It's fun and competitive. You often buy for higher
than what you thought was your top price.
Price-conscious shoppers will bid for a dynamically priced
product. Here's what will happen...
i) Their bid is fulfilled. That's one order the merchant
would never have received.
ii) Someone beats their bid or their bid expires. We
notify them. What happens? They bid higher until
they get it. After all, they started bidding because
they wanted it. And you know what happens when you
don't get what you want!
------------
Hit or PLOP?
------------
So far, it's all theory. The real story is yet to be told.
Bookmark the bidding page and come back often. It will be
fascinating -- *real-time* pricing that uses the Net the way
it was meant to be used.
Take a peek at how all products will be priced within a few
years (I hope!). And remember, if the price of MYWS! is a
bit beyond your budget, simply bid to buy it for less. :-)
http://makemy.sitesell.com/myws/
-----
--3--
-----
SiteSell University Opens Its Doors... and It's Free
The 5-day e-mail courses of SiteSell U. have been receiving
rave reviews -- we've just added the fourth. Don't miss
these free Masters courses...
http://www.sitesell.com/s-masters.html
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>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~FEATURED ARTICLES~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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---1---
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New Thoughts on Testimonials
When we did the makeover of www.sitesell.com ("SiteSell.com
Gets a Facelift" -- Issue #011) to accommodate our growth
and increasing number of products, we faced an interesting
question...
"What should we do about the testimonials?"
We had a huge page of wonderful MYSS! reviews by top pros
and feedback from readers. But...
Log files of our original SiteSell.com site clearly showed
that our Testimonials Page was among the LEAST visited of
all our major pages. Only the "About Author" page was less
visited (hmmmmph!).
Now WHY would that be? Could it be that readers understand
that neither of these pages are going to answer the "What's
in it for me?" question that they all have? Yup.
Now the Author Page is not critical to "get the sale." It's
always a good idea to have an "About Us" page, of course.
After all, some people *DO* want to know more about you.
But...
"What should we do about testimonials?"
Testimonials help sell. The problem is that people don't
click to the page. Why?
Because they know they'll read *ONLY* glowing words. Hey,
when was the last time *you* read something like this on a
Testimonial Page...
---------------------------------------
This product, if you can call it that,
is sheer junk. If you buy it, you must
have rocks in your head. If you don't,
you can have the ones in my noggin! I
CAN'T BELIEVE I BOUGHT IT! :-(
---------------------------------------
But have you ever noticed what happens when you do read a
testimonial? All of a sudden, you go... "Hmmmm." And then
you read another... and another... and, all of a sudden,
you're that much closer to buying the product.
So how do you get your reader to stop avoiding your
Testimonial Page? Easy!...
Don't make one! Instead...
Integrate the testimonials right into the copy of your main
site. We've done this in different ways for our different
products. Take a look, and you'll see three different
approaches...
Make Your Site Sell! uses the "drop-down" approach to
present testimonials without hurting the flow of the site.
Since we had that wonderful page of testimonials from the
first version of the MYSS! site, we still provide a pop-up
link to it.
http://makemy.sitesell.com/myss/
--
Make Your Knowledge Sell! uses a slick little slide-show
javascript to push "graphic testimonials" into view of
visitors. Run your curser around and see how it works. Feel
free to "copy and paste" the javascript.
http://makemy.sitesell.com/myks/
--
Make Your Price Sell! is of immense value to e-marketers who
are selling products with some degree of success, or who are
seriously planning a new product development or launch.
So we rely on a selected sampling of strong reviews by
respected professionals. Simply presented. We even use a
wonderful review by Ralph Wilson (wilsonweb.com -- the most
respected Web marketing guru on the Net) as our "3 minute
tour"...
http://makemy.sitesell.com/myps/
--
When do you add testimonials? Here's how we handle this
question. We start WITHOUT them, which is logical since no
one has had a chance to use the product yet.
-----SIDEBAR-----
Yes, beta-readers do offer some generous words. But if you
feature those on your launch day, you may face some
credibility issues. Better to wait until you have a ton of
great testimonials to choose from, in any event.
-----SIDEBAR-----
Our protocol for site testimonials is to wait about six
weeks. During that time, we've been blessed to receive
wonderful feedback on each product.
Next, we assemble the best 15-20 testimonials (for how to
pick and work with testimonials, please see MYSS!). We
avoid the ones that just generally rave and look for the
ones that hit benefits that we know are important for our
customers.
Those are the ones we add to the site. And once we're done,
we never come back to them again. We just don't have the
time... and we've found that changing testimonials does not
dramatically affect the Conversion Rate.
So do it once, after you have had some strong response. Do
it well. And never revisit (except, of course, for major
circumstances).
For MYWS!, we have already received a flood of wonderful
e-mail, of which you've seen a few above. To see how we "do
testimonials" for MYWS! (in about 4 weeks)...
Bookmark the MYWS! site and come back to see if we came
up with another unique way to work testimonials into the
body copy of the site.
Because remember... people won't click to your Testimonial
Page. But they *will* read them if "they are there." And
they'll keep reading them, which increases your chance of
making the sale.
http://makemy.sitesell.com/myws/
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---2---
-------
International Sales Issues
Sara Edlington is a British author and Web marketer who
wrote to me about some interesting international issues when it
comes to making a sale. I thought I'd share them with you.
If the world's your oyster, read on.
-----
You've cracked the home market with Ken's help, and now your
thoughts are turning to overseas markets........or maybe you
want to sell overseas anyway, after all global market place
and all that jazz......or maybe you had a customer buy from
abroad, and now you're thinking you'd like to do more of
these sales.
Easy! All you have to do is roll out your successful sales
model abroad and away you go. Into sales oblivion, where
you'll find all the others who thought the same.
Here are the key issues you'll have to deal with when you do
business on an international basis, and how to cope with
them.
----------------
On-line ordering
Here, for example, in the UK, we're a sceptical bunch about
buying on-line. Our papers are full of stories of goods that
never arrived, multiple debits from credit cards for one
transaction, and not forgetting the "horror" stories of
on-line security. And believe me some of them are scary. Do
you want someone else looking at your on-line bank details?
But this is also an important issue internationally. How
does the customer in Japan, know that the company in England
isn't going to vanish with his money?
So before you do anything, *check* that people in the
country you want to do business with, *will* buy on-line
happily. Please don't assume they will.
I assumed, it nearly cost me a lot of wasted money, not to
mention grey hair, until I asked one of my potential buyers
if they would buy on-line or not. Then I asked another, and
another.....
-----KEN'S SIDEBAR-----
There are huge cultural differences from region to region.
For example, Scandinavians detest a sales effort. "Sales" is
almost a dirty word. It takes a very different approach to
cut through this.
-----KEN'S SIDEBAR-----
--------
Language
If you're selling to people in the UK, they want an English
site, with English spellings on it. If you're selling to
Germany, the Germans want to read German. And if you're
thinking, "then I'll use a piece of translation software,
and turn my English site into a German one." Think again. It
shows.
Oh my goodness does it show!
I've yet to see one of these pieces of software that
understands the principles of international Net copywriting.
And I doubt I ever will. And besides, do these pieces of
software understand that what sounds OK in English, can be
rude in another language? Real sales destroyer that one.
So, find yourself a German web copywriter, and get him/her
to write a version of your site for the German market. And
then do the same for whatever other countries you have
potential customers in.
Most "foreigners" speak English, and read English, but when
in Rome, speak Italian on your web site. It *will* make a
difference to your sales. A nice profitable, fat bank
account difference.
-----KEN'S SIDEBAR-----
Translating, of course, is every small businessperson's
major hurdle. Anyone with some great, cost effective
solutions?
-----KEN'S SIDEBAR-----
-----------
Legal stuff
What is legal where you live, might not be legal in the
country you want to sell into. Then there's the thorny issue
of taxes and duties, do you charge or don't you charge them?
Governments are on the whole, pretty behind with the times
when it comes to the world of e-commerce, so check what your
country's situation is on these issues. And then do the same
for the country you're aiming at as well.
And while you're at it, see what the political climate is
like as well.
Governments change, and with them so do regulations. Your
small business advisor, at your local Government office,
will be able to give you most of the information you need.
And for free in many cases.
-----KEN'S SIDEBAR-----
Wow! Ask Yahoo! about this. They're having a terrible time
with their auction biz in France, over the selling of Nazi
memorabilia in that country via their *U.S.* site! Strictly
illegal, and France is making them responsible.
-----KEN'S SIDEBAR-----
--------
Currency
One thing I love about Ken's site is his currency
calculator. No more being sent off to another site to
convert the currency myself. No more sat here with
calculator and my phone bill rising as I try and convert
currency.
Learn from the maestro!
This is another small but important item, and something even
Amazon.com hasn't got right yet. Well, not since I last
checked. Your customer isn't interested in what it costs in
your currency, he wants to know what it will cost in *his*
currency.
-------
Culture
It pays, literally, to be a cultured person. Culture is not
just language, it's the way you do business. It's the way
your site is designed, the colours you choose, even the
navigation method through your site.
If in doubt, ask someone who lives in your target country to
take a look at your site. Or better still, ask your
potential customers who live in that country.
-----------------
Merchant accounts
One sentence! Read the small print, very carefully. That one
sentence could save you a lot of heartache, a lot of money,
and a lot of phone calls. Agreements can apply only to
orders taken in your country, not international ones. And
some have special clauses for Internet use.
Yes, I know these agreements are boring, and full of "and
the cousin of the second person who breathed last week, is
liable for feeding the cat twice a day....."
But please, please read them, so you understand what part of
your life you are signing away.
----------
Summing up
OK, let's sum up with a quick action check list:
Make sure there is a market for on-line sales in your
country. Preferably, ask people, don't just rely on market
surveys.
Work out where you think most of your International orders
will come from, and get your site translated, and if
necessary, re-written by a professional. Customers will love
you for it.
Likewise, make sure your site "fits in" with the local
culture. This is something most sites ignore.
Check the legal situation in your country for export
regulations, taxes etc. And check which, if any, countries
get prickly about what you're selling. You'll be surprised
what you can't sell to some countries.
Make sure you have a "Ken style" currency converter on your
site.
Read the small print *before* you enter into any merchant
facilities agreement.
And if you want more help, head off to
http://www.wilsonweb.com/webmarket/global.htm
You'll find plenty of articles all about selling
internationally.
Sara Edlington
http://www.imarketingservices.co.uk/
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>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SITESELL PRODUCTS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Make Your Site SELL!
"The definitive work on making any Web site SELL!"
http://makemy.sitesell.com/myss/
Make Your Knowledge Sell!
"Turn knowledge into income -- sell your brain on the Net."
http://makemy.sitesell.com/myks/
Make Your Price Sell!
"Price with complete confidence & double your Net profits."
http://makemy.sitesell.com/myps/
Make Your Words Sell!
"Want to sell MORE? Become an e-persuader."
http://makemy.sitesell.com/myws/
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Written by Ken Evoy, M.D.,
President of SiteSell.com Inc.
(c) copyright 2000 SiteSell.com Inc.