3 Outrageous Mistakes that prevent you from having an ethical sales page

Many people are using the fine art of copyrighting in order to attract as many clients as possible these days. Sadly, some of the copywriters have pushed the game too far, mixing lies and deceit with half truths to create attractive sales pages. The list below should help you spot if your website has been affected by this plague or not; we will go through the most hurtful elements, which (surprisingly) can be found on many websites.

1. False testimonials. Many entrepreneurs are using friends or relatives (and sometimes even actors!) for their testimonials; this is one of the fastest ways to ruin your company’s reputation. Just imagine what will happen when Uncle Ben gets drunk one night and tells everyone in the bar that you have paid him 20 bucks in exchange for a false testimonial! Better strive to get testimonials from people that have used your products / services in the past, or give some of your products to a number of people in exchange for their honest testimonials.

2. False scarcity. I’m sure you’ve seen bomb-like countdown timers that tell you how this discounted price / special offer / report / whatever will only be available during the following 24 hours, after which it will explode… sorry, expire. The same thing goes for the limited number of products on sale, which often look like “only 1000 3 products left”; this poor technique reminds me of those banners which tell you that you have won a special prize because you are the 1,000,000th visitor to their website.

Now don’t get me wrong; using scarcity is a good sales tactic, but tricking your potential customers into thinking that they must act now or they’ll lose your great offer for good is definitely a bad thing. It is always a good idea to encourage your website visitors to buy today because they are going to get so many benefits out of your product; maybe they’ll get a great advantage over their competitors. As an example, tell them that if they buy your product today, they will get access to a powerful marketing weapon that will help them double the sales in 6 months (if this is true indeed).

3. False promises. If you are selling great shoes, tell your website visitors that you are selling comfortable shoes, not that by wearing them they’ll be running faster than the wild rabbits. If you are selling money-making products, you know that most people are interested in making a lot of money as fast as possible and without having to learn (or do) anything. Under these circumstances, the black hat version of your sales page would have a title that looks like this: “Former janitor makes $321,123 per month by working 5 minutes a day thanks to Revolutionary Software”. But we know that this is not going to happen, so you’d better tell your website visitors the truth, and nothing but the truth – as the time goes by, they’ll understand that you stand behind your products, learn to trust you and become repeat customers.

2 Bonus Tips to help you sell more products:

a) Use a good story. Most people love to hear a good story, so if you have one make sure to share it with your potential customers. This will allow them to learn more about you as a person, and not just as the owner of the xyz website. Don’t make anything up, though; if your story isn’t a good one or if it doesn’t add any value to your sales page, telling the people how you have come up with the idea of starting this business in your uncle’s garage, etc then it’s definitely better to keep it for yourself.

b) Use your products’ unique selling points to your advantage. Most customers have bought from you in the past because you (or your products) have offered them something unique, be it a good price, great customer service, etc – learn what these selling points are. Many business owners are way too involved in their business to be objective, so they have a hard time trying to discover all of their strong selling points. Nevertheless, you can learn what these great selling points are easily, by simply asking your customers what are the qualities that they appreciate in your products and why they chose to buy from your company. Then, make sure to use all the positive, 100% true information on the sales page.

This powerful market research weapon can also be used the other way around; ask your customers what they didn’t like about your products or company and you will discover the areas that don’t work that well and you will (hopefully) fix all the problems for good. Don’t make any significant changes if you only have access to a dozen of customer opinions, though; you need to ensure that you are getting information from hundreds of people, if possible. A good strategy is to offer your clients something valuable, such as a free e-book; most of them will take the time to answer your questions in exchange for a small reward.

Be Sociable, Share!

•