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Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

maxklein.posterous.com

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Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#21

Post by noelchurchill »

mwexler wrote: post #11

Wow. So, I didn't send you an email, and then you send me an email with the indicator "Re:" which traditionally (well, in the last few years of email history) means that you are responding to my email... which I didn't send. Sorry to be a purist, but I consider that a misleading subject line, which is one of the indicators of spam. Yes, traditionally, RE: meant "in regards to" and was a standard header on memos to de…

If you filled out the contact form, then you did send an email of sorts, and he is responding to your email, that you did send.

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#22

Post by jerhinesmith »

I personally like the approach that JetBrains takes. There products are also developer-targeted and not-necessarily cheap.

They handle this by showing the price, allowing you to download a 30-day trial, and then sending out an email soliciting feedback once your trial is about to expire. The email comes from an account that is easily recognized as jetbrains, but instead of 'sales@jetbrains.com' or something similar, it actually appears to come from a person (i.e. john_smith@jetbrains.com). This email could still be autogenerated for all I know, but I certainly felt a more personal connection than the usual "do not reply, this email was autogenerated" stuff that I normally get.

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#23

Post by teamonkey »

>Previously I had

>Subject: About your pricelist request for Klein SDK

>Body: Dear John Doe, I saw that you...

>

>I changed it to

>Subject: Re: Klein SDK pricelist request

>Body: Hey John Doe, I saw taht you...

-

Without the "Re:" the second subject line is still much better than the first.

Without the misspelling, the "Hey" gives a very different tone to the "Dear".

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#24

Post by mhb »

An increase in sales from $400 to $900 a month is compelling evidence that these annoying tactics produce good results? Color me unconvinced.

Requesting a price quote is a deal-breaker for me. And if I got that email, I would just assume that he couldn't take the time to spell things correctly in whatever he used to generate the mass emailed "reply" - not that he typed it by hand himself. Why would that make more people want to buy software he had developed?

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#25

Post by ErrantX »

Erwin wrote: post #3
es3754 wrote: post #2

Nice email trick. I personally hate when I can't easily find pricing online though.

Agreed, when searching for some kind of library that might potentially be of use to me, it's extremely annoying to have to fill in a form requiring name, position, phone, address, fax number and whatnot; or to go through a lengthy registration and email address confirmation to download a library sample version.

I don't think that is the Market being discussed though. We sell tools at a similar level (more expensive and specialist though) and putting prices on a site is actually a turn off.

The best hack you can do is put a phone number on there. So long as it is the right Market your conversion rate will shoot up.

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#26

Post by stuntgoat »

nkohari wrote: post #13

If someone misspelled something in an email reply, I would just assume they had a misspelling in their automated response form letter. That would make me think much less of the company. I'm glad it converted better for you, but I'm guessing that another variable changed at the same time that actually made the difference.

Even if a company misspelled a word in an email that I assumed was hand written, I would think less of that company- especially, if it was a product such as software, where precision in spelling counts.

I agree with the idea that another variable changed near the same time. But I am still interested in hearing more stories like this, since it is an interesting concept in what I guess could be called 'sociology of marketing'.

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#28

Post by seiji »

ricardo wrote: post #19
nzmsv wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, a quote request form says the company isn't really serious about this whole Internet thing :) I associate it with a site someone put up in 1995 and hasn't touched since. Probably just me. But, in this case this may actually be a win, since the product isn't mass market. Whoever goes through the trouble of filling out a request is likely already sold on the product, so less time spent on sales.

This is the typical model for enterprise software that is sold through a sales team. The price of the product is determined by how much the customer is willing to pay and can vary widely from one sale to the next. Sales made this way usually yield a higher price at the expense of speed/volume. You can only sell as fast as your sales team works.

Just because it's typical doesn't mean it's efficient or useful.

There's a new generation of people with purchase authority rising up. I'd rather go with a slightly more expensive company with open pricing rather than a closed company where I constantly have to negotiate small discounts off of a "retail price" nobody ever actually pays (except the government, of course).

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#29

Post by wizard_2 »

jcnnghm wrote: post #27

I'd be really careful with this. If I can't easily get the price of the product, I assume it's a few million dollars and find another product. The only way I would ever fill out a form to get information is if it was the only game in town.

He's not saying he's going to try it, he's tried it, for his market it worked for him.

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#30

Post by nzmsv »

ricardo wrote: post #19
nzmsv wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, a quote request form says the company isn't really serious about this whole Internet thing :) I associate it with a site someone put up in 1995 and hasn't touched since. Probably just me. But, in this case this may actually be a win, since the product isn't mass market. Whoever goes through the trouble of filling out a request is likely already sold on the product, so less time spent on sales.

This is the typical model for enterprise software that is sold through a sales team. The price of the product is determined by how much the customer is willing to pay and can vary widely from one sale to the next. Sales made this way usually yield a higher price at the expense of speed/volume. You can only sell as fast as your sales team works.

This is what I meant. These developer tools aren't really aimed at developers (most of whom would probably pick a tool with a nice tutorial over the one with a quote request form).

So it doesn't really matter if most hackers would hate this sales tactic. What matters in this case is it works on salespeople :)

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