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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

#31

Post by noodle »

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.

the thing that would tip me off is the usage of the full name.

"Hey John Doe, I saw taht you..." = still feels automatic

"Hey John, I saw taht you..." = feels more personal, misspelling or no

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#32

Post by jcnnghm »

wizard_2 wrote: post #29
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.

I'm aware of that. Just because it works for him doesn't mean it's likely to work for anyone else.

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#33

Post by FooBarWidget »

"1. Do not put your price on your website. Put a "pricelist request" page, and let your customers fill out a bit of information about themselves."

What? Does that really work? As a developer whenever I encounter something like this I'll immediately leave the website and never come back.

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#34

Post by FooBarWidget »

mhb wrote: post #24

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 peo…

More than 100% increase in sales and you're unconvinced? What kind of numbers would convince you?

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#35

Post by maxklein »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #33

"1. Do not put your price on your website. Put a "pricelist request" page, and let your customers fill out a bit of information about themselves." What? Does that really work? As a developer whenever I encounter something like this I'll immediately leave the website and never come back.

It depends on the amount of competition in the area. There are developer tools where you have 2-3 companies and they all do this.

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#37

Post by DenisM »

Eliezer wrote: post #36

I always walk away from "request price" sites. Somewhere online is a site that respects my time enough to tell me what they charge without demanding my personal info, and I'll search a bit and find there instead.

So you will spend more time searching for a different site, because on this site it takes time to fill out the form? How does this make sense?

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#38

Post by viraptor »

Ok... maybe he's right, but I'm suspicious about his methods. He's writing about his tools that they're "going for between $200 and $500.", then "This technique raised my sales from about $400 a month to $900 a month" and then that it raised the sales to $1500.

So basically he went from ~1.3 to ~2.6 then to ~4.3 sales a month. If he really measured the response, he should take the samples from at least one year (otherwise it would be season-dependant). He made changes in 2 steps - that means at least 2 years. So to me it looks like either:

- he improved the software over that time, his tools got more recognition among developers, standard business growth occurred, or

- he did nothing about his business or software, crisis and other events affecting sales didn't happen, world has been a controlled environment for a couple of years and 4 sales per month are statistically significant...

- or... Am I missing some option?

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#39

Post by [deleted] »

mhb wrote: post #24

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 peo…

[deleted]

Re: Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling

#40

Post by numbchuckskills »

mhb wrote: post #24

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 peo…

Not very convinced either. Could be a 1000 other reasons why sales increased.
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