Some people talk about conversion rates of salespages.
Someone over on Bruce Wedding’s new copywriting forum, however, pointed out that what’s really important is the ROI — the “return on investment.”
If your salesletter converts at 10% but has a refund rate of 90% — just to put things into sharp contrast — how much was the salesletter worth?
To be sure, if you had such a high refund rate something would be very amiss! Something clearly wasn’t meeting the expectations of the buyers! And the buyers didn’t find value in what they got.
Did you catch that?
Yes — you just learned the ways in which you can reduce your refund rate:
1. Meet buyer expectations
Whoa! Wait a second! What are the buyer’s expectations.
Well, they come from two primary places — first, the mileau in which the buyer lives and secondly, the expectations you build in the buyer through your copy.
That mileau — that’s where market research comes in. It is mileau of the buyer — what they are reading, what they see on tv, what their preacher talks about, what’s on the news — that builds his or her expectations. Oh, and, of course, their upbringing.
Artfully done, you can contradict the buyer’s expectations from his mileau. But it must be done very carefully.
Primarily, though, the buyer has certain expectations based upon your copy. If the person buys and finds that things are not as they expected — you get refund requests claiming that the salesletter was misleading. And if there is too much of a gap — you may find the FTC knocking on your door.
For instance, if, through the use of testimonials, the buyer thinks he should be able to put up websites in 7 minutes — those testimonials better not be from experienced webmasters with 10 years’ experience! The FTC frowns upon this and considers it mis-representation. Your testimonials should either be of “average” users — or there better be some well-placed disclaimers. (And no, that grayed out text at the bottom of your website really may not keep your butt out of the sling.)
When you have a great product, you owe your prospects your best effort in convincing them, realistically, of the results they can get. Pull out all the stops — even a bit of exaggeration is tolerated! After all, when we are excited — we tend to color up our language and make things much more dramatic.
But most importantly, if the buyer gets what they expect (or more), then your sales should stick and your refund rates should be low.