How to Close the Almost Sale

Copyright (c) 2010 Chris Cardell

So now you have finished the work and using your cool new website to pull your site visitors details in exchange for a free downloadable report of some kind.

And you’ve increased traffic, and even knuckled down to some solid email marketing. And, not wanting to miss any chance of a sale, you’ve also sent your visitors to a sales page after they’ve given you their email details. You’re making some sales. But, as always, it would be nice to be making a few more.

In fact, it’d also be good to capture some of the details of the visitors who “bounce” from your website and leave even before they’ve claimed their free gift.

What can you do?

You should use whats known as an exit pop-up. Pop up windows are windows that a browser will open because of some type of action was taken – for example when a button is clicked on, or, even more common, when you land on or try to exit a web page.

Now, I know popups have had some bad press. And rightly so, in many cases. They can be intrusive, aggravating and, occasionally downright rude.

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For this reason, while I wouldn’t say don’t use them, I would say be very careful about how you do use them and make sure you’re doing some solid testing. But exit-popups are a little different, especially as you have little to lose by using them.

They appear, as the name suggests, when the site-visitor navigates away from your site. If they’re navigating away from your page, then you really do have nothing to lose by giving this a go because they’ve seen your offer for the free report or whatever, and at this point and on this occasion you’ve failed to make the sale.

Since youve paid for them to be there, either by using Adwords or the investment in your Internet Marketing and SEO efforts, it makes sense to have one last go at winning them over, doesn’t it?

In either case, from your page, you should use the exit pop to politely repeat your call to action and restate the benefits and any deadline.

In essence, try to make the sale one last time. You can even apologise for using a popup, and tell them you did it only because you didn’t want them to miss out. If this is done with grace, it won’t even sound cheesy! One word of caution, though: do NOT make a lower-priced offer or throw in more and more bonuses.

In my experience if someone isn’t buying its not the price you’re asking – rather its the value you’re presenting. Cutting the price or throwing in some bonus items at this late stage just seems desperate and even a little dishonest. If for some reason you want to offer something more, your best bet is to lengthen, enhance or improve your guarantee.

This is easy to justify to them with words like, I realise you’re sceptical because youre leaving, so I’m willing to take even more risk on my own shoulders. Instead of lowering value of what you are offering by slashing the price, you are actually increasing the value to the prospect, for the simple reason that you are showing even more confidence in it.

As I say, popups can be tricky and theyre worth testing carefully, but in my experience exit popups are definitely worth trying. You will be amazed at the results.

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