This page provides extensive information on how write your sales letter and how to sell on the web with efficiency. When you want to sell something on the Internet, it's very important to know how to approach a potential customer, how to persuade him to buy by establishing trust.

Introduction - general ideas

You should always remember what you want to do! Your goal! You want to sell or to talk? SELL is the answer isn't it? So that is what you have to do. Stop putting words where there is no need to. Be concise and thorough. Point out the reasons why the customer should buy. Concentrate on the benefits!

To sell you have to excite your prospects and establish credibility. And to achieve these goals you must use words! There's no picture in the world that can make someone purchase anything (unless that someone wants the picture itself, of course). Images, usually, share little information. Words make the information travel and they convince us to take action!

A small note: In some special cases, a picture can be more effective than 1000 words. Charts are such an example. Also, if you design banners, you must use lots of samples to prove that you are really good. There are other situations too, when numerous graphics are a must.

OK... So we established that you're writing to sell. Now try to imagine your ideal customer. Write like you'd be talking with him directly. Face to face! Get into his head! Make him feel that those ideas were written especially for him, that you were thinking about Him (and like him) when you wrote those lines, not about You. (Which by the way, means that you indeed have to think about him when you write.)

Expanding those ideas (a little bit)

Make a profile for your ideal (average) customer: Senior citizen? Freelancer? Family? Single? Partners? Experienced surfer? Newbie? Poor? Rich? Traveler? Special interest (hobby)? Risk-taker? Optimist? Depressive? College? University student? Teenager? Male? Female?....

Now, that you know whom you're talking to, you should have a general idea on how to make this particular individual believe that his life will be much better if he buys that thing that you are selling.

You have to convince him that he needs your product! So you have to get him to think like this: "Things would be a lot easier (faster or/and better) if I only had this thing!". Or: "What a beautiful gift would be this ... for ....". Or: "This guy knows a lot about this subject. I could learn so much from him! I'd better buy this book/software/etc. and learn/use all this knowledge".

Don't expect the customer to put words into his mind by himself! Tell him exactly what you want him to think:

" What a great gift would be this specially designed diamond ring for your beloved fiancee! What a greater sign to prove her that your love is more powerful than ever? Give the most precious of all stones to the most precious person in your life. Just imagine her smile when she will receive this gift! Do the right thing and make her happy. Even if you don't buy this ring now, remember to tell her today how much you love her and how much she means for you." 

See? "Do the right thing!" and let him decide. And that added thought about his wife - he will remember your store (site) for sure if he decides to tell her that day that he loves her and they spend a beautiful day together. Either way you win something. (God knows what will happen if they have a bad day.) :o)

Write in the form of a direct discussion with your prospect. Answer the main questions that every customer must get answers to: What's in it for me? Why should I believe you? Why should I buy from you?

As you can see, people are concerned about themselves and only about themselves, so you have to make them feel that you care about them too. To do that, you have to talk about their problems. If you will use the words "you" and "your" about 6 (six) times more often than the words "we", "I", "me" you have very much taken care of that. Talk about the customer, not about you!

There are many other words with the power to influence people's decisions when it comes to buying stuff. Some good words to use are: free, love, amazing, save, new, benefit, gain, money, happy, proven, guarantee, fast, results, discover, have you, have to, now, fun, value, easy, yours, healthy, natural, magic, secret, comfortable, proud. There are of course bad words: buy, contract, death, bad, loss, worry, taxes, wrong, difficult, sell, fail, liability, cost, obligation, decision. However, don't think that these words shouldn't be used. Just be careful when and how you're using them.

Making people feel comfortable

The site's appearance is very important. But the site must also be easy to understand and use. Take the sales letter for example. It has to be easy to read. As anything that will be read off the screen of a monitor (articles, e-books, sales letters, e-mail messages), it should be written using short paragraphs, followed by a space line. It takes time to read long paragraphs and most people that surf the internet are in a big hurry. For them many short paragraphs seem to be a lot easier and faster to read than a few long ones.

Here's a personal statement: I used not to read articles at the time when I found them. I used to just run from one site to another in search for other and other articles and sites. I read these articles and sites offline! Only from time to time, when I stumbled upon a powerful headline or something, I stopped to read some of the information on a particular page. And I bet I'm not the only one that uses this technique. Because many people pay for being online, you may expect them to be in a big hurry. Perhaps not that big like mine, but a big one anyway. :-)

People's lives revolve around habits. Some are personal habits, some are group habits. But some are pretty general habits, as is the case with the act of reading. Our brains learned to cope with the increasing amount of information and one thing that they do is to select and remember important info and discard unimportant or less important info. That's why most of us share basically the same reading habits.

Now, for a web business, the act of reading is particularly important when it comes to the sales letter. How do people actually read it? Well, they usually start with the headline (the first text lines). If the headline passes the test, and that means that it makes them curious, they will take a look at the subheadings. And again, if these pass the same test, they will actually read the content of the sales letter.

Of course, if the visitors don't like the content too, they will leave your store before they reach the end of the page. So the content is very important too!

And a little tip for you! It's quite common for people to read with special care the post scripts. So I strongly advise you to use a Post Script and list there the most important benefit(s) of your product. Also, you should post on the order page a similar list of benefits (maybe the subheadings that you used in the sales letter). Some people make a habit out of saving the order pages of their favorite places on their computers and review them later. By restating the main benefits, you can easily reinforce people's decision.

More tips and tricks

After closing a sale, open a "thank you" page or send a "thank you" email message. Don't miss the opportunity to offer yet another product! Up to 30% of your customers will bite on this offer as they are already in the mood to buy. If you don't have another product, recommend some products from companies that you are affiliated with (but no more than 3). Make sure that those companies offer great products before deciding to recommend them to anyone!

To get better results, make that offer sound special: "for our customers only...", "to be of help we searched the web for you and we've found this .....". If you can, offer/cut a special deal for your customers to make the offer more appealing. Writing a personal testimonial, after you establish the right amount of credibility, is one of the most successful techniques used. Beware! Use the products yourself, don't write from your imagination! The customer is too important for you to lie him.

The length of the sales letter is a subject of never ending dispute. My advice to you is to make it as long as you need it to be. You really should include all the benefits that you can think of even if this means that your sales letter will be quite long. Note though, that longer sales letters usually outsell shorter ones (perhaps because the long ones offer more information on the product), but very long sales letters are usually not that effective. To accommodate all types of visitors (those that have time to spend and those that are in a hurry), you could provide a short and a long version of your sales letter. Let them choose which one they want to read.

When you are designing your site, take into account the fact that with every click on the mouse required from your visitors, you lose customers; they lose patience and interest and thus leave your site. That's why it should take two clicks (consecutive links) at most to get to the order form from any point in your site.

Make yourself available

Somewhere in the site post the company name or your full name, and give detailed contact info - a real address (not a PO box) often boosts your credibility to the roof, because people feel that they can track you down in case there's a problem. I don't know though, if posting your address for everyone to see (and steal) is such a good idea.

Other means of contact: email, ICQ ID, cell phone or/and home/office phone. Hire someone to answer the telephone or at least have a robot take the messages, to enable people to ask their questions even if you are not instantly available.

Answer promptly! People don't like to wait for answers! (I know I don't!) Even 24 hours can be too long, especially if the customer needs the product fast but he doesn't want to purchase it until he knows more about it. Very often people try to find out if the customer support is as good as it should be, because usually there is a connection between this and the trustworthiness of the company. So answer all questions - fast!

Designing a business site - basic tips

A personal opinion: Have you seen those sites asking you times and times again to buy? I find this to be a very annoying and distracting technique to use. It's exactly the same technique that salesmen use. You enter in the store and they jump to ask you what you want to buy. Or they see you looking at something and they immediately start to tell you how great that thing is. They just don't seem to understand that you were only looking! This kind of sales effort makes people leave stores (and sites) faster than they should!

Why not keep things simple? Say what you have to say and ask to buy with short, built-in content, sentences (links to the order page). Don't waste your customer's time. For example, I tend to lose focus and grow really angry when too many calls for action are posted in a sales letter. Also, I feel pushed to take action, a fact that I hate. And most people feel the same way. A method that I would prefer would be to present some benefits of the product and then ask to buy. In all, about 4 calls for action inside a sales letter should be enough in my opinion (3 or 5 if the sales letter is rather short, respectively long).

Provide links to all your store's pages from every page of your site. When you're just starting and your site has only a few pages, this task can be easily accomplished. Later on, as your site will grow, you'll have to stop linking so heavily. Instead, you should separate your site in different sections.

The order page on the other hand must be always within reach. Remember: this page should be no more than 2 (two) clicks (links) away. When people buy, the decision is usually made on impulse. It comes in the form of an urge to buy. An urge that often lasts only a few seconds. You don't want to lose those seconds by making you customer click 10 links to get to the form where he can fill the credit card information.

The order page shouldn't have links to other pages. The customer is where you want him to be, so you have no reason to offer an opportunity to leave. Make sure that before the customer clicks the "Buy" button, you convince him that his credit card information is secure by giving good credentials or mentioning what third party company processes that information. Use secure pages to collect the credit card information. People are very concerned about security when they're filling in their credit card information and sending it over the Internet. Make sure that nothing bad will happen. Be certain that your customer's credit card info is as secure as it can be. If anything bad happens, most likely it will be considered your fault!

How to write the sales letter

It is statistically proven that people make an impression about a site in the first seconds that they spend on it. They decide in a flash if they will spend more time on the site or just click away. It's the headline that has to have the power to demand attention and convince people to stay.

It should make it clear what you have to offer and tell What Makes Your Product Different. The best attention demanding headlines seem to be the negative ones like "Stop ...."; "Don't ..."; "No ...". Write this headline using a heading tag (H1 or H2). If you want to, Capitalize The First Letter Of Every Word. Also, the headline must include the most powerful benefit.

Think about a phrase that can establish your name/place in the trade market. "Always Coca-Cola!" rings a bell? Make your phrase as specific as possible and include the most important or unique benefit in it. Make it your headline!

Take a lot of time to think about and improve the subheadings. They are what most people will read when they visit your site. And that's the reason why they should be really persuasive, create interest and establish credibility. Each one should include at least one benefit and they have to seem "real". Here's an idea that I like: turning the subheadings into links to the order page.

Take good care to make your sales letter run smoothly. Every paragraph should be linked to the next one in a subtle manner to make the reader go deeper and deeper inside the page. A bad example is this very page think. But I'm not trying to sell anything here!

Keep in mind that you can not sell anything to everyone! Some people need or want your product. Others don't, and it's very hard to prove them that they do! Even if you could eventually convince them to buy, it would take so many words, that you risk to drive away the customers that are already willing to buy! A sales letter that's too long drives away many potential customers. My advice (and not just mine) is to stick with those visitors that feel like buying in the first place, as they are the most likely to buy.

To make your customers spend more time in your store (on your site), and thus increase the chance to close a sale, you need to intrigue interest, create curiosity and to prove people that you know what you are doing.

Provide details about your product to prove people that what you are offering is better, or faster, or easier etc. than any other product on the market. Make the prospect believe that he will be happier if he gives you the money in exchange for the product than he would be if he would choose to live without the product. Capture the reader's attention by using phrases like: "But wait, there's more...",  "Here comes the good part..." or "You'll be amazed when you'll read this..."

Keeping in touch with your customers and visitors

Place a subscription form on every page of your website to collect the e-mail addresses from your potential customers. Write articles to promote your site, include the subscribing form, and allow these articles to be freely published (in their original form and with a link to your site). Write a free e-book and include the subscription form on every page on that e-book.

Now, many people are very concerned about spamming and about their privacy in general. They have good reasons to be that way. That's why your business has to make clear it's privacy policy. Don't Spam! If you don't know what spam is, please visit spam.abuse.net to learn more about it and why you should avoid using it.

Ask your visitors and customers for feedback. There's no better way to improve your store and/or product than asking people directly what they feel about them. You may not like what you'll hear, but you will surely benefit from finding out what's wrong with any of them.

Offer great customer support! Everyone loves good support and many individuals buy stuff only from those sites that make it easily available (usually by e-mail).

Make it easy for your visitors to ask you questions (set up a form in which they can post their messages and e-mail address). Provide the answers as fast as you can!

A more advanced solution is to create a forum or discussion board where visitors or customers can ask and also answer questions. Answer the questions that don't get a response in a few days after they were posted. If you don't know the answer (it will happen, nobody's perfect) or if it is too long, point out a site on the net where such information is or might be posted.

Hint: You just started your forum? Your visitors are not posting any questions or answers? Offer a freebie for posting a number of meaningful messages in a certain period of time.

To keep in touch with your former visitors and customers you must create a newsletter. It can also bring profits because you can sell space for ads. As a general rule, avoid sending your newsletter too often. Most of us receive many e-mails each day and sometimes this thing becomes annoying. Too many e-mails from your part might determine people to unsubscribe. Set your newsletter from a weekly to a monthly release! Provide an easy way for unsubscribing, otherwise you'll use spam and not even know it!

Mention your products in the newsletter. After all the interest is to close more sales!

If a newsletter or a forum are not the things for you, a simple guest book will make your site slightly more interactive and help you build a bond with your visitors.

There is a downside in creating a bond with your customers and visitors. In time, it may become really hard to keep up with their increasing numbers, mostly because you will have to answer too many e-mails every day. This is a very time consuming task! Using an autoresponder can ease up this up to a point. You can also set some autoresponders to send e-mails at defined periods of time to remember your former or potential customers what products or special offers you have. This is a very important feature because e-marketing experience proved that it often takes more than 7 contacts to close a sale!

Autoresponders can also be used to send thank you messages after closing a sale or when a person subscribes to your newsletter, welcome letters when joining a club or a forum, and order confirmations.

E-marketing issues - Pricing your products

Some internet marketing experts say that you should sell more than a single product on your site. And I agree! It makes perfect sense because it makes visitors feel that they have a choice. Also they might buy a product and come back later to buy another one. Many online stores make most of their profits through the means of recurring sales. Former customers can be that important!

Imagine that your store offers three products. The first is a basic form of the product (the lead product): basic features, great stability, unique design, support for a fee - at 49.95$. The second product features many in depth properties, free basic customer support (email only) at the price of 149.95$. The final one is the fully developed product - "the pride of the company" - with free full customer support by e-mail and by telephone and other "free" bonuses at the price of "only" 499.95$ (you have to pay the person that answers that phone - that's the main reason for such a high price). See? A solution for every pocket! Everyone can purchase a version of your product.

Another idea about pricing: is it really easier to sell one 1000$ product than to sell 50 products for 20$ a piece? Most e-marketing experts would say yes. However, I have serious doubts. How many people afford to spend 1000$? On anything! Very few, of course! On the other hand anyone affords to spend 20$. And if you market a 1000$ product, how much it actually costs you to manufacture it? Even 300$ for a single product is very much when your business is small!

Things are not simple at all when it comes to pricing. But there are, as always, some things to take care of first. Before you even start to actually manufacture the product you have to estimate the actual cost per item. Include the raw materials, the initial investment in machines and such, the cost of labor force, etc.

After you come up with the estimate, put... 10% on top of that as a risk margin. Why 10% you ask? I don't know, I just made that up! Choose your own risk margin, as things might not run as smoothly as you initially think.

Now it's the time take a look at the competition's product: features, prices, sales letters etc. Calculate an average price for very similar products that you found from other companies. At this average price, calculate what would be your profit (per item). Is it OK? If not, you might have a problem.

Here is one long term solution: increase the actual value of the product until it gets to be far better than your competition's. Now you can ask even more for it. As much as you need to make the profit that you need. People will pay to get the best there is! Notice though that expensive products are affordable to fewer people though.

But what if you already calculated a BIG profit? Then, to establish yourself as a leader, you might want to try asking smallest price in the industry. In a short time, you might own the leading company in the field. I bet you'll like that!

Here's another tip to increase the number of sales: make the price of a product smaller (make a special offer) for a week or so. Promote this offer for some time before it actually becomes effective. Your business will benefit from this offer in many ways. People will hurry to buy the product while it's cheaper. Perhaps they will buy other products too. Many individuals will visit your site just to see the details of the offer. But, some of them will buy the product. Some will purchase other products too. Others will see the offer and what else your store has to offer and tell other people about it. That's free advertising! Others will come by, keep the name of your site in their minds, and come back another day to buy. Finally, some will just come and go (hopefully not too many of them).

Pricing it's a never ending problem. Even if the price is set for now, you can not afford to stop thinking about it. The market's demand changes very quickly (especially on the web) and you have to keep up with it. Today's price, can be in a month or two, too high, and people will not buy the product anymore. Or it will become too cheap. If this is the case, not only that you'll lose money, but some of your prospects might think that "there must be something wrong with this offer; it's way too good to be true." And the total number of sales might actually decrease.

Good news! Sometimes, even if the price is high, you might be able to leave it that way, without losing sales. Instead of reducing the price, the approach should be to improve the image of that product. In many cases it matters less what the price is! What matters more is the image of the product, because it builds its perceived value! So what has to change is the image, not the price! And it can be improved by means of persuasion. You also have to increase trust! Both in you (your company) and in your product.

Fortunately, it doesn't take much to do this! All you have to do is to use words. It might help to forget all the rules or to break them willingly. You may choose to take your customer by the hand and describe the product in detail, or to put a gun at his head and make him decide: buy or die! Each approach has its advantages and its disadvantages. If you are too courteous, you might seem weak. If you are too violent in your sales effort, you might hurt people and send them away. Balance these two aspects. Be anything but a mediocre salesman. Be a sales wizard!

I almost forgot. The image of the product should be the product. Build an image that seems real. If the product's description appears to be too spectacular no one will believe it. An unbelievable image can be worse than no image at all.

Getting back to general pricing techniques, here are some special payment options:

• a free sample of the product (fewer features, beta version etc.);
• offer more products in a single package at a smaller total price;
• give the product for free for a limited period of time or a limited number of uses;
• offer a rebate after they buy the product (most people forget to apply for it);
• give the product now and receive the money later (when the customer has the money on the credit card);
• let the customer pay in multiple smaller amounts instead of a single big amount;
• sell a basic version of your product for a reasonably smaller price, or even for a ridiculously small one in the hope that you'll make people want the full featured product;
• if you're selling an e-book you can sell or offer for free some sample pages. You can turn important portions black to make them impossible to read and thus increase curiosity;
• present a low and a high priced version of the product side by side. People usually want the better one, even if they'll pay more.

A small, rather unimportant idea: You've done everything you could do, and still very few people are buying one particular item? Get in contact with the owner of a site and convince him to include your product as a bonus along with one of his products in exchange for a small share of the profits. You both may very well profit this way.

The highway to your customer's heart - Trust

Fact: to sell online, you have to gain trust - FAST! And there is no better way to do this than with testimonials. However, testimonials are not the lines of text that you make up yourself. They have to be real. And you have to prove that they are real. Each testimonial should be signed by the customer that "released" it and it should also provide a way to contact that customer (an e-mail address at least).

You're not receiving any testimonials? Ask your customers for some. They might answer to your request. Select the best testimonials that you receive and post them inside your sales letter to back-up your words. If you have a lot of them, create a testimonials page.

Still no testimonials? Offer your customers a bonus for a TRUE testimonial. But... isn't that bribery? Yes it is! So don't do it!

There is a method that works especially if you just launched you site. And here it is: search for some experts in your field. Get their name and ask them (use their name when you establish contact) to say a few words about your newly launched product. Notice that if they agree, you will have to send them the product so that they will know exactly what to say about it. Wasn't that obvious?! :o)

Point out the fact that you will include their signature file (links to their sites). All of them refused? Perhaps you forgot to offer the product/service free for their entire lifetime (or at least as long as your business exits if you provide a service) so that they will have an immediate interest in doing this.

If you still have no positive answers, give the product for free to anyone in exchange for a true testimonial. Anyone but your mother, brother or any other relative... :)

More ideas about making people buy the product

A so called "mistake" is that of listing and describing the features of the product. That's because although features tell a lot about the product, they do not induce a personal reason for the customer to buy. There's nothing that links the person to a feature. Benefits create the link between the person and the product!

Don't expect people to think about the benefits when they read the features. Point out the benefits for them! Who cares that your product is "white"? It's "white" all right. So? What's that got to do with me? "This product's color is a specially designed (or perfect, or snow-like) white, that gives "the product" an intense note of elegance and - Wow! - increases the room's luminosity with 15 to an outstanding 40% and thus gives you all the light that you need to feel comfortable."

This goes hand in hand with the idea of "educating your customers". They might know they want a bathtub, but they might not know what special features a bathtub can have. And what those features "feel" like. That's why you should explain them! Instead of simply listing the features, add and explain the benefits for each and everyone of them. Say "what's in it" for your customer and you will increase the perceived value of the item with every single benefit that you add.

Every little benefit has to appear in the sales letter. The features must appear too, but your site should focus 100% on the benefits. Use headlines and subheadings to stick the benefits in the eyes of your customer. Bullets are fine too.

Keep in mind that you're not selling a "thing", but the idea of that thing. You're not selling a product, you're selling the image of that product.

People don't buy only with their logic, they buy with their emotions too. They don't buy only because of what they think about a specific product, but because of what they feel about it too. And often they even buy something that they don't necessarily Need, but something what they simply Want. So convince them to want, to desire your product.

Rule: don't lie or you'll ruin the customer's trust. He'll not only stop buying from you, but it's possible that he'll spread the word and this can destroy your business!

If you really want to close a sale, you must show confidence in your product by offering a 100% money back guarantee. Even more, use a no question asked policy. A 30 to 60 days guarantee period is usually a reasonable offer. Which should you choose? 30 or 60 days? Well, it depends on the how much you actually believe in your product's quality, but you might want to know that I read that an increase of the guarantee from 30 to 60 days boosted sales with well over 20%. Even 50%.

If you offer a guarantee, make sure that you have a quality product and that your price is not disproportionately high compared with the value of the product (the value in your customer's eyes). If you fail in achieving this, not only you'll receive lots of refund requests and lose a lot of money (perhaps even face bankruptcy), but your business will soon develop a negative image. The Internet is a great communication tool and bad news can travel very fast. Don't make your product a bad news!

A personal note: Benefits are great. They go a long way in helping you to educate your customer. But, as I think about them, I cannot stop thinking that in the end, the reason why I choose a product has very little to do with the benefits. When I chose the web hosting service for example, I knew that I wanted the servers located in USA, I wanted 10 Mbytes disk space, the latest version of PHP and MySQL, great support, and other things like that. It had no influence on me what great things could be accomplished with PHP for example. Because I already knew those things. And I knew those things because I spent time to search and learn what I needed and then I looked for that thing. And I bet that's what most people do. They don't just jump on the first offer simply because it seems great. They search what's on the market. And they take the decision to buy by counting the features, not the benefits. That's what I think!

The freebie trick

Giving away free stuff can be a great tool in building customer's trust and in enticing visitors to buy. Still, you should take care not to turn your site into a freebies site. Unless this is what you want to do, hehe!

Too much "free stuff" will make you lose money if your run a business that wants to sell. One or two free items should be enough. A weekly posted article or another free informational product might be a good idea to increase traffic and determine visitors to come again and again. Ultimately some of them will buy your product.

A little trick: to make the visitor search inside your sales letter, tell him that inside it there is a hidden link to a special freebie. He will try to find it and he will read some of your headlines (even the whole page). If he does that, you stand a better chance to sell what you have to sell. Don't "forget" to keep your promise: post that hidden link to the freebie. You should also hide it. Don't hide it that well though! :o)

Advertising - sometimes you just have to pay

A goal that you MUST achieve is to earn at least 1.00$ per visitor. When your business will grow, you'll need to be able to pay for advertising. If your visitor's value is high enough, then and only then, you can afford to pay for ads. And, unfortunately, from a certain point on, paid advertising becomes a must in order to keep your business growing at a constant rate. That's a moment that you have to get ready for!

Besides, psychologically speaking, when an individual knows that a company affords a good advertising campaign, he will trust it more than another company that doesn't advertise that much. Even if that company's products are rather "common", he will still think that: "If they can afford a good ad campaign, then they must be making some serious bucks! Otherwise they would not advertise so heavily." (Unfortunately things are very often exactly the opposite: unreliable businesses bet their money on extensive advertising)

What would you think if the Coca-Cola Company would cut their advertising budget to almost null? No TV ads, no banners, no sponsorships.  Although you don't need to see a Coca-Cola ad to remember to buy this soft drink, you will definitely think at some point: "Something must have happened with them!" This would be your words, right? And soon everyone will think that way. Such a rumor can kill even a big company. As customer's confidence drops suddenly, so will the sales!

Yes! Advertising is a must to boost sales! But at certain points is becomes like a drug! Without it people just don't trust you as they used to! And to keep your business growing, it takes more and more amounts of money spent on advertising!

Finishing the sales letter

When you feel that the sales letter is finished, verify if there's anything more that you could do:

• offer more value (include some bonuses or find more benefits);
• be more clear and concise;
• improve the benefits;
• improve the guarantee;
• be more interactive;
• keep it "real" - remove skepticism by justifying claims;
• use a stronger call for action;
• include more testimonials;
• offer support.

After you take care of those problems, then - and only then, ask a few friends for feedback. Ask them to be sincere and tell you all that they don't understand or that they don't feel to be right in your effort to close the sale. Use this invaluable feedback to fine tune the sales letter.

Now you're ready to run it for a while! If you are getting a 5% conversion rate it's Great! Usually, the response is between 0.5% and 2%. However, it should never get under 0.3%. If it does, you've got a problem. Or your sales letter is not good enough, or the traffic is not targeted enough, or there is not enough market for your product. :(

Final considerations: There's always room for improvements in your sales letter. But, when you make changes in your sales letter, make them in a step by step (one by one) manner. By doing them this way, you'll be able to track the effects of the changes that you made. You don't want to completely ruin what you have done so far, do you?!

The definitive rule to customer's happiness: Always over deliver. Promise, keep your word and do a little extra.

PS. Nothing important. But... do you remember what I told you about the PS? Well, now you know it's true. Everyone reads it!

:-)

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