7 Sales Page & Marketing Methods to Avoid
Posted by Holly in Honest Marketing Methods, Top 10 Tips
Too often Internet Marketers follow in the footsteps of other webmasters or known marketers, and oftentimes this can be a setback to your business and website. Although you may view the website of a marketing guru and see how his sales process works, it doesn’t mean it is the best route for you to take. When I started working online I really took notice of the methods used by the big marketing gurus at that time. I basically attempted the very same process on my own website – and it worked – but only temporarily. I’ve learned over the past five years that the same old marketing methods that were used back then, may not be as useful now in 2010.
Why is that? Too many people are using the Internet to seek answers and a real way to make money online – but the websites are full of the same old pitches and practices. People who have been misguided repeatedly by these websites that are offering unattainable riches, are seeking answers – yet would prefer a different approach. It’s only natural that a person who has lost money on a product that was pitched so well, and has experienced this again and again, would seek something different. If you have a website or product to sell – to be successful online you need to be DIFFERENT.
To be different – to stand out in a positive light when scammers abound online, I recommend avoiding the following 7 common sales page & marketing methods.
1. Don’t Make Exaggerated Promises
Many sales pages start out with a “Dear Friend,” and by asking a question, such as: “How would you like to make lots of money online every day while literally sitting and doing nothing?” Well, as lovely as it sounds to some people – it becomes insulting after a while. People aren’t dumb, but are at times desperate to make money online. When someone starts their quest for information on how to succeed online, they may see many websites that ask a similar question. After being lied to a few times like that, they will grow a disliking and distrust in others who ask similar questions on their sales pages. Treat the reader with respect and do not exaggerate claims or promises that tell them they can make money with no work or by doing very little. In fact, I have had much success with doing the opposite – and telling readers to not buy my book if they are unable or unwilling to work hard, learn, and apply the techniques.
2. Don’t Force the User to Register
Have you ever visited a website that didn’t let you view any content without registering? Did you like being forced to register – or did you click off of the page rather than giving out your e-mail address? Personally, I more often than not will click off that website if I am forced to register and give my e-mail address, before viewing content. Forcing user registration right when someone visits your website, is not a recommended method. Let people view your content and read your useful quality articles. Then, offer a free report or guide to them – and at that time you can ask for an e-mail address to use to send them their download. Protect their privacy and respect their information – and they will appreciate that you were not just creating that entire website to capture leads.
3. Avoid Creating Excessive One-Time Offers, Upsells and Downsells
Truthfully, one-time offers are extremely profitable. I teach about how to create one-time offers in my book Honest Riches. But please be tactful with your use of One-Time Offers. An example of a one-time offer is this: after someone registers at your website or to download a free product from you, he is then taken to a one-time offer (OTO) page. The OTO page is presented in a manner that creates an urgency for the prospective customer to buy a whole slew of products at a discounted price – and the only chance the user will have to purchase is at that very moment. The webmaster usually creates it in a way that says once the user clicks away, they will never see the OTO page again and the offer will be gone forever. It’s tough to balance using an OTO on your website without bombarding your readers with junk and angering them. So, you need to be tactful and do not over-hype or over-sell. First and foremost, do not just use a bundle of generic resale rights products as your OTO.
Honestly, I did this when I first started working online and although I was making money from the OTOs, the products were not extremely high-quality and readers were getting upset. If you are going to have a OTO, offer only extremely valuable and useful products. Secondly, many big marketers go this route – they offer an OTO – then if the user clicks “No thanks, I don’t want it,” they are directed to a downsell page that offers the OTO at about half the price – if they say “No thanks to that,” they are taken to another page where the OTO is about 25% of the original price. By this time, the reader may be furious that they are unable to reach the destined download page they originally signed up for, as they are being bombarded with upsells, downsells and cross-sells. Do not do this to your poor reader, as he will want nothing to do with you again. If you use a OTO, be tactful and do not go overboard with the number of up, down and cross-sells.
4. Be Sure to have a Search Box
Something that can be baffling to a user is when he is on your website and looking for a specific piece of information, but cannot find a search box. Be sure to have a search bar or box located somewhere that is easy to locate and use on your website. If they can’t find the information right away, they will click off and go back to do a search elsewhere.
5. If Selling Online, Stop Selling & Start Caring
Stop using methods that are typical to online marketers or the average sales person. The “Dear Friend,” pitches and the over-the-top sales methods that are commonplace today – need to stop if you want to make long-term income online. If you have an excellent high-quality and unique product, you can setup your sales page and funnel to “sell itself.” It is a phenomena I realized over the past five years. I never overly pushed my book Honest Riches, yet it has continued to sell over the years. The less hyped-up I have become, the more sales I have made. Take the time to care about your readers, do your best to answer their questions with sincerity, although it can be overwhelming at times – if you receive a lot of emails. Try your best to be real and down-to-earth with people, and it will payoff in the long-run. You will establish trust and a relationship with the readers.
6. Lack of Interactivity & Website Flexibility
If someone likes your website and content, be sure to have ways for the reader to either subscribe by e-mail, subscribe to your RSS feed and submit your content to either Digg, Twitter or other social sites. Make it simple for the reader to interact through other methods, such as commenting on your posts. Do not require the reader to register in order to comment, as this is a big turn off to some people. If you are unsure as to how to interact these things into your website, and you are using WordPress – then you can install some plugins to do so. All the WordPress plugins are available here to download for free.
7. Check Your Spelling
Be sure to check your spelling and grammar before publishing your website and going live. We all make mistakes, but when your website is being viewed by lots of visitors, it’s difficult to instill trust in sending you money for your product if you cannot spell! Some people are not great spellers, but be sure to use spell-check and have someone else read your work over. If there are lots of spelling mistakes, it may cause people to doubt you or your product.
23 Responses to “7 Sales Page & Marketing Methods to Avoid”
Leave a Reply
Jenny
24. Mar, 2010
These are great tips Holly, I especially agree with not getting to OTO happy:) it is very frustrating.
The caring is key when I started losing focus on money and helping others by answering questions etc. I found that some money started to come my way.
Could you recommend any good wordpress themes to use for sales pages?
These tips will greatly help me with future sales pages I may create. Thanks again!
Holly
24. Mar, 2010
Thanks Jenny! Good question on the sales page theme for wordpress. At http://www.wordpressandbeyond.com I am using a good one I got but it is not for sale commercially – and it is not easily customizable
which is not good either. I will search around and maybe I’ll have someone create one – I too have had this problem before. I’ll post again if I find anything – thanks for the comment Jenny!
Jacinta Dean
24. Mar, 2010
Hi Holly,
Great post! And great points!
I am another one that dislikes the whole OTO process, I can understand how it works, however I don’t like the down-sell, that is the one that annoys me the most. Often if I get presented with a down-sell, that is when I make the decision that this person just wants my money and doesn’t really care about anything else. There are some very big Guru’s whom shall remain nameless however I think we know who they are that use this process all the time.
I have been trying desperately to get off their lists!
I also agree on the registering process. A lot of people are making squeeze pages with nothing on there other than a please sign up. I know the money is in the list so to speak but these people do need to give content too!
And re the spelling this one is a hard one for me. I am Australian and we spell according to the English language which is different to American. For example ‘Colour/Color’, Centre/Center, etc etc. I actually had someone point out my so called spelling mistakes to me, however according to my language I was spelling correctly!
Yes I believe in checking our spelling and grammar, however I find it insulting when someone is telling me I can’t spell when I can according to my own country. I do believe we also need to allow for some spelling difference from an international point of view.
Once again, an awesome read. I always learn something new when I visit here.
Cheers
Jacinta
P.S Has Misty come home yet?
Holly
24. Mar, 2010
Thanks for the comment Jacinta – it was interesting to read about how people correct your already correct spelling!
I agree that we should not go out and criticize each other over every little thing. I have had many people point out my own spelling mistakes, so I thought I should mention this, as it does bother people. 
So, I also know the marketing gurus you are talking about and I know they are making good money off of their OTOs but I think they should cut back a little bit (on the downsells and cross-sells). It is not worth losing the trust of a potential customer … So, lastly, it is great to hear from you Jacinta, and sadly Misty is not home yet. Today I spoke with more neighbors and they are so friendly here in this small town. They are all going out into their yard/properties and barn to look out for my cat…I really hope someone finds her. We have coyotes in our woods here …so that is the only big danger for her besides the cars/roads….I hope she comes back soon -thanks for asking!
Davin Ogden
25. Mar, 2010
Hmmm, a very good post Holly. You have some awesome points in there. I do agree, the hype has got to come to an end. It seems to me, at least this is what I think, is that people are ready for the truth and honesty in all of this.
The tactics that were working years ago, have lived their life. Sure, perhaps they were powerful strategies in their time, so many people hopped on the bandwagon, and implemented them as well, that it’s come to a point of distrust.
Personally, I think marketing is moving, and has to move into the non-hype era. I absolutely can’t stand hype anymore…it’s been wore out. People need to know the facts, and simply take it from there.
Thanx for the insightful post Holly…all the best
Holly
25. Mar, 2010
I agree Davin! Those hype tactics really did work well about 5 years ago – since then so many things have changed. I hope people stop teaching some of these things, as they can be damaging to business if taken to the extreme!
Marc White
25. Mar, 2010
HI there Holly…thx for the helpful comments…just today a top-notch IM person found the 1 spelling error we had missed in our first big long sales page letter for our Double Your Energy in 14 Days product!
and we hope, like you, that a genuine non-hype approach will work.
Thx again here and for your past kindness to Sandy and me.
Irish Tom
25. Mar, 2010
Hi Holly. This is a really great post. BTW, glad to see you back blogging..we all missed you.
I have been sitting on the side lines for the past few months because of a little health scare. Got High Blood Pressure, which is now controlled, but during tests, my Doc decided to give me the once over and by a LONG process of elimination, (he was worried about my blood samples), I discovered I have excess Iron in my blood, so have to be very careful as it can effect the liver and heart. So I got to have what they call a regular flobotomy (taking blood every 2/3 weeks) to “dilute” the blood, as iron stays in the system and does not be disguarded in the normal way. Bottom line I am going to be fine, but got to watch my diet (Damn..LOL)
Found this interesting so I will be using this knowledge in a new blog I am putting together as the info is not widely known….
Anyhow, back to your blog…A very appropriate timing for this article and it reminds me of all the BS I had to contend with when I started.
OTO’s I find to be particularly vile and as I said before in other articles, you must treat your internet customers as friends and show them you care. That message does work. You Holly do this yourself and that is why you are so popular on line, along with of course HONESTY…If you cannot be honest, there is no place for you here.
I found Jacinta’s comments about the spelling differences interesting. When I come out to California just over 5 years ago, I had to contend with the spelling differences and even the terminology for car parts eg Trunk (Boot), Hood (Bonnet) and then Elevator (Lift) and Bathroom (Loo or Bog).
And finally, the one almost got me in trouble with the cops..!!! In Ireland, when we go out for a night at the Pub, we refer to it as a “good nights crack”…I found you cannot use that term here.!!
Well done Holly, and I will be in touch soon about that new web site we spoke about.
Sorry Misty is still missing. Please God he will turn up.
Holly
25. Mar, 2010
Thanks Tom for the wonderful comment.I am glad you are doing ok – but that doesn’t sound like fun going to give blood every couple of weeks. I hope you will be ok. It’s so good to hear from you. As of now,I am packing for a long 7 hour drive tomorrow so I must keep this short. But I thought the comment was very nice and the last part about your English and terminology was very funny! I remember hearing those words before when I worked for DHL with lots of guys from the UK! I was very confused by the terms as well!
So good to hear from you Tom and I hope to start posting on here regularly again – it has been wayyy too long!
Kieran
25. Mar, 2010
Was doing a lot of head nodding during my read of your post. Have experienced a lot of these tactics more recently, when purchasing a IM products.
I’m thinking the tactics are being taught/promoted by the high-profile guru’s in their high-end coaching programs. The next up and coming IM’ers then spit them out left right and centre (excuse my NZ spelling BTW). We “want-to-learn-more” consumers (they call us newbies) are the ones hit hard by their offers.
It makes me laugh when I go through their OTO process, as I see it as a game trying to guess when I will finally get to the other side to access my initial intended product. It took me about 15/20 mins one time to get through to a recent product purchase because of the auto-play videos on each OTO page. There were 4x OTOs.. wtf!!
So what are your thoughts on auto-play videos Holly?
Kieran
PS. here is a new sales page builder called ‘Sales Page Theme’. Its WordPress-based and created by the boys at Unique Blog Designs (not an affiliate link) http://www.squeezetheme.com/salespagetheme/
Holly
25. Mar, 2010
You are right about who is teaching these methods! And thank you so much for the link to the theme – looks pretty good!
Bill Jones
25. Mar, 2010
This is a good post, Holly. I don’t run up on many one time offers. I don’t usually buy them. I don’t like to feel pressured to buy with a specific time.
I hope you get your cat back safe and sound soon. I am sure you and that cute and special son are very very attached to Misty.
You installed wordpress on my site for me about a year or so ago and I really appreciate it.
I am also one of your affiliates.
Take care of yourself and your son. I wish you the best of all life has to offer.
Bill
Jacinta Dean
26. Mar, 2010
Hi Holly, Tom & Kieren,
I just had a good laugh at the different spelling etc. Don’t worry Tom we call our bathroom/toilet a ‘Loo’ too!
Back to the importance of the post. We can only help so many people and hopefully more and more marketers will have more integrity for this industry from a long term point of view instead of get rich quick method!
It is interesting how those so called Guru’s that taught the OTO “Would you like fries with that” marketing are now retiring.
Hmmmmm Food for thought…….
Jacinta
P.S Prayers for Misty.
Dagmar
26. Mar, 2010
Hi Holly,
I really enjoyed your post and also all the comments people made. I am still pretty new to this but I am thinking that all these squeeze pages and OTOs and stuff are getting to be annoying . also, for me still so much on the reciebing end of all those offers -man it is hard to get good information- I get more and more confused at wich way to take. I keep signing up for newsletters I hav NO WAY of reading… ah well. one of htese days i will find the perfect way for me.
about the caring part. That is exactly why o bought your book! You, finally seemed liek a real person in the wild jungle of marketing gurus! And since you are a woman i figuerd i would give it a try ! It was well worth it.. typing that i think I should go and reread your book! and stopp listening to all the other people!
Well. I just wnated to let you know I really liked your post!
cheers, Dagmar
PV Reymond
27. Mar, 2010
Hi Holly,
I couldn’t agree more, you touched something really important.
I think that it is important that you analyze the techniques and strategies others are using and then test them to see if they work for you.
Also, you have to adapt them to your business and give it your personal touch to stand out from the crowd.
Being unique and different is crucial in any business.
As you say, if you make a promise you have to deliver on it… if you over deliver it is even better because your customers will be happy and they will come back to you…
It is a principal that Napoleon hill called going the extra mile.
To succeed in this kind of business you have to build trust and credibility because people buy form those the belive in and trust.
On the other hand, you have to make things easy for your visitors, if you have lot of stuff on your site that confuses them, they never come back.
Thanks,
^PV Reymond
Dani Truax
12. Apr, 2010
Wow! I don’t know how the heck I ended up here but I really like your take on things! I’m quickly becoming overwhelmed by the more ‘pushy’ methods out there. They just aren’t for me. I’m glad someone else thinks the same!
Holly
23. Apr, 2010
Thanks Dani – I am glad you stopped by!
Bill Vlasak
29. Apr, 2010
All your seven points are well taken since they are all well thought out and so true in today’s market.Whether that will change or evolve further we will have to see.
It might be added that the internet consumer in particular,is accustomed to sales letters with hype and at the same time becoming somewhat immune.Woe to those just starting out.
So I am reminded of your non-sales sales letter approach.
During my previous off-line ventures into sales of various products ,”hype” is one thing I could never convincingly exude.Needless to say,I failed miserably in outside sales.Inside sales behind a desk where prospective customers called me was easy.I even made one sale for $100,000 back then.But that was then and this is a new ballgame.
Your approaches suit my personality a lot better and I have implemented these aspects in my blogs.It is always a good feeling when an honest friend has the same views and thereby supports my efforts..
Thanks,Holly.
Cheryl
02. May, 2010
Holly, what a relief it is to hear a sane and calm voice in the wilderness of internet hype. Regarding the spelling and grammar, I totally agree. One of the problems is that articles are often written by people whose first language is not English. Even when their spelling and grammar is correct, they often have odd ways of expressing things. I love to read an article that flows and sounds “right” to my English-speaking ear, as does yours.
Holly
19. Jun, 2010
Thanks Cheryl for the insight. I agree!
Louise M.
05. Jul, 2010
Awesome post!
Internet marketing has to be kept simple and human if I may say. I do believe internet marketers should sometimes take example on their own life. What I mean is that if you meet someone that is always talking to you about how cheap you can buy a phone because he got a friend that sells some great ones and the day after he can can give you a great guide to cut your phone bills and you’re lucky ’cause it’s really cheap only today… well, you would stop seeing that guy pretty quick.
People want value and they want more than products. They want to improve their own life. I love when you say “start caring”. Yes! Overly-promotional articles can’t be effective. What I like is that, even though internet is full of spammers, quality content always win, always get noticed, talked about, retweeted and so on.
That’s what I try to do on my blog and that’s how I see this marketing thing.
Give more than you sell, you’ll sell more.
Thank you for this brilliant post!
Louise M.
CoolAffiliateMarketingGuide.com
Sergey Andreev
14. Sep, 2010
Under item 1 – This is the same in Russia!
In paragraph 2 – This is about how to take hostage a subscriber! Very funny! In Russia, it also is!
Under agenda item 3 – Quite precisely noticed. Agreed.
It’s like self-deprecation to the buyer.
For item 5 – trust of readers – a treasure!
Under agenda item 6 – Wonderful prompted to download plug-ins! Excellent = Holly!
Under item 7 – This is true for Russian sites. Alas … .
Holly
20. Sep, 2010
Thanks so much Louise for this insightful awesome comment. I am sorry for such a late reply but I look forward to checking out your blog and it is so refreshing to meet likeminded marketers online! Take care and hope we keep in touch.