Saving the Sale
One thing that all of the best marketers do is called "saving the sale". The easiest way to explain this powerful technique is to give you a real-life example.
Christmas is almost upon us, and my wife and I do a good deal of shopping online. The other night we were looking at a website called PersonalizationMall.com and pricing out personalized mugs. We're going to give each of our parents a coffee mug with a picture of our two little girls on it. It will be a personal present from the kids to their grandparents.
Anyway, we added the mugs to the shopping cart and uploaded the photo we want added to the mugs, but it was getting late and we were both ready for bed so we decided to hold off until the morning.
Well the following day we logged into our email and there was an unexpected message from PersonalizationMall. It said something along the lines of "We noticed you started to place an order but did not complete the process. If you go back and complete the order now, we'll give you 20% off your purchase."
WOW! I was impressed. We logged back in to our account, completed the order, and received an unexpected discount. But saving a few dollars on a purchase is not the point of this post.
Instead, let's look at the transaction from the merchant's point of view. A prospect visited their site and walked through the steps of personalizing a product and preparing to order, but for some reason the prospect stopped and left their site without buying.
What do most websites do in this situation?
Nothing.
But PersonalizationMall.com applied the Saving the Sale technique and turned a dead end into a paying customer. Sure, they only received eighty percent of the revenue they could have, but they understood that eighty percent is better than zero percent. And now that I'm happy with the services, there's a good chance I'll buy from them again.
This is the lesson I want to leave you with. To be really successful you have to squeeze every last sale that you can out of your visitors. If a prospect looks interested but is on the fence and can't decide, offering them even a small discount can push them to take action. If your profit margins can't support a discount, offer them a bonus product or some other kind of reward.
Saving the sale should be an essential part of your marketing plan. It will increase your profits and build successful relationships with your customers, making them more likely to buy from you again.
Christmas is almost upon us, and my wife and I do a good deal of shopping online. The other night we were looking at a website called PersonalizationMall.com and pricing out personalized mugs. We're going to give each of our parents a coffee mug with a picture of our two little girls on it. It will be a personal present from the kids to their grandparents.
Anyway, we added the mugs to the shopping cart and uploaded the photo we want added to the mugs, but it was getting late and we were both ready for bed so we decided to hold off until the morning.
Well the following day we logged into our email and there was an unexpected message from PersonalizationMall. It said something along the lines of "We noticed you started to place an order but did not complete the process. If you go back and complete the order now, we'll give you 20% off your purchase."
WOW! I was impressed. We logged back in to our account, completed the order, and received an unexpected discount. But saving a few dollars on a purchase is not the point of this post.
Instead, let's look at the transaction from the merchant's point of view. A prospect visited their site and walked through the steps of personalizing a product and preparing to order, but for some reason the prospect stopped and left their site without buying.
What do most websites do in this situation?
Nothing.
But PersonalizationMall.com applied the Saving the Sale technique and turned a dead end into a paying customer. Sure, they only received eighty percent of the revenue they could have, but they understood that eighty percent is better than zero percent. And now that I'm happy with the services, there's a good chance I'll buy from them again.
This is the lesson I want to leave you with. To be really successful you have to squeeze every last sale that you can out of your visitors. If a prospect looks interested but is on the fence and can't decide, offering them even a small discount can push them to take action. If your profit margins can't support a discount, offer them a bonus product or some other kind of reward.
Saving the sale should be an essential part of your marketing plan. It will increase your profits and build successful relationships with your customers, making them more likely to buy from you again.
posted by Mike Collins at 9:05 PM
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