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If You're Not Completely Satisfied with this Article,
I'LL DOUBLE YOUR MONEY BACK!
© 1998 by Chris Ayers
Over ten years in Direct Marketing and three years on the
Web has taught me many valuable lessons. But perhaps none
are more valuable than this one:
"If you offer a product or service WITHOUT a guarantee,
you're THROWING AWAY MONEY!"
That's right ... I said you're throwing away money! Why
do I say that? Because guarantees can do two very important
things that will help grow your profits: increase sales
and reduce returns.
How in the world do guarantees lead to an increase in
sales? There are several ways. First, when you offer a
guarantee, you reduce the skepticism around the purchase
of your product or service. And although things seem to
be improving, consumers are still leery of making a
purchase via the Web. Guarantees can help you chop
away at their cautiousness.
Guarantees can also give you almost instant credibility
with potential customers. Let me give you an example.
One of my first direct mail products years ago was a
self-study program that I marketed to engineers preparing
for a certification exam. The product was a database
program that presented over 1,000 questions and answers
in a number of categories, graded responses and provided
scores.
When I first offered the program in a trade magazine, my
sales weren't even enough to cover the cost of the ad that
I placed. After some research, I learned that there was
one key thing missing: a guarantee.
I changed my ad and sales letter to include a guarantee
and the results were amazing! The number of responses
to the same ad WITH my guarantee increased by a factor
of 20! And my conversion rate from my sales letter
rose from 10% to almost 40%! No other changes ... just
by adding a guarantee.
Guarantees will increase sales. And the stronger the
guarantee, the larger the increase. And a strong guarantee
can do something else even more dramatic - it can actually
reduce returns.
I know what you're thinking ... if I offer a guarantee,
I'm inviting returns. Not true, at least not based on
my experience.
I produced another information product a few years later
that I marketed to the same group of engineers. Along the
way, I experimented with a variety of guarantees.
What I found was the stronger the guarantee, the fewer the
returns. I got fewer returns with a 90 day guarantee than
I did with a 30 day guarantee. And I got fewer returns
when I offered to let them keep some bonus items than
when I didn't say one way or the other. And check this
out ... I got almost no returns when I made my guarantee
an UNCONDITIONAL LIFETIME GUARANTEE!
The bottom line is this. You are going to get some amount
of product returns. Perhaps the two biggest things that
you can do to drastically reduce the number of returns
you get is to offer a great product and to offer a strong
guarantee.
Here's what Internet veteran Jim Daniels of JDD Publishing
<http://www.bizweb2000.com>, has to say
about offering
guarantees for your products.
"A big key to selling online is offering a no-hassle return
policy. Since I released my book, Insider Internet Marketing,
I've always processed speedy returns to anyone who asks for
one. While my sales figures have been strong, returns have
been near zero since day one (Average 1%).
Although many info-product marketers can expect up to 5%
returns, the key is to keep your information current and
always offer a full money-back refund to your prospects! The
sales increases will far outweigh the actual returns you'll
process."
Let me close by echoing one thing that Jim mentioned. I
think it's really important to not haggle with customers
that want to return your product. It's just not worth
the time and effort, not to mention the opportunity for
bad "word of mouth" to spread through the web.
If you don't offer a guarantee today, start. If you do,
look at it making it even stronger. I think that you'll
be happy with the results :-)
Chris Ayers is an Internet Marketer and publisher of the FREE
newsletter, "Unlimited Traffic!" In each issue, you get the latest
tools, tips and techniques for driving more traffic to your site.
Visit his site at http://unlimitedtraffic.com or
subscribe by
sending any message to traffic-on@mail-list.com
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