Why Am I Making No Sales?

Introduction: A few weeks ago one of my subscribers wrote to me asking why she was making so few sales despite having a steady stream of visitors to her sales page.

Below is a copy of the reply I sent. I decided to reproduce it here (warts 'n' all) because I think it's an area that affects a lot of us -- especially when we're starting out.

Here goes...

There are so many factors at work when selling a product online that it's difficult to pin-point what's working and what isn't without really getting into the habit of testing everything.

I know you're not interested in throwing more money at this, but I would contend that you need to start using testing and tracking to really find out how to grow the business.

For example, recently I spent $40 on getting 40,000 banner impressions across a range of sites. Those impressions are still going on at the moment with about 20,000 or so already displayed. So far, those 20,000 have brought in about 400 visitors.

Now, before I started properly testing everything, I would have made a few assumptions about those 400 visitors.

For example, I would have assumed that, at the very least, they would have resulted in 2 or 3 sales. The reason I would make that assumption is because Dynamic Popup Generator makes, on average, one sale for every 40 or so visitors. It's easy to see why I could jump to the conclusion that the 400 visitors would have resulted in at least enough sales to make a profit on the $40 invested.

As it happens, however, not all visitors are the same. From those 400 visitors I haven't made a single sale! In fact, all 400 visits to date have resulted in 2 people downloading the demo and nothing else.

Now, if I wasn't tracking the visitors that clicked on the banners, I would never have known that. I would have assumed that, on the law of averages, those visitors would have resulted in a few sales and, therefore, I was getting a decent return on my investment.

The big lesson to learn from that is you need to track and test everything or else you risk throwing a lot of money down the drain.

If you run an ad in an ezine, you need to know how many people clicked the ad. That can be achieved using a basic click-tracker. But, knowing how many people who clicked is no good at all if you don't know what they did after they arrived on your page. Did they order? Did they sign up for your newsletter?

If the ad sends you 1,000 visitors you'd be tempted to run it again. If you found out, however, that those 1,000 visitors produced just 2 sales -- and the ad cost more than that to run -- then you'd know that you need to look elsewhere to find the right kind of traffic for your offer. (There are other factors at work as well, of course. If, for example, the ad gave the impression that the visitor would get something for free only to arrive on the site and find nothing, that would reduce the chances of getting a good return from those visitors).

Personally, I do all my testing and tracking using the script at http://www.dyna-tracker.com. Since I've started using it, it's opened up a whole world of possibilities. Now I can invest money in advertising and, when I find a source of visitors that results in sales, I can continue investing in that source. When I find a source of visitors that produces nothing, I drop it and move on.

Another big factor involved in making sales is, of course, the sales page.

Again, the sales page isn't something that you write up and then forget. It should be constantly evolving and improving. Again, using something like DynaTracker, you can constantly test different versions of your sales page to see which one produces most sales.

Let's say, for example, that you have two great headlines and you don't know which one to use. So, you do a "split test" -- 50% of your visitors will see one version and 50% will see the other version. After a time you'll see which one performs best. Then you can continue using that one and start comparing other aspects of the page such as the opening paragraph, the bullet points, the PSs, etc. (On my Dynamic Popup Generator site I learned that having the demo sign up box at the top of the page produced less than half as many sales as having it at the bottom of the page...)

Again, on the sales page, I think you should take some time out to critically examine it with an objective eye. Compare it to other direct sales pages to see how it matches up.

Without wishing to be mean, I think there's room for improvement. For example, as you go down the page, it splits into two sides and starts to become an little crowded and even a little 'messy'. You'll see that the vast majority of direct sales pages follow a coherent start to finish (top to bottom) pattern. This allows the visitor to follow a direct line down through the important points in the easiest way possible.

You should also look at using a table to hold the contents of your page together rather than taking up the full width of the screen. If you're not sure how to do that, just go to a site like Dynamic-Popup-Generator.com and save the page to your PC (click 'Edit' and then 'Save as...'). Now, open the page up in your web editing software and replace the content with your own.

There are probably other factors we could discuss, but I think I've covered the two most important ones. By watching how others are doing it, you have scope for improvement on your sales page. And, by testing and tracking everything, you can invest your advertising money safe in the knowledge that, if it brings no sales, it WILL bring some knowledge and you won't be just shooting in the dark.

Conclusion: I know you've heard it often enough already, but testing and tracking really IS the key to growing your business.

I find the script available at http://www.dyna-tracker.com really good (and reasonably priced).

If you download it today and start tracking just a FEW of your links and start split-testing just SOME aspects of your sales pages, you'll have a lot of fun learning what works and what doesn't -- and, of course, you'll have a lot MORE fun seeing how that information helps you grow your income very quickly.