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John Danenbarger
If you were to record a sales call, how do you think the transcript would read? It probably would not make a great script, would it? There would be lot of "ums" and "ahs," plenty of pauses and repetition, no shortage of topics that did not need to be there and a few things that you wish you would have mentioned but forgot.
It would not look like a record of efficient persuasion.
And that would be a successful call!
When you are talking with a client, mistakes in diction matter little. It is how conversation works. If a sentence does not come out right, we can immediately produce another that corrects it, and the person to whom we are talking forgets the mistake that came before. As long as the point gets across and persuades, the conversation has worked.
Online selling is much less forgiving.
According to a report by the BBC, a single spelling mistake on a page of Web copy can have the effect of halving conversion rates.
"If you project this across the whole of internet retail, then millions of pounds/dollars worth of business is probably being lost each week due to simple spelling mistakes," said Charles Duncombe, director of the Just Say Please group, a network of online retail stores.
There are a few lessons that can be drawn from that report:
- The first is the importance of testing. Duncombe was able to claim that spelling errors halved conversions because he corrected an error and watched sales double. That might have been a anecdotal study and not particularly scientific, but it does suggest that a great deal can be learned by making changes and measuring the results.
- The second is that while online sales copy matters, it is a tool that can only be used once. You get one shot at persuading a lead to buy. If a single mistake can kill that shot, then you need to make sure that you have enough traffic flowing through the site to make up the numbers.
- The last lesson though is perhaps the most important: social media bridges the gap between the rigidity of a static sales page and the flexibility of a one-to-one chat with a lead.
When you use social media, you are still beating objections, promoting sales points and building a brand in written language. You still have to pay attention to typos, spelling mistakes and all of the little errors that can kill a page of sales copy.
But if you do make those mistakes you can correct them. Facebook comments are filled with clarifications and answers to questions posed by prospects unclear about a post. Deleting a tweet you wish you had not made is as simple as clicking… twice.
Using social media to communicate with a group of prospects is not as forgiving as a real chat. Mistakes remain visible if you do not remember to delete them but because social media users write like they talk, they do not have the same trust-destroying effect as an error in a page of sales copy.
When you are selling, you want to be as efficient as possible. But no one is ever 100 percent right all the time. You want to make sure that your static copy is reviewed and edited to eliminate errors, your sales calls are clear and persuasive — and your social media typing is chatty and conversational.
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