
Improving sales with 3 characters and a misspelling - adityakothadiya
http://maxklein.posterous.com/radically-improving-sales-for-high-priced-pro
======
DenisM
This thread is funny and depressing at the same time. So a guy found a way to
improve his sales be significant number. Tons of people respond with "yeah,
but it wouldn't work for _me_ \- I hate it". How is this even relevant?
Clearly you are not his target audience. He has data to back up his approach,
while you have a precious little of an opinion.

It's not about _you_ , it's about _customers_.

~~~
mattmcknight
It is relevant because you are annoying some possible customers if you do
this. It is worth knowing that it is not universally good advice.

It could be that his software was mis-priced and poorly marketed (just added a
link on download.com). Publishing his price may have hurt him if he was way
over or under (making his stuff look cheap) other vendors. Getting sales leads
certainly helped him, but there are other many ways to do that AND publish the
price of the software. Price discrimination can be effective (see automobile
sales), but it isn't exactly an endearing strategy.

~~~
assemble
For business to business sales (especially the more expensive stuff), that is
almost always how it's done. Call the vendor for a quote, they'll either tell
you or send out a sales/marketing rep, lots of hand wringing, then maybe a
deal of some sort.

------
es3754
Nice email trick. I personally hate when I can't easily find pricing online
though.

~~~
nzmsv
To me, a quote request form says the company isn't really serious about this
whole Internet thing :) I associate it with a site someone put up in 1995 and
hasn't touched since. Probably just me.

But, in this case this may actually be a win, since the product isn't mass
market. Whoever goes through the trouble of filling out a request is likely
already sold on the product, so less time spent on sales.

~~~
ricardo
This is the typical model for enterprise software that is sold through a sales
team. The price of the product is determined by how much the customer is
willing to pay and can vary widely from one sale to the next. Sales made this
way usually yield a higher price at the expense of speed/volume. You can only
sell as fast as your sales team works.

~~~
seiji
Just because it's typical doesn't mean it's efficient or useful.

There's a new generation of people with purchase authority rising up. I'd
rather go with a slightly more expensive company with open pricing rather than
a closed company where I constantly have to negotiate small discounts off of a
"retail price" nobody ever actually pays (except the government, of course).

------
nkohari
If someone misspelled something in an email reply, I would just assume they
had a misspelling in their automated response form letter. That would make me
think much less of the company. I'm glad it converted better for you, but I'm
guessing that another variable changed at the same time that actually made the
difference.

~~~
stuntgoat
Even if a company misspelled a word in an email that I assumed was hand
written, I would think less of that company- especially, if it was a product
such as software, where precision in spelling counts.

I agree with the idea that another variable changed near the same time. But I
am still interested in hearing more stories like this, since it is an
interesting concept in what I guess could be called 'sociology of marketing'.

~~~
dkersten
I agree. Maybe you should reply asking them do they want to buy a spell
checker.

------
edw519
_The idea behind it was to let the people know that I actually wrote the email
to them, and this was not a form email or a machine sending it to them._

I know my opinion generally runs counter to general thinking here at hn, but I
find this technique unacceptable. There are plenty of ways to be successful
while being totally forthright and honest with your customers that you should
never have to resort to tricks like this. If I found out a vendor did this to
me, I would never do business with them again.

When I was younger and more foolish, I once did something like to this. I made
1000 perforated postcards to send to local businesses with a simple
"anonymous" survey on the tear-off asking about their software. Except the
tear-offs were not anonymous at all. Every single postcard had a slightly
different return address. By slightly altering the positioning of 6 different
items and recording it in the data base, I had enough permutations to uniquely
identify who returned the card. I could then call on those who needed what I
had.

I thought it was pretty slick until my partner refused to participate. He said
that my hack wasn't worth the hit to our reputation if anyone found out. He
also thought we should earn our business without any tricks and establish
excellent relationships with our customers.

It took me a while, but I understood his lesson. This hack seems eerily
similar.

~~~
kevinherron
But he _did_ actually write the email. His technique was not convincing people
of something that wasn't true.

------
teamonkey
>Previously I had

>Subject: About your pricelist request for Klein SDK

>Body: Dear John Doe, I saw that you...

>

>I changed it to

>Subject: Re: Klein SDK pricelist request

>Body: Hey John Doe, I saw taht you...

-

Without the "Re:" the second subject line is still much better than the first.

Without the misspelling, the "Hey" gives a very different tone to the "Dear".

~~~
gridspy
The first title puts the relevant information in the 6th word.

The second title promotes that to the 2nd (first to most people since they
ignore RE:)

------
viraptor
Ok... maybe he's right, but I'm suspicious about his methods. He's writing
about his tools that they're "going for between $200 and $500.", then "This
technique raised my sales from about $400 a month to $900 a month" and then
that it raised the sales to $1500.

So basically he went from ~1.3 to ~2.6 then to ~4.3 sales a month. If he
really measured the response, he should take the samples from at least one
year (otherwise it would be season-dependant). He made changes in 2 steps -
that means at least 2 years. So to me it looks like either:

\- he improved the software over that time, his tools got more recognition
among developers, standard business growth occurred, or

\- he did nothing about his business or software, crisis and other events
affecting sales didn't happen, world has been a controlled environment for a
couple of years and 4 sales per month are statistically significant...

\- or... Am I missing some option?

~~~
maxklein
The changes affected responses to the emails, which are a lot more than actual
sales. Sales increased with more responses/communication with leads.

------
mwexler
Wow. So, I didn't send you an email, and then you send me an email with the
indicator "Re:" which traditionally (well, in the last few years of email
history) means that you are responding to my email... which I didn't send.

Sorry to be a purist, but I consider that a misleading subject line, which is
one of the indicators of spam.

Yes, traditionally, RE: meant "in regards to" and was a standard header on
memos to denote the subject (watch Mad Men if you don't recall memos). But we
all know that nowadays it is the changed subject line of an email response in
a thread... which is why it gets the attention the author mentions.

Sure, we all have to do whatever we can to get noticed. But maybe I'm the only
one here who thinks that there are ways to do this without "overloading" the
RE. And please don't say "ah, but his is Re, while Outlook uses RE, totally
different!". Because it's not.

As a test, try something other than RE: Try using "Subj:" or Oh, one more
thing re: price list or any of the other countless ways one can get attention
in a subject without "fooling" the user.

The mispelling, though, is not a bad touch.

~~~
Semiapies
"But we all know that nowadays it is the changed subject line of an email
response in a thread... which is why it gets the attention the author
mentions."

No, I think many people are aware of the broader definition. Reading this and
other comments here, I was expecting this to be a spamming tactic...but the
email in question is sent in response to an active request for information.
"Re: Klein SDK pricelist request" is a perfectly honest and understandable
subject line.

~~~
mwexler
Perhaps I do have a dated perception. Think of when we had to filter our own
spam with rules, and articles like
[http://www.pcworld.com/article/111193/stupid_spam_tricks.htm...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/111193/stupid_spam_tricks.html)
were in vogue (link from 2003, 1st link in the search). Note that the first 2
"tricks" this PCWorld article mentions are misspellings and the "bogus" use of
"Re:". Maybe I'm still stuck in those days, but I still associate these tricks
with spammy mail.

------
Eliezer
I always walk away from "request price" sites. Somewhere online is a site that
respects my time enough to tell me what they charge without demanding my
personal info, and I'll search a bit and find there instead.

~~~
DenisM
So you will spend _more time_ searching for a different site, because on this
site _it takes time_ to fill out the form? How does this make sense?

~~~
jasonkester
If the site I'm looking at is a guaranteed dead end to today's research, then
my only option is to look elsewhere.

Whether I fill in the sales form or go to another site, there's no way I'm
going to get the information I need immediately. As a result, going elsewhere
saves me time, while filling in forms in the hope somebody replies is a waste.

Add in a history of bad experiences with companies using similar sales
processes, and it's nearly 100% that I'll leave and never come back.

------
mhb
An increase in sales from $400 to $900 a month is compelling evidence that
these annoying tactics produce good results? Color me unconvinced.

Requesting a price quote is a deal-breaker for me. And if I got that email, I
would just assume that he couldn't take the time to spell things correctly in
whatever he used to generate the mass emailed "reply" - not that he typed it
by hand himself. Why would that make more people want to buy software he had
developed?

~~~
FooBarWidget
More than 100% increase in sales and you're unconvinced? What kind of numbers
would convince you?

~~~
mhb
The percentage increase is only part of the data. If his sales went from $10K
to $20K per month for 4+ months on a $300 product, that would be a lot more
compelling.

------
Poiesis
Perhaps not having an easy way to purchase your software lead to more people
buying it, in 2002 (thought I find it hard to believe). I find it even harder
to believe, though, in 2010.

$200-$500 is not a lot of money for a developer tool, or for a business
purchasing said tool. So putting an obstacle in front of someone seems rather
pointless. Of course, I suppose it depends on the tool. But if I didn't think
it was worth the money I wouldn't buy it anyway. And if its nature leads to
lock-in--well, once someone's gotten over the hurdle of "Is this tool/company
worth sticking with?" I wouldn't exactly want to give them another chance to
reconsider.

------
FooBarWidget
"1. Do not put your price on your website. Put a "pricelist request" page, and
let your customers fill out a bit of information about themselves."

What? Does that really work? As a developer whenever I encounter something
like this I'll immediately leave the website and never come back.

~~~
Groxx
For large purchases, and for large corporate purchases, it's nearly essential.
If a price is on the website, many higher-ups relegate it to the "home user"
side of the market, rather than the over-engineered nastiness they usually
buy. I've personally seen it a few times, and have heard it "straight from the
horse's mouth" from one of my higher-ups (on a university campus, under a
relatively prominent (state-wide) IT-like manager).

------
jerhinesmith
I personally like the approach that JetBrains takes. There products are also
developer-targeted and not-necessarily cheap.

They handle this by showing the price, allowing you to download a 30-day
trial, and then sending out an email soliciting feedback once your trial is
about to expire. The email comes from an account that is easily recognized as
jetbrains, but instead of 'sales@jetbrains.com' or something similar, it
actually appears to come from a person (i.e. john_smith@jetbrains.com). This
email could still be autogenerated for all I know, but I certainly felt a more
personal connection than the usual "do not reply, this email was
autogenerated" stuff that I normally get.

------
qeorge
Max, I usually like your stuff, but I disagree 100% with this one.

I'm currently evaluating software DRM wrappers for a client. They're ready to
spend 5 figures on the software, so it qualifies as an expensive developer
tool. I've spoken with 15 vendors in the past 2 weeks.

Any vendor with no pricing was immediately tossed out. No pricing listed says
to me that you're price discriminating, and nothing pisses me off more than
being overcharged because my client is a big fish.

The only exceptions were companies like Flexera, who have to be included in
any such report. But if you're a no-name vendor that I Googled into? Forget
it.

Also, a misspelling in the email subject says you didn't take the email
seriously. I already don't like you. Maybe you can overcome this, but its an
uphill climb.

Comparing this to an automated response is silly. If I got an automated
response from a vendor selling expensive software, after I've taken the time
to fill out their form, forget it.

I know you have data which appears to support your conclusion, but correlation
!= causation. Its equally possible your site rose in Google rankings, word of
mouth spread, or you got lucky that month. $1500/month (3-5 sales at the price
you stated) isn't a large enough sample to be drawing conclusions from, and an
automated letter is the wrong control group.

Summation: you're sacrificing a good first impression to account for a non-
issue. Don't send automated emails, and don't do this either.

------
jayliew
This sales strategy works for higher-end (read: pricier) stuff. It will not
work too well for less-pricy stuff, impulse buys, or purchases where the buyer
is looking to make a quick decision.

Usually when I see a "contact us for a quote" I already know that they are
trying to price their product (to me) based on how much they think they can
get out of me. Meaning, if I am rich, the same product is more expensive to me
than if I was a poor bloke. It's a form of market segmentation, pricing is
definitely more of an art than science.

Either way, this means it's a "high-touch" purchasing decision; meaning I
probably have to go and and forth with some sales guy to reach some price. If
I'm not in the mood for the hassle and I'm looking for an impulse buy, I'll
immediately forget this site and move on.

------
wheels
We often do something similar -- I usually try to find at least one detail
about a site that wouldn't work in a form letter and work that into a personal
follow-up. On sign-up people first get an automated mail, but then we (for
paid accounts) always do a personal follow-up.

------
thinkbohemian
Okay, so the "RE:" was a very very nice addition. Did you ever get metrics
without teh mispelling?

~~~
lanstein
Had the same thought, 'taht' would make me _less_ likely to buy.

~~~
maxklein
You sure about that? Imagine there are 6 or 7 vendors selling a component you
need for your software. Most are sending you form replies. With one you are
talking to a real person who emails you and answers your questions promptly,
and speaks in a normal way and made a spelling mistake in his rush to email
you, but otherwise spellt correctly.

Would you not feel reassured that someone will fix your problems when you have
them? Would that spelling mistake be so critical in your choice?

~~~
lanstein
Positive. Max, you're selling developer tools, right? My instinct would be
"how good could your tools be if you can't be bothered to spell-check?" To me,
it just shows a lack of attention to detail which puts any detail-oriented
product like the one you're selling in a poor light.

~~~
lanstein
However, let me add that the 'Re:' business is an excellent idea IMHO.

------
jcnnghm
I'd be really careful with this. If I can't easily get the price of the
product, I assume it's a few million dollars and find another product. The
only way I would ever fill out a form to get information is if it was the only
game in town.

~~~
wizard_2
He's not saying he's going to try it, he's tried it, for his market it worked
for him.

~~~
jcnnghm
I'm aware of that. Just because it works for him doesn't mean it's likely to
work for anyone else.

------
realitygrill
Not a form letter, eh? I recall a persuasion course that intoned (as one of
its 3 main tenets), "People sometimes believe what they are told, but never
doubt what they conclude."

------
c00p3r
Read your spam folder on gmail sometimes - there are lot of tricks. Re: or
even Re:Re:, female's names, ridiculous names, and unimaginable subjects.
They're trying really hard.. =)

Another quite obvious thing - put misspellings in your ad-words list.

------
sdfszdfs
I find that writing an email is a good way to let people know you wrote an
email.

Several unethical sales tricks.

