[spacekadet]

Hi kind folks,

Does anyone out there have any experience creating product tours?

I currently have an e-business up and running at writersresidence dot com (see link in my sig). The website has a link to a "tour" and a "sign up" page.

So far, a fair number of people take the tour, but very few people go on to sign up after that. Either my product sucks or my tour isn't convincing enough. I'd like to think it's the latter. Right now, the tour is a series of screenshots, but perhaps a "live demo" would be more appropriate?

Does anyone have any experience turning product tours into sales? I'd appreciate any tips.

Hope that all made sense... thanks in advance!

Monica

[Calibre Designs]

Hello Monica,

Really nice clean screen shots you have there and its laid out nicely. However, its quite a lot for someone to take in. With viral marketing, it makes it much easier for viewers to see the product come to life and to see it in operation. They can image how it will work for them which will give you a better conversion.

Let me know how I can help in that area for you (email kay @ calibre-designs.co.uk)

Thanks

Kay

[spacekadet]

Kay, thanks for the tip. Maybe I'll break up the tour into several pages, with a nav bar up top.

"Viral marketing." You make it sound so easy. =) I need to get people using it before I can get work of mouth going. Hahah!

[Martin-Subbynet]

Hi Monica,

First impressions:

No logo - I thought this a little odd considering the tag line "Want to impress editors? Then market yourself like a pro." It really needs a logo for extra visual (and Branding) impact on the top half of the page.

The colour scheme IMO could be better. I'd also think about changing the font too but maybe thats a personal pref.

So its an Online Portfolio for writers - but where are the portfolio's? Where are the members for me to browse and read? If I'm an website owner / editor where do I go to find a writer? (And on this point - Why are you referring people away on your blog to find work - isn't this the point of your site?)

Next, I thought about price, and I hope this doesn't sound harsh but what do you get for your money that couldn't be done much cheaper by hosting your own Wordpress set-up? I can see very little "Extra Added Value" by using your system. You basically get a blog, and ok, fair enough a CV template thingy but your audience are Writers, so I doubt its much effort for them to knock it up anyway.

So, if I was you I'd add;

The ability to browse members, also by cost to hire and ranking/testimonials from previous clients.

A very large promotional campaign so that your site is the place to find writers.

Have the ability to signup / find UK or US writer, or a German writer for example. (Heck a sideline could be translations)... At the moment the address at the bottom is British and so is the support telephone number but the cost is in $$$ . I'd target it much more towards each market, so at least a British Price is shown to British Visitors and so on and so forth.

Anyways, I hope it comes across as constructive criticism!

[Scottscd]

Hi Monica.

The first critical mistake is that nothing on your website sells your service. It explains what your service is quite nicely but there's absolutely nothing on there which answers the question of 'why should I buy this?'.

You need to describe benefits to the reader to create an emotional desire for your service. For example you've wrote:

"Showcase your writing samples with just a few mouse clicks."

Well what benefit do I receive by being able to showcase my writing samples? You need to tell the visitor these benefits and never let them assume the benefits themselves. Once they do this they're selling the product to themselves and this is nowhere near as effective.

I would personally sell a two week trial. Don't even mention any kind of payment because as soon as bank details are involved with 'free trials' it kills the sign-up rate. After the two weeks send them further sales material via E-mail persuading them to subscribe before there account is suspended after the free trial. This pressure selling aspect should work well especially if this is for an American audience.

The other very important part is the quality of your targeted visitors. Take a look at your marketing methods and make sure the traffic you're receiving is sufficiently targeted for this type of service.

Hope this helps.

[spacekadet]

Ok, can you tell I'm new to this?

Scottcd, thank you for helping me see the error of my copy. Would you believe this is the second draft? In round one, people had trouble "getting" what we were actually selling. So now I need to figure out how to explain what the product is and WHY they need it. You're right, it's not obvious. I'll take another crack at the copy.

I agree, we need to ditch the current payment system. I've been telling my partner this for weeks. He's the programmer behind this and doesn't quite see why this is bad for marketing. But I think I've finally get him signed on and I think we might actually go for a 7-day trial. And yes, agreed that we need to do a better job at targetting British vs. US customers.

Martin,
The harshest criticism can often be the most constructive. Please, throw your worst at me. I had a lot of "duh" moments reading your comments. I never really thought of this from the editor's standpoint and how people could use this as a database of writers. I love this idea. We can't do it yet because we don't have enough users.
Interestingly enough, the bulk of our traffic comes from people searching for "writing cv". It seems that many writers don't know where to fit "writing" into an otherwise job-oriented CV. A plan is in the works to do some targetted ad campaigning for this crew.

Very useful feedback and I've definitely taken it all to heart. Man, so where the heck to I get a nifty logo? ;-) I think that's the least of my worries.

Thank you SO much for such thoughtful feedback. You guys rock.

Monica