Expiration Dates Online

Online, you have to sell your product immediately. You can't
count on your visitors coming back to your website when they
have more money or more time. If you have a sales letter for
your product they will read it once and only if you're
lucky. Get your visitors to buy the first time by giving an
expiration date for your extraordinary offer.

Even if your discount or special bonus gift is impossible to
refuse, your visitors may decide to "come back tomorrow" and
never return. An expiration date (today or tomorrow) compels
them to buy now.

If the offer is a permanent fixture on your website, you can
use Javascript to give each visitor their own deadline. (The
"current date" script works nicely if you don't collect
email addresses to follow up.)

Don't worry about whether visitors are savvy enough to
realize they can get the same offer if they come back
tomorrow, it will still increase your responses. I know -
this trick has gotten me to buy some expensive information
packages! However, if you are uncomfortable with using
Javascript, you can continuously update your website with
new offers and expiration dates or use cookies to send
repeat visitors to a page with a different offer.

A few people may be put off by the use of Javascript and
feel like your offer is a "lie". These people are the
minority, but if you are selling software, computer
equipment, or information geared toward internet and
computer professionals, it will help not to use a "midnight"
deadline. Avoid mentioning a specific time or offer a time
when you might actually update your website, like 2pm.

(People who know Javascript just assume if you offer a time
the offer expires - especially midnight - that the deadline
is generated by Javascript. They can find out for sure by
reading your source code.)

When I first heard about this technique, I was afraid to use
it. It seems somehow immoral to give a "phony" deadline.
Here is my justification:

We have all at one time held an expiring coupon in our hands
and become determined to use it immediately (or watched a
family member or friend do it). We trust coupons, we believe
in coupons, and we never once think they are bad in any way
even if we never use them ourselves.

Almost all coupons have an expiration date. Why? Because
expiration dates work. They propel people into the
store/restaurant so they can get a good deal.

Have you ever rushed out to use an expiring coupon and find
a duplicate (expiring in another week or a month) in the
mail or newspaper the next day? I have...

I have also successfully used many expired coupons. Yet I
have never seriously considered that the companies that
issued the coupons were lying to me. I considered it "good
customer service" and made it a point to patronize those
places more often.

It is true that expiration dates do not magically change on
coupons like they can on the internet, and some companies do
enforce the expiration dates. This aspect may be what erodes
customer confidence for tech-savvy people.

"What about everyone else?"

If your offer appears on a one-page "sales letter" website
or on a separate page of your website devoted to your
product (where there are no informative articles or
interactive programs to encourage return visits) very few
people are likely to come back to find out if your offer is
in fact still there.

If nobody ever comes back to your website after their first
visit, your offer is not a lie. They can not receive your
original offer past the expiration date.

If you don't get the purchase (or at least an email address)
during that first visit, you will not make a sale. Offering
an extraordinary offer with an expiration date will help you
make more sales because it gives people a reason to act now
rather than putting it off and forgetting about it.

"I collect email addresses - how can I still use an
expiration date?"

If you offer a special report, free email course, or other
promotional offer to visitors to your website, you are
collecting valuable contact information. You can afford to
have a later expiration date (say, in a week or two). Send
three or more reminder letters to those who haven't
responded to remind them of the offer.

Another tactic would be to offer an extraordinary offer
expiring immediately and to follow up by offering a
scaled-down product for less money.

My most successful promotions have used expiration dates on
offers made through my newsletter, Busy Marketing Tips.
(After the expiration date, I have always changed my website
to reflect my "regular" price.) My sales letters without
expiration dates have sold little or nothing.

Believe me, expiration dates are a powerful sales motivator!

You can use expiration dates any way you feel comfortable
with, but USE THEM! They are a powerful sales technique you
can't afford to ignore.

About the Author

Dawn Gray writes Busy Marketing Tips! Subscribe today by emailing

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