How to Persuade Your Fence Sitters To Get Off The Fence and Buy!


Filed under: Business Website Tips | How To | Website Copywriting

When potential customers visit your website, one of four things happens:

  1. They leave, never to return.
  2. They buy what you’re selling, directly and quickly.
  3. They contact you with questions about buying.
  4. They ‘sit on the fence’ and don’t take action because they’re not totally sold.

In today’s post, you’ll learn how to motivate website visitors who fall into category #4 to get off the fence.

Proven and powerful persuasion

There are three proven, powerful methods that have been shown to regularly persuade undecided website visitors to take action and buy.

  1. Offering irresistible offer/bonus.
  2. Displaying a reassuring guarantee.
  3. Providing clear directions on what to do next.

While the individual implementation of any of these 3 methods will likely help to increase the rate at which your site converts visitors into actual customers, you’ll see the most impressive and meaningful results if you use these 3 methods collectively, as a ‘persuasion triumvirate’ of sorts.

Here’s a quick review of each persuasion method.

Offer irresistible offers or bonuses

Sweeten the idea of a purchase and lure fence-sitters off the fence with a strong offer. The stronger the offer, the stronger the response.
Examples of offers include:

  1. a ski resort offers 4 half-price lift tickets with your online purchase of a season pass.
  2. A beauty salon offers a coupon for free eyebrow wax when you book your hair appointment online.
  3. A cookie company throws in 6 free brownies for all online orders over $75.

Bonus tip: making offers time-sensitive packs an extra punch and has been proven to be a powerful purchase motivator.  (Think late night infomercial here: “Call within the next 10 minutes and get a FREE knife set!!”)

Display a reassuring guarantee

Your site visitors don’t know you. They’ve not purchased from you before.  Many will sit on the fence because they’re not sure whether they can trust you.

Guarantees can help. Genuine guarantees reduce the risk your site’s visitors experience when they’re sitting on their fences, wondering if they should buy or make contact.

It’s critical your guarantee is easy to understand and, if time sensitive, 30 days long at an absolute minimum.  (Increase your visitors’ trust in you by extending your guarantee to 60 days, 90 days, or more.)

Also, if at all possible, don’t include terms or caveats.  They can confuse visitors, cause them to pause, and reduce the persuasion power of your guarantee.

Lastly, do be aware some visitors may try to take advantage of your guarantee. Plan accordingly and remember that the small number of downsides you may experience by offering a guarantee will be offset in the long run by the genuine trust you generate in your visitors.

Provide clear directions on what to do next

Websites that use weak requests or suggestions like “Feel free to contact us anytime!” or “We’d love to hear from you!” are not websites that have been strategically written to maximize sales.

It’s imperative you TELL your website’s visitors exactly what you want them to do.
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Make your directions simple and make them crystal clear. In other words, help your visitors off the fence by guiding them directly to the next easy step.

Your key takeaway today

When you effectively execute these 3 persuasion strategies in your website’s content, your site transforms into a tool that actually prevents potential fence sitters from sitting down—and instead and influences them to take the exact actions you want them to take.  (And if you’re not sure how to work these strategies into your site’s content in a compelling manner, you may wish to consider hiring expert web copywriters to do the job for you.)