When I first started seeing those "sales letter" webpages, I didn't find them very appealing. They're long, often repetetive, don't contain many (if any) links to more information about the product. But apparently, they're very effective. Well, I've finally taken the plunge and ditched (at least temporarily!) as design I really liked on one of my web pages to see if a "sales letter" approach will be more effective.

The CaRP homepage (when I sell my RSS to HTML converter) has gone from being a link-rich hub for finding information about CaRP to being a sales letter. I haven't gone so far as to remove the navigation menu or abandon my liking for keeping things concise, and I certainly haven't set ethics aside to try and hornschwagle people into buying something they don't need, but even without all that, it's a major change for a techie like me. I decided that since I have a product that I believe in, and since I'm offering a money back guarantee to anyone who decides it's not up to snuff, I don't have a problem with using a little salesmanship--not deception--but techniques that are (hopefully!) more likely to enlighten potential customers about the benefits of using the product than the old page and convince them to buy.

I'll be watching my conversion rate closely over the next few days, and if it goes up, the Grouper homepage will be next.