The Lockwood Letter

I’ve been playing with a new piece of software that looks very promising and is likely to increase sales or opt-ins on almost any site where it’s used.

The software is called Virtual Smart Agent and just came out yesterday, so you may not have seen it in action yet. But I think soon that will change.

You’re probably aware that even with a good sales letter, at least 90% of visitors leave without buying. This software lets you do something with that large majority. When someone goes to leave your page, it gives the visitor the option of seeing a chat window that looks like an instant messenger. It looks like someone on the other end is typing messages for you (to make a special offer, for example), but it’s all automated.

The funny thing is, even if it tells you it’s not a real person, when you interact with it, it feels a lot like you are exchanging IMs with another human. It has a time delay that simulates the seconds a person would take to type their next message.

Here’s the really cool part: you can teach it to give smart answers. You specify keywords, and if the visitor’s message contains any of those keywords, the software will reply with a specific message. For example, if someone uses a word like guarantee or refund, the software can type a message explaining your guarantee policy. (Several messages like that come with the software, and you can add as many more of them as you like.)

The software can log everything your visitors type in the window, so you can see what comments or questions are coming in, and add more smart answers to your database, or use that knowledge to improve your sales letter.

There are companies that provide software like this as a service, but they charge a fee for every extra sale made. Something I really like about this one is that it’s a script you pay for once and use on as many of your sites as you wish, and nobody else gets access to your data.

Here are just a few of the things you could do with this software:

• Offer the visitor a discount for buying now. (You can include links in the messages the software displays.) Some may think this is unfair since only people leaving the site get the discount, so you could offer your product with fewer bonuses in exchange for a lower price, or a “lite” version of it.
• Offer a related product, even an affiliate product.
• Build a list. Put a signup form on the chat window and offer a free report or newsletter related to the product. That way the signup option won’t distract those people who come to your page ready to buy. The software can sign people up to your aweber list without you adding any code, just list name, or if you use a different responder you can put the code for the form on the window.
• Ask the visitor if they have any questions and/or why they are leaving without buying. This is the first thing I’m testing, and I think it will be a good way of collecting data to create more smart answers and improve my sales letter.
• State some of the key points of your offer, or reinforce things like your guarantee, site security, etc.

You can even put audio or video on the window.

You can install the software just once and run it on many sites from there, or put it on each site separately- it’s up to you.

If you already have a sales page up, I think it would be hard for this software not to pay for itself from increased sales.

I set up a little demo page for it here: click here (opens in new window), then close that window like you were leaving that sales page without buying, and see what happens.

When I saw the control panel, I was pretty impressed. You get a lot of flexibility and stats- you can even have multiple agents on a page and split test them, such as male vs. female. (The software comes with graphics of several agents.)

I’m pretty sure lots more features are coming, and you do get free updates with it.

Don’t let the power of it scare you, since it comes with a whole set of training videos on how to set it up and install it, although if you’ve installed scripts before you may find yourself doing it without watching the video since it’s pretty straightforward.

Rather than wait until I collect a lot of data on this, I wanted to let people know about it since the price is going up in a few days… I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how affordable it is: Virtual Smart Agent

As I get more experience with it, I may make more posts about it.