Survey Sales Letter pattern

Summary:

Survey Sales Letter pattern is basically about using a simple survey instead of or in support of a sales letter. It's a good idea to anchor it properly and reinforce with some other conversion patterns.

Name of the pattern:

Survey Sales Letter

When to use this pattern:

When you want to increase conversions.

How to use this pattern:

Instead of "Grab this offer while it lasts!!!" or something similar to that, you present to you prospect a small form asking to answer a few questions about himself/herself(/itself if you sell to aliens from Alpha Centaury).

You need some justification to ask for this information. For example, it could be "enter your zip code to see if you qualify" or "let me know your current weight and how much weight you want to lose, so that I can tailor the response."

Then send the prospect to the same order page.

The original survey may be instead of the sales letter or a part of the sales letter leading to the next step. Sales letter may be long, short, audio, video, or missing at all, because people still like answering surveys. You may use the survey as an opt-in as well, in which case you may want at least some additional text, like "…and see the results in your mailbox!"

Attribution:

I've heard it specifically from Mike Hill as part of his CPA Tsunami launch videos, where he claims this pattern to bring 500% increase in conversions. Of course, the actual use of surveys is much older, I've seen Jim Edwards, Mike Filsaime and a few more Internet marketers speaking about it and using it before.

Related patterns:

Survey, Survey Prequalification, Graphical Proof

Related anti-patterns:

Fake scarcity

Comments and details:

There are several things in this pattern that are normally not called out explicitly. However, they are critical to the success:

1. Title of the survey form. "See if you are qualified" gets the self-esteem anchor: many people care a lot if they "qualify" for something much more than about what is it that they "qualify" for. That's a great stimulus for them to enter the information. "So that I can tailor offer to your need…" creates a feeling of exclusivity and personal attention: another thing that people like a lot. So, most likely, not any survey will bring you good results, see that the survey's title has a good anchor.
2. Information requested should look at least relevant to the subject and make sense. Mike gave an example when offer was limited to 8 people per day from the same ZIP code and he insisted that the ninth person will see a disabled "Order" button. While it's good to create scarcity, if it does not makes sense (why just 8 orders from the same ZIP code?), it will wear off as a marketing shtick leading to prospects recognizing it on spot and leaving. Of course, test and see the results. While it works, it's good. After all, we all know that drilling oil is a bad idea and still do that anyway.
3. When your prospect fills in the survey information, you train him to give you information about himself, which comes handy to the moment when he needs to fill an order form. That side of this pattern is rarely called out explicitly but may be the one contributing most to its success.
4. If you use survey in front of your sales page (not really part of this pattern), it may actually allow you to send prospects to a DIFFERENT sales and opt-in page tailored exactly to their needs. I don't think I ever seen this pattern implemented, but it's hard to believe that nobody thought about it before. See Survey Prequalification pattern.
5. Mike was also reinforcing this pattern with other techniques, for example, with graphical proof and time scarcity. Specifically, on the following sales page he showed Google Map with the ZIP code marked and a statement like "You have 4 minutes 26 seconds (counting down) to order, after that the spot will be given to the next person in line from the ZIP code 12345."