Overcoming the 7 conversion objections of high price sales pages

Understanding what drives more sales or leads isn’t just about increasing revenue, although admittedly that’s also a nice benefit. It’s also incredibly satisfying to test a theory and see results.

However, the scattergun approach of changing layouts, headlines and button text will only get you so far — guessing what encourages customers to buy is only half the story.

It’s also important to understand why people don’t buy.

Today we’ll help to improve your sales pages with some powerful advice for overcoming the most common objections to conversion.

We’ll look at higher price products simply because the conversion objections are much more noticeable. But don’t worry if you don’t ask premium prices, the concepts can be applied to almost any product or service.

What are conversion objections?

Every visitor brings natural anxiety and doubts to your sales page. Certain boxes that need checking before they’ll share their hard-earned money.

Answer enough of of these concerns, questions and needs, and they feel much more comfortable making a purchase.

Leave those doubts unaddressed and you’ll lose the sale without ever knowing why.

These are conversion objections… and they can stop even the most targeted visitors from converting.

You can’t eliminate barriers altogether. But you can purposefully design your sales page to overcome them.

In today’s psychology-packed article, you’ll learn how to overcome these big 7 customer conversion objections:

Price
Value
Social proof
The human element
Is it right for me?
Risk
Permission

1. Price

Customer objection to price is never defined by just the number. $10 isn’t cheap and $10,000 isn’t expensive. They are simply numbers without context.

$10 for a sandwich could be expensive. $10,000 for a new car could be cheap.

On your sales page, objection to price is defined by 3 factors:

How your audience perceives the value of your product
The potential impact on their cashflow
How your price compares to the competition

If value or cashflow are a barrier for your customers, dropping the price probably won’t make much difference. They’ll feel the same objections at $999 or $499. Trying to solve the price objection by lowering the price is just a race to the bottom.

The good news is you can minimise this objection on your sales page:

Avoid disrupting your customer’s cashflow with a single large payment
Relate the price to the incredible value they will receive
Position your product as an investment that will either make money or save time (or both!)
Provide a money-back guarantee that removes lingering doubts of risk

Reduce cashflow anxiety with payment options

We all have a different financial tolerance. A single, large payment can disrupt a personal or business cashflow.

This could be an impossible barrier for your audience, so it’s a good idea to offer a more accessible payment option to convert customers with a tighter monthly budget.

Offering monthly payments isn’t right for every business and comes with its own set of headaches. Many websites incentivise upfront payment to build income and reduce mid-term cancellations.

Payment options to reduce cashflow anxiety
(Amy Porterfield ‘Courses that Convert’)

Re-frame price as an investment

If your product helps customers make or save money, re-frame the price as an investment. Something you expect to provide a financial return many times the original cost.

Let’s take one of my favourite tools as an example… people don’t buy Thrive Architect because they want a visual page builder. They invest in a solution that saves time and increases sales. The price is a drop in the ocean compared to the return on investment.

Provide a no-risk call to action

Considering a product without first testing it always increases price sensitivity.

What if it doesn’t live up to the claims?
Am I better off using that money for something else?
How can they expect me to pay $497 without first seeing inside?

You can remove that objection to price by offering a no-risk money-back guarantee. Now the visitor can focus on the product value rather than the financial risk.

An alternative could be a limited access trial. This works well for online courses that offer selected lessons for free. Bonus points if access requires an email address so you can encourage them to convert later.

Risk and guarantees are much bigger topics than just price, so we’ll look at them in more detail later.

2. Value

Want to win more clients? Increase your value! Want to sell more products? Communicate more value!

Wow. So profound. Well I guess we can all go home now, right?

Let’s be honest, this sure sounds impressive in a blog post or podcast, but it really isn’t actionable advice.

Understanding and communicating true value is essential for successful sales pages.

Let’s look at some solid examples.

Your product has increased value if…

it fixes an immediate, urgent or painful need
it helps customers to make money
it helps customers to save time
it guarantees results
it unlocks a path in life

Before you start designing your sales page, you need to identify how these points apply to your product or service. The higher it scores for each one, the more easily it will sell and the less you’ll need to rely on attracting (or purchasing!) high volumes of traffic into the top of your sales funnel.

Let customers define what is valuable

The key to overcoming value objections is to understand that value is perceived by the individual.

Here’s an important point that many businesses overlook: You don’t get to define what is valuable to your audience. Your sales page can communicate what you think people will find valuable, but ultimately each person may connect with something different.

So how do you speak to each individual on one sales page?

Unfortunately, there’s no pre-designed page element that can solve this for you. It comes down to good old copywriting and customer research skills.

Tap into your archives of audience conversations and customer research to identify their backgrounds and needs. You’ll discover interesting patterns and similarities. Groups of people who value one benefit may completely ignore the rest. Others will value something completely different!

Don’t try to be all things to all people, instead identify and communicate the different benefits of investing in your product.

Value is perceived differently by each customer.
(Amy Porterfield ‘Courses that Convert’)

Communicate savings and bonuses

Humans love a bargain.

It’s so satisfying to buy something for less than it’s worth. Or get more than we paid for.

Take a look at Amy Porterfield’s $997 online program, Courses that Convert. She puts a high price tag on the value ($2,997), so the asking price feels like an incredible saving. Of course, this is an arbitrary number, but the implication is that it could be sold for much, much more.

Chris Ducker does a similar thing with his Youpreneur program. Each of his bonuses has as dollar value, implying that even the extras as worth more than the overall price.

Bonuses and savings are very effective for certain customers.
(Amy Porterfield ‘Courses that Convert’)

Showcase the full value of bonuses to imply huge savings.
(Chris Ducker ‘Youpreneur’)

3. Social Proof

Ask yourself, when did you last buy an album, a car, a book, or a premium WordPress plugin without first learning what other people thought of it?

When did you last buy anything from Amazon without reading the reviews first?

Social proof is vital for selling high price products. It reassures visitors that your brand and product have been tested and enjoyed by many other happy customers.

Conversely, a lack of social proof can cause a big objection to making a purchase. Even if the visitor doesn’t realise it.

Here are a few ways that you can showcase social proof on your sales page:

Testimonials
Reviews
Evidence of an active community built around your product

Showcase testimonials & reviews

The most effective sales pages feature success stories from past customers. They encourage visitors to imagine their own transformation using the same product.

Testimonials share stories of real results from happy customers. They are a powerful way for new visitors to recognise a reflection of themselves and their circumstances.

Reviews tend to focus on the product itself (build quality, delivery, performance) instead of sharing the challenges and results. They are usually more suited to physical products designed for a very specific use.

Whichever is right for your niche, you should be sharing these endorsements throughout your sales page.

The best testimonials share real results.
(Ramit Sethi ‘Mental Mastery’)

Thank you notes are a simple but effective social proof
(Thrive Themes ‘Thrive Architect’)

Hint at an active community

People need to know they’re not alone when making big purchase decisions. That’s especially true for products like courses with a significant commitment of time, energy and hard work.

If your product enjoys an active community, you can reduce social proof objections by adding screenshots or videos on your sales page.

This might be a private Facebook group, user forum, or something more complex like a Slack group. Anything that shows that new customers are not left to fend for themselves after buying.

Seth Godin does a fabulous job here. He features a powerful video of past customers sharing their love of the community and how they feel supported as they use his product.

A visibly active and supportive community is the ultimate social proof
(Seth Godin ‘The Marketing Seminar’)

4. The Human Element

It’s often said that your audience needs to know, like and trust you before they will buy.

This doesn’t apply to products like groceries or socks of course, but the higher the product price, the more important this know-like-trust factor becomes.

People respond to real people, not faceless brands or stock photography.

On any sales page, we seek out signs of real relatability and trustworthiness. I call this the human element.

Unless your product guarantees an immediate fix to an urgent and painful audience need (let’s be honest, it probably doesn’t for most businesses!), then building trust and rapport is essential to overcome this objection.

You can enhance your sales page by:

Including relatable photos of you and your team
Being real, both in your photos and the words you use
Speaking to the individual as a person, not a general demographic
Offering a way to speak to a real person with pre-sales questions

Speak to the individual, not the demographic

The most effective sales page copy is a personal conversation with each individual. Customers should feel like you understand their circumstances and needs, and that your product is tailor-made to help them.

One way to achieve this is to reduce impersonal language.

Too much impersonal language creates unnecessary distance between you and the customer. It feels like you’re writing at them and not to them, creating a sterile and unapproachable tone.

Impersonal language includes:

The product includes dozens of optimized landing pages
The course will make your teaching dreams a reality
Our customers are protected by a money back guarantee.

Instead, try to focus on more personal language. If you’re a grammar nut like me, that means writing in the second person with more pronouns.

This shifts the conversation from your company, brand and product, to their needs, solution, and results.

Personal language includes:

You’ll have access to dozens of optimized landing pages
Together we’ll make your teaching dreams a reality
You’re protected by a money back guarantee.

Your audience and brand determine how personal your language should be. Don’t go overboard with familiarity but remember that each customer is a real person and not just an anonymous visitor.

Offer a way to get in contact

Offer visitors a way to reach out via email or phone or even live chat. This shows there’s a team of real people waiting to answer questions and provide support.

This is a simple but overlooked idea, especially during a product launch or limited cart open period. It’s also amazingly effective.

What happens if…

a credit card is declined with no useful message?
your purchase button doesn’t work? (I’ve done this. Don’t laugh!)
customers have important questions about the product?
customers just need to know there’s someone there if things go wrong?

Without including this feature, you could be unaware of lost sales. Potentially many thousands of dollars.

With this feature, you can help convert undecided visitors and compile a list of common barriers to improve the sales page further. For many high price products, a single sale will pay for this feature many times over.

The examples below show how both Amy Porterfield and Ramit Sethi overcome this conversion objection on their sales pages.

It shouldn’t be a one-way conversation. Encourage engagement to nurture sales.
(Amy Porterfield ‘Courses that Convert’)

Consider adding a phone number during busy cart open periods
(Ramit Sethi ‘Mental Mastery’)

Offering live chat, email and phone support might not be a viable long-term solution. After her initial launch period, Amy scales back to just the email option.

This is a good compromise between support costs and maintaining that human element.

Scale back your post-launch pre-sales support to where you feel comfortable.
(Amy Porterfield ‘Courses that Convert’)

Feature real photos of real people

The easiest way to demolish this conversion objection is to show your face.

It doesn’t matter what you’re selling… online courses, real estate, llama wool socks. People want to see who they’re buying from.

They want to know you’re trustworthy, credible and real.

Don’t be afraid to feature a vibrant and confident photo of yourself or your team.

Avoid the temptation to use bland stock photography. Definitely no smiling models with headsets!

Relatable photos encourage your audience to know, like and trust you.
(Amy Porterfield ‘Courses that Convert’)

It’s inspiring to show a team focused on customer results.
(Freshbooks ‘Cloud Accounting Software’)

5. Is it right for me?

Your product sounds great. The price is right. There’s a money-back guarantee. Everything looks perfect.

There’s just one big question in every visitor’s mind…

“How can I be sure this is right for me?”

Even the most dialled-in, targeted niche audience is made up of very different people. We are all unique individuals who view the world through own set of circumstances and priorities.

It’s your job to create a sales page that identifies what is important to each person, and reassures them that yes, your product is a perfect fit.

You can achieve this by speaking to people using their own words, collected from conversations with your audience; Skype calls, phone calls, emails, surveys, support enquiries, face-to-face chats over a coffee… use any opportunity to build a list of real audience questions and concerns. Then go right ahead and use those words in your sales page.

To similar visitors, you will seem like a mind-reader. You will appear to truly understand their needs (because you do!)

You can reassure individuals by including these sales page elements:

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Testimonials from customers with different backgrounds and needs
A section called “[Product] is perfect for you if…”

Finally, don’t be afraid to say that your product is not a good fit for certain people. This helps to pre-qualify ideal customers and avoid refunds, chargebacks, customer service admin and negative reviews.

Include an FAQ section

Your sales page should never leave people with unanswered questions. That just means they’re likely to search a competitor or give up entirely!

Featuring an FAQ is a fantastic way to share customer concerns and questions. It becomes even more powerful by using the actual words and phrases of your audience, collected through emails, surveys, community and phone calls.

You can use expanding elements to add a little interactivity and reduce page length.

Frequently Asked Questions are a goldmine for conversion and pre-qualifying leads.
(Amy Porterfield ‘Courses that Convert’)

FAQs should be honest, informative and set realistic expectations.
(Thrive Themes ‘Thrive Membership’)

Showcase testimonials from different customers

We already know that testimonials are golden for social proof, but they offer another conversion benefit.

Great testimonials share a range of before-and-after stories from satisfied customers. By reading testimonials from different types of customer, new visitors can discover someone who matches their own circumstances and needs.

If your product worked well for someone, then future customers with similar needs will feel more confident purchasing.

Try to show diversity too. This isn’t for political correctness – we naturally relate to our own gender, ethnicity and age.

Answer the question directly

If you know the type of person who would benefit from your product, tell them!

Include a dedicated section to help your audience recognise themselves and their needs. By offering relatable circumstances and priorities, you show you deeply understand your audience and their needs (implying your product is a good fit).

Both Ramit Sethi and Amy Porterfield do a great job of helping customers feel represented in the following sections:

Visitors need to recognise their own needs and circumstances on your sales page.
(Ramit Sethi ‘Mental Mastery’)

(Amy Porterfield ‘Courses that Convert’)

6. Risk

Not the board game. I could never hold onto Europe.

If you’re asking people to trust you with their credit card details, you’ll need to address concerns of risk before they’ll purchase.

Risk objections are your customer’s brain saying:

“I’m almost ready to buy. But first… what can potentially go wrong?”

Is the payment secure?
What trusted payment methods are supported?
How can I contact customer services if something goes wrong?
What is the refund policy?
Is there a money-back guarantee?

This becomes a bigger objection with higher priced products. Once a visitor suspects risk, it’s unlikely they will convert to a happy customer.

Thankfully, there are many opportunities to reduce these risk objections, from guarantee boxes to payment icons.

Reassure that payment is secure

The world is much more comfortable with online payments, but we still feel a little apprehensive sharing our card details with a new website.

You can reduce this objection by reassuring customers that their payment is secure. Don’t ignore the importance of the green SSL padlock either. Some browsers will warn of insecure websites that will certainly impact conversion.

You can also include credit card icons, each with their own implied level of security.

Professional payment icon designs are included with Thrive Architect.
(Amy Porterfield ‘Courses that Convert’)

Offer a money-back guarantee

We touched on money-back guarantees in the Price section of this article. Let’s explore how you can use them to combat feelings of risk that can prevent an otherwise happy visitor from buying your product.

If you’re able to offer a 100% money-back guarantee, it can virtually remove the anxiety of buying a product without first seeing it.

It communicates confidence in your own product and shows you are willing to be tested on your claims. The buyer is protected if they feel you delivered less than you promised.

Some brands are comfortable offering a “no hassle” or “no questions asked” money back guarantee. Others use a refund policy to protect their businesses from refund and chargeback abuse.

Both Amy Porterfield and Ramit Sethi ask that you provide proof that you have completed part of their products and given them a fair chance.

Remove doubts of financial risk by including a money-back guarantee.
(Thrive Themes ‘Thrive Architect’)

100% Risk Free. 60 Days.
(Ramit Sethi ‘Mental Mastery’)

No all money-back guarantees need to be “no questions asked”.
(Amy Porterfield ‘Courses that Convert’)

7. Permission

Permission is a strange objection. It doesn’t apply to all products and audiences, but to those it does, it’s a game-changer.

Permission can mean different things; at its core, it’s about overcoming that final objection that comes from deep within.

The need for permission is often felt by audiences considering life-changing purchases that can unlock a new path. Think career changes, emigration, high learner etc.

If you’re selling online courses or certification, this might be a conversion objection you need to think about.

The need for permission is often linked to imposter syndrome, procrastination and other feelings of “I’m not good enough or ready yet”.

Some people just need to give themselves permission — or be given permission from someone they trust — before they’ll take that first step into the unknown.

Permission comes in many messages:

You’ve got this. You’re ready.
The right time to change your life is TODAY.
You don’t need permission.
I’m ready to change my life / earn more / start my journey.

Give permission

Is it really this simple?

In some ways, yes. Let’s look at Amy Porterfield’s audience as a prime example of this conversion objection.

It’s clear that Amy has identified permission as a major sales barrier for her product and audience.

Her audience dreams of creating freedom, impact and income with their first online course. But they’re always waiting for that perfect moment when their life gives them permission to try something new.

She breaks this cycle of procrastination by empowering them to give themselves permission.

Amy’s sales page features a dedicated content element titled “You Don’t Need Permission”. She weaves permission into her sales copy at every opportunity.

I really love this confidence in reflecting the needs of her audience.

You might not need permission to take action, but some people do.
(Amy Porterfield ‘Courses that Convert’)

Suggesting a response of self-empowerment and action.
(Amy Porterfield ‘Courses that Convert’)

Encourage taking immediate action

In the example below, Chris Ducker dispels the myth that you need to wait for the perfect time to take action. He taps into audience frustrations and tells them to start today.

It’s inspiring and more importantly, it removes procrastination from their decision.

That permission alone could be the only thing stopping someone from converting.

Don’t wait to take action. The best time to start was yesterday!
(Chris Ducker ‘Youpreneur’)

What about your sales page?

Overcoming objections doesn’t mean trying to convince people to buy something that isn’t right for them, or trying to appeal to everyone at the same time.

It means understanding the needs of your audience, so no one leaves your sales page with unanswered questions or doubts.

Are you ready to take conversion rate seriously and save lost sales?

Then it’s time to take action.

Ask yourself these 2 questions:

Which conversion objections remain unanswered on your sales page?
Which ones can you improve this week?

Share your answers in the comments!