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Once you have a product ready to sell online, you have to create the words and drive the traffic to make it happen. But, before you start marketing, you'll need a sales page. Your sales page—even more than your product—will determine your success.
A great sales page with a mediocre product will far outsell a poor sales page with an excellent product.
Writing a sales page, then, is one of the most important steps of the process. It's not hard but will take good planning and a lot of thought. Your sales page will not only need to grab your potential customer's attention, it will have to make an honest case for your product and invite the reader to buy.
Most professional Internet marketers would agree that your headline is the most important part of your sales page.
Benefits sell, features tell. You'll have to dig through your product and find a single, compelling benefit. Remember, you're trying to find that one emotional benefit that will appeal to the buyer you're trying to reach as quickly as possible.
Many newcomers make the mistake of trying to appeal to every visitor that comes to their site. If you try to appeal to everyone, you'll end up with a vague, hype filled headline. You don't need dramatic and worn out adjectives to create an effective headline.
Compare these examples: "Stop smoking in 30 days" versus "Throw your cigarettes out the window and kiss them goodbye forever". The shorter, former, example does the job quickly without the hype.
Finally, frame your headline in quotes. Research has shown that putting a headline in quotes enhances credibility. Although this may not be as legitimate today, it's become a standard convention. Not using it might make your headline seem like it's missing something.
Once you've grabbed the reader's attention with your headline, you now have one goal—to get the reader to buy.
Introduction
Start your sales copy with an introduction that gives a little more away than the headline but still leaves enough out to get the reader moving through the text. It's very similar to leaving a bread crumb trail—only put enough down to get the reader to move to the next position.
Concentrate on communicating with your prospects. What emotions do you want to invoke as you move through the copy? Stories are a great way to draw the reader in without sounding arrogant or patronizing.
Testimonials
Next, testimonials are powerful tools. If you don't have testimonials, find someone in your field who will review your product and, if they like it, give you a testimonial. I've seen sales pages that were 50% copy and 50% testimonials.
Risk Reversal
Finally, no sales page would be complete without a guarantee of some sort. Especially when you're online, the people who have doubts whether your product would be exactly what they want or need, buy more confidently knowing they can get a refund if it doesn't work out. If you leave this one out, you're losing out on TONS of sales...GUARANTEED :)
Writing a great sales page can be a fun process. It will help you get to the core of your product and, hopefully, increase your sales. Don't be afraid to experiment and be creative with your page. Treat it like you would a star salesman and it will reward you with increased sales.
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