« Increasing Your Ebay Ebook Sales | Home | Steps To Starting An Internet Business »
Copywriting Straight From The Horses Mouth!
By Sally | May 28, 2008
Copywriting Tips For Creating Perfect Sales Pages
You may, or may not, have received an email from me regarding the sales page “Getting Your Ex” back.
If you want to see the sales page we will be discussing then click the link below:
Ok, it’s not the best sales page is it!
And contruary to popular belief it WAS NOT MY SALES PAGE OR PRODUCT!
I simply wanted comments…
So after my email, I received many many MANY comments!
Lots of you had the same comments, which I totally expected!
You see the point of the email was to see whether or not you should use a standard format for a sales page online.
I am now certain that any online marketer should follow some sort of guide.
Of course the content would be different on each sales page, but the standard format should always remain the same.
Here is my own personal preferences or inclusions for writing a sales page:
Pre-Headline (This is optional)
Main Headline (in Quotes)
Sub Headine (See the detail below for making them a short story…)
Introduction (Grab the reader’s attention and keep it throughout!)
Testimonials (Real Ones, never be tempted to use false Testimonials!)
Audio (Audio shows you / a testimonial is genuine and that you are a real person)
Video (Use for proof of your product claims, demos of your product, or for testimonials).
Bonuses (Make sure they are related to your original product and give them a price to make them more appealing)
Early Bird Bonuses (These bonuses can get you more sales)
Pictures / Ecover of Your Product (Again a picture says more to someone than you can, make it shout GREAT!)
Call To Action (this is where you begin to tighten those thumb screws, tell them exactly what they should do next)
Guarantee (Always give a money back guarantee it takes an element of risk out of the purchase, the period of redemption is your choice)
Order Link (Always state the price don’t have readers guessing!)
Ordering Options Explained (Make is SUPER_EASY for a person to buy, take them through all the steps including product delivery method etc)
P.s (Remind about the primary benefits to your product)
Another Ps! (Add a special bonus or a further benefit to motivate the person to buy your product)
Disclaimer, Your Terms of Condition, Privacy Policy (Self Explanatory)
Contact / Support (Always good for customers to have contact with you for questions, or if product is not received etc)
Now again, the content will vary for each sales page but you should always try to include:
Bullet Points (For listing benefits to your product, problems your product will solve, let people know how they feel after they buy your product etc)
Images & Screenshots & PROFESSIONAL GRAPHICS! (Help break up the boredom of reading lines and lines of text!)
From many of the comments I received I also understood that many people found the sales page far too long and boring!
Not necessarily just because the topic was not of interest, but it just wasn’t made interesting to the reader.
Your sales page should have the reader begging for more and itching to click the “buy on it now” button!
Make sure you make your paragraphs short as well as your sentences, never try to use technical terms, but if you have to then at least give an explanation of them.
It is also a great idea to split parts of your sales page up with the clever use of sub-headlines.
I once read (sorry can’t remember where) that if you can make these sub-headlines or sub-titles read or flow like a story then you are doing a good job!
Sub-headlines can also catch the eye of the reader, or the infamous sales page scroller!
You know the people I mean, they read a little then scroll down the page to see the price!
I am a self confessed page scroller and have often been stopped in my tracks by a sub-headling, or particularly eye catching graphic etc.
Colour is also very important, here is a very quick description of how colours can affect your mood:
BLACK
Black is the color of authority and power.
Black also implies submission.
Black can be overpowering, or imply the dark / evil side / untrustworthy!
WHITE
Brides wear white to show innocence and purity so the colour white induces feelings of moral certainty, integrity, purity, trust and goodness.
RED
As you will no doubt know RED packs a punch!
It increases heartbeat and energy in most people.
It also has romantic links such as intimacy and passion!
Red is commonly used to warn us of danger and emergency etc.
YELLOW
Yellow is energizing, happy, friendly and welcoming!
Although you may not think it, yellow is thought to be more attention grabbing then RED!
BLUE
The colour Blue makes us feel calm and relaxed.
It is also thought to be an appetite suppressant due to the lack of blue foods!
Blue also reflects trust and confidence.
GREEN
Green is relaxing whilst also giving a peaceful inner feeling or state of mind.
PURPLE
Purple can instill fear, intense anger and confusion, a colour to avoid!
So I guess the next time you are designing your sales pages, it would good to pay attention to which colours you use for the text, images and graphics!
I hope the above information has given you some food for thought when you are writing sales pages.
Believe me, once you master this art, selling really is a piece of cake!
Final thoughts…
If you do come across a REALLY BAD sales pages, there is nothing to stop you re-writing it, uploading it to your site and diverting people to the sale through your OWN affiliate link!
I bet you will make more sales than the original sales page ever does!
Also, when you see a SUPER SALES PAGE add it to your internet favourites and refer back to it for inspiration, if you keep doing this you will be an expert in no time at all.
It’s a good idea when you are starting out writing sales pages to get people’s opinions on your sales page.
There is a great copywriting section in the Warrior Forum where the forum members will be happy to rip apart, sorry, give you feedback on your sales page, always very helpful!
If you would like to know more about Copywriting and Sales Pages the I highly recommend Randy Smith’s “Salesletter ABC“.
I love the way Randy writes, and he explains all the techniques very well, ideal for beginners too.
You can get a copy by clicking here.
Thank you to everyone who replied to the initial email and if you HAVE ANY COMMENTS to this post, simply reply below.
I’d love to hear from you.
Sally 
———————————————————————————–
———————————————————————————–
Forget Email Give Me Instant RSS Feeds
———————————————————————————–
“Discover The REAL Secrets That Most
People Will Never Know About
Making Money On The Internet,
Revealed To You Today
On This FREE Dvd!”
Free Bonus Dvd Click Here
Topics: Copywriting/Sales Pages |
May 28th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Hi Sally, great topic. As you know I am trying to write a sales page, so these hints ‘n tips will be very handy to me.
Glad to see the colour “green” was there in the colour chart
Thanks for sharing this with us.
Take care
Val
May 28th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Hi Sally,
So that’s what this was all about. This is very interesting and I’ll take time to go over it thoroughly.
Thanks
Barry
May 28th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Hi Val,
Blue is actually my favourite colour! Hope the post helps you, love your graphics site, it’s excellent!
*******************************************
Hi Barry,
Yes it was!
Your response was very much appreciated, you gave me a lot to think about!
May 28th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Hi Sally,
Yes, this was very interesting and had a lot of excellent points.
I only question one thing about it.
How do you get testimonials for a product when none have been sold or if it is just an affiliate product.
Even the seller has probably never seen the affiliate product.
Nobody believes the “I only sell what I use” rubbish.
The very nature of the sales page tells you that if somebody is selling a brand new product, any testimonials have to be fake.
I applaud your exhortation to use real ones, but why? Nobody else does.
How do you get testimonials anyway? Only from people you know and have given freebies to. They will write you good ones whether they’ve liked the product or not.
A certain ‘guru’ marketer who looks like a pug dog would have to be 150 years old if he’d read or used all the products he endorses.
If you want fake audio ones, they are just as easy to make as fake written ones.
Video is easy to fake too. Just watch TV. Think ‘The Bill’ is real? LOL
Not being negative, just realistic.
All the rest of the post was spot on and should be read by everyone.
It is good to keep in mind, though, that there is never any truth in a sales page, if there was nobody would ever make any sales.
Well, you don’t expect me to be 100% positive, do you?
I’m too old to live in a fantasy world of honest sales pages and genuine statements from Clickbank.
Hi everybody - especially Val. Love the graphics!
May 28th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Hi Clive
Well getting “Real Testimonials” can be hard at first I do remember that.
It’s much easier AFTER you makes sales!
What I would suggest is you give away free copies of your ebook in return for an honest testimonial that will be used on your sales page.
Now I bet you think, what if the testimonials are not great? Well then that means your product is not so great and you have to address the issues that were raised in the testimonials.
Join some related forums, make a few posts, look to see who replies and seems friendly enough to approach and ask them to look over your product.
If you are approaching “experts” offer a link to their site / product with their testimonial, that always gets a good response!
Look for similar products / sales pages, and see who they have testimonials from, then contact them and ask if they would review your product.
There is a great little $7 report:
http://www.ebookwebsite.co.uk/recommends/testimonials/
That will give you a standard letter to use when approaching people and help you get great testimonials, worth the 7 bucks I think.
Sally
May 28th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
HI. Sally I am sorry I did’nt get much from Get your ex back as a sales page. but who am I to judge I can’t write my own Sales page. BUT I love all your E-mails Henry
May 29th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Me - I’m just pleased to get an email from you Sally….lol
#You seem to have been ‘busy’ elsewhere and I was beginning to wonder if you had vanished into ‘party land’ never to be seen again…hehe
Good post though - lots of tips there for people even if they don’t buy SalesLetterABC ….
(Naturally I think they should all take your recommendation and grab a copy. —- tell you what, lets see who’s reading - If anyone uses your link above to purchase SalesLetterABC - then don’t grab the add on Headline Heist… Instead submit a support ticket to www.randolfsmith.com/support and tell me you bought through sally.
The next 6 can have Headline Heist free!)
Best Regards as ever
Randy
www.RandolfSmith.com
May 30th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Hi Sally,
I’ve gone over your info here and it’s very good. I’ve made notes and added it to my own copy file.
However I’m more interested in your original email. The one that started all this off. You imply that a lot of your responders thought it was one of yours and you’d got stuck and were asking for help. I know I certainly did so I went back and checked your original email.
It doesn’t say that at all. I can see where I got the idea from but that’s not what it says. I fell for it hook line and sinker. Did you do this deliberately? If you did I would love to know if you used a specific method or just made it up.
May 31st, 2008 at 6:51 am
Hi Barry,
No, it was completely accidental!
I had the idea that it would be good to show subscribers a “poor” sales page, so that it would make them think what should be included and hopefully help them when writing their own sales pages.
I had no idea that people would think it was my sales page.
Once I re-visited the sales page and seen it had no photo of the author of the ebook etc, I can see why some people may have thought it was mine.
I would also hope that I could write a better sales page than TW!
Sally
June 11th, 2008 at 4:28 am
Hi Sally,
I agree. This is some great info. I had the opportunity to go to JVAlert in Philly last weekend and got to rub shoulders with some of the most famous copywriters. Some of the information you share is exactly what they expressed. There is a strategy to writing copy that converts. Your article is a great start.
Keep it coming.
June 14th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Hi, Sally
Great advice for all, i just found your site.
It’s all about putting yourself in the clients shoes and saying to yourself would i buy into that,and if your answer is no then its back to the drawing board. looking forward to exploring your articles and ideas, Regards
June 28th, 2008 at 8:07 am
I wonder how many are like me, though. Have you ever printed these sales pages? Some of them take 30-40 pages, which is ridiculous. Serve me up a long sales page and I’m so outa here. Reasons are:
1. These pages are disrespectful of my time.
2. I haven’t seen one that wasn’t boring, boring, B O R I N G (sorry, copywriters everywhere!)
3. The more “bonuses” you give me, the less I figure the core product must be worth, or the more overpriced I figure it has to be.
4. The “values” placed on the bonuses are usually highly doubtful.
5. I don’t know the people whose testimonials are posted and don’t care or have any particular reason to believe them. (In some cases, I might know OF them, but they’re usually the so-called “IM gurus” etc, but that’s worse because their names and mugs are plastered all over the place endorsing everything and everything. What ho’s!
What I’d really like to see is a very simple, direct sales page telling me in CONCISE TERMS what you’re selling and INVITING me to read more. And if you’ve read Cialdini’s remarkable book on the psychology of persuasion, you’ll recognize the powerful technique that doing this would bring into play.
July 31st, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Interesting review!
What you leave out though is this “poor” salespage has a Clicbank Gravity of 220 at the time of this writing.
Does on average of 125 to 150 sales a day at $39.
Converts at roughly 3% and up to 4% of some traffic.
Opinions are great.
But facts should speak louder than words…shouldn’t they?
Fact is…people in this niche spend a lot of time on this page…and buy…buy…and buy!
Peace,
T Dub
October 29th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Hi Sally,
I really appreciate what you have put together for us here. I am in the final stages of creating my first ebook, and my next step will be to create a sales page, so I will be back here a little more in the next few weeks!
Thanks for some great content.
Petra
November 22nd, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Hi Sally,
That came in just in time as was just starting to write my sales page.
Its been really helpful
Thanks
iyo