How To Write Internet Marketing Sales Pages

Learning about various elements of an effective sales page and finding out how to apply proven copywriting techniques to the letter so you can promote the product you are selling can help you convert more browsers to customers.

A good headline will grab people’s attention and the effectiveness of a great headline can make a difference between someone skimming the page quickly before moving on to something else and actually reading what you’ve written to get to the answer.

Just like there are various methods to use to grab attention in a Google ad, the same can be said for your headline and you can try various tactics to pique curiosity, create interest, and convince people it is worth their time to read what you have to say.

Back to SEO for a moment; do try to use a relevant keyword term in your headline. Quality is more important than SEO but you’ll do something good for your SEO efforts if you show the search engine spiders that a related keyword exists in the headline.

It’s also important to make your headline very visible so it should be bold, if not a different color from the rest of the text and the font should be larger than the rest of your text.

It’s important to realize that people have a very short attention span on the internet so you need to get their attention as soon as possible after the headline so that people will keep reading. They need to know, “What’s in this for me?” as soon as possible and the more you hook them in the first paragraph. The more likely they’ll get to the end.

You need to put the most important information first, so that people will keep reading. The first paragraph should entice them to read further. The top three reasons people buy something on the internet are:

1. It will solve a problem

2. It will save them time

3. It will save or earn them money

The introductory paragraph should demonstrate that reading the letter through to the end will help the reader either: solve a problem, save time, earn them money or save them money.

Plenty of copywriting methods exist for this first paragraph and you may consider making a template for your letter writing that includes all the mentioned elements in this report so that you don’t forget anything important!

A story can sell your products like hotcakes. When you describe a problem and then a solution it’s also important to develop trust. You don’t want to appear to be a snake oil salesman.

When you tell a story, you have to think about your audience. You have to show them how your product helps overcome an obstacle or solve a problem and you should also list the features and benefits of the product you are selling. 

Telling the story is a process but it needs to do several things including: talk about what your problem was, how the product you’re selling provided a solution, and you need to establish trust and proof throughout your story.

Subheadings break up the text. It can be difficult for a reader to get through a long 1,000+ word sales letter (and it often takes a thousand or more words for you to hit all the desired elements of an effective sales letter) but transitional subheadings create flow that links together various elements.

Read other sales letters to get some ideas of great subheadings to use. Don’t hesitate to use color, bold, and / or italics to help the subheadings stand out and don’t hesitate to insert keywords if they fit as well because this, too, can help you get more search engine traffic to your page!

The trick to being a good sales person is to overcome the barrier to buying - the objection. If you’re not face to face with your potential customer, you need to anticipate the objection(s) your target customer will have and be able to address them in a way that removes those barriers. How do you do that? Here are some common objections that people might have to buying your product as well as ways you can answer it:

1. Price is too high
Demonstrate their return on investment by illustrating why the price is not too high.

2. It won’t really work
Offer a money back guarantee and show testimonials.

3. I’ll think about it and ‘maybe’ buy it later
Create urgency and a special offer to get them to buy today.

4. Credibility
Make sure you’ve established trust throughout your letter so that you are believable. Demonstrate proof of your credibility and of your product doing what you say it does.

Testimonials are important in a sales letter. They increase your letter’s believability. You can display text testimonials, and if possible, display some video testimonials too.  Video marketing provides huge potential and a lot of successful internet marketers are implementing almost as much video into their sales letters as they do with text because it can generate and hold interest. You can get very creative with video and uploading to a site like YouTube and then embedding the video in the sales letter is something you don’t need to be technical to do.

How do you obtain testimonials?

If possible, a celebrity endorsement can work wonders.  Of course it’s improbable that you’ll get an A-list celebrity to endorse your product but an online celebrity in your niche might be someone recognized and their thumbs up could do a lot for you. You might try to get the attention of someone you feel is well-known online to help you by asking if they will review your product for you.

If you know several other successful online marketers, you can do favors for each other by doing testimonials for each other.

It’s important to address the issue of price in your sales letter. If you’re selling it for a low price, talk about how much money others might be selling a similar product for.  If it’s a high priced product, you should talk about how much of a return on investment people will get. Show the proof if possible!  If you can offer a money back guarantee on your product you also remove the perception of risk and when people feel there is no risk in buying and only the potential for gain, you’ll convert more visitors to buyers.

The key to getting people to buy something is to create demand and then to create urgency. If someone leaves the page you labored over to think about it, they might not be back. 

The best way to do that is to offer a price discount or to offer the product for just a limited amount of time. People need to be compelled to purchase immediately, if possible. Sure, they may check a few things before buying but you want them to hurry back before your offer expires.

It’s also a good idea to implement a ‘buy now’ button several times during the sales letter. You might find several places where they can skip to the checkout page that makes sense. You want to be sure that your sales letter is compelling enough to warrant asking for the sale before you get through the entire process but it’s typical to allow two places to buy. Once typically exists before the objections where you reaffirm why your product is worthy of a sale.

A picture is definitely worth 1,000 words and can add to the aesthetics and brand recognition of your page. Photos, logos, and color are important elements to make a sales page attractive. If you’re selling an e-book it could be very worthwhile to invest in a professional e-book cover so that you add to the credibility of the product / program you’re selling.

You can purchase rights to photos and / or use stock photos that you find online to design your sales page and this will add to the aesthetics of the page. Naming the photos with relevant keywords will also add to the relevance of your sales page in search engines as well.

The P.S. is a given on just about any sales letter. It gives you a last chance to convince someone of how incredible this offer is and based on the possibility that someone may skip to the end of the page, this quick paragraph or two gives you a chance to summarize why people should consider buying your product.

by Julie-Ann Amos, professional writer, and owner of international writing agency www.ExquisiteWriting.com

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