Jamie Doershuck is a marketing consultant at The Doer Co who helps 6 and 7 figure businesses optimize their conversion rates. You can work with her here.

Never Struggle Writing Sales Pages Again 📝

Easy Steps To Make A Sales Page For Any Industry

Sales pages…

What are they?

How do you make them?

Why are they so hard to write?

Could writing sales pages be easier?

If you’ve ever tried to write a sales page, you know that writer’s block is real 😅

Most of us can easily explain our business or product in person, but something else happens when we’re staring at a blank page… 📝

Staring at an empty Word doc can give us anxiety. (I call this Blank Page Syndrome.)

Because writing is more challenging for us than talking, we fall back on “corporate speak” cliches.

You might not even write the sales page at all. Because it’s hard.

Even if you do get a solid first go at a sales page down, you’re not out of the woods yet… 🌳🌲🌳🌲

You’re now entering EDITING HELL, where great writing goes to die.

Picture credit to Brian Fence.

Putting your writing in front of other people is scary.

So you get stuck in a cycle of changing the intro, editing the ending, rewriting the middle, until everything is perfect…

Well, I have some bad news for you:

It’s not going to be perfect.

Your sales page will never be perfect until you show it to people and make changes based off of that feedback.

You will never write a perfect sales page in complete isolation.

The most important thing is shipping Version 1 of your sales page.

With that being said, let’s learn how to write a sales page 😄

What Is A Sales Page?

Any place on your website that has the single purpose of turning visitors into customers is a sales page!

Sales pages can look very different depending on your industry and niche.

Sales pages can have different combinations and orders of videos, headlines, testimonials, photos, and copy.

They can also be short form or long form sales pages!

So… If They’re All Different, What Makes A Great Sales Page?

There’s no 1 true formula for a good sales page (although you’re going to get a pretty badass sales page copy template later on in this guide), great sales pages have a few things in common.

To write a good sales page you need to know…

Who buys the product

You should understand your customers in this level of detail or greater:

You can download DigitalMarketer’s customer avatar worksheet here (male customer) and here (female customer). You can find more specific directions on filling out the worksheet here. Ryan Deiss

You can learn more about what customer avatars are and why they’re important here:

How You Can Slay Like Buffy With Customer Avatars

How problem aware they are

There’s 1 important question you should ask yourself before writing any sales page that most people overlook…

Does your customer know they have a problem?

What the heck does that mean?

Imagine 2 different customers are shopping for electronics…

Meet Apple Alex:

Apple Alex wants to upgrade his phone, and he already knows he’s interested in getting the iPhone X.

Now… Meet Good Ol’ Gene:

Good Ol’ Gene wants to see all the pictures his kids are posting up on The Face Books.

Now here’s the question…

Are you going to talk to these customers the same way?

The obvious answer is no. (Or at least I hope it’s obvious… If it wasn’t, then you need to read the rest of this guide!)

You’re going to have to use different messages for people who are in different phases of the decision making process.

Gene Schwartz is a marketer who’s famous for creating a simple system that lets you categorize any audience’s awareness so that you know exactly how to market to them.

Here’s what the 5 levels of problem awareness look like:

1. The Most Aware: Prospect knows your product and only needs to know “the deal.”
2. Product-Aware: Prospect knows what you sell, but isn’t sure it’s right for him.
3. Solution-Aware: Prospect knows the result he wants, but not that your product provides it.
4. Problem-Aware: Prospect senses he has a problem, but doesn’t know that there’s a solution.
5. Completely Unaware: Prospect has no knowledge of anything except, perhaps, his own identity or opinion.

Looking back at our early example, can you see what level of problem awareness Apple Alex is in?

How about Good Ol’ Gene?

Apple Alex is The Most Aware. He’s past knowing that Apple is a brand that makes electronics because he already knows he wants an iPhone X.

If I was the store clerk (and especially if I was paid on commission), I’d take Alex straight over to the iPhone X display.

On the other hand, Good Ol’ Gene is Problem-aware.

All we know is that he wants to look at Facebook… To hook him up with the best solution, we still need to know more information about him.

Where will he be looking at Facebook? At home? Is he trying to show pictures to his bridge buddies?

Does he want to use this for more than just Facebook?

Are there usability considerations? (Bad eyesight, shakiness in hands that could lead to dropping electronics…)

Does he have a cell phone already? Is the existing cell phone a smart phone or will a data plan need to be added?

What’s more important: style or function?

What’s his budget?

Depending on the answers to some of these questions, we would show Gene different things.

If it turned out he has bad eyesight and only wants to look at the pictures at home, we might show Gene tablets…

If part of what he wants to do is show pictures to his friends, a cell phone might be better.

If he’s someone who enjoys the finer things in life, we might show him Apple products or flagship Andorid models.

If we think this piece of equipment might get beat up, maybe we’ll point him to lower priced Android models that would be cheap to replace.

You need to understand what level of awareness the audience you’re reaching is in. (If you don’t know, this guide is a great primer in how to figure that out.)

Why they’re buying the product

You want to be able to understand why this audience is buying products like yours in enough detail that you can explain it in their own words.

How can you learn more about why people are buying your product and products like yours?

You can try asking them.

If you don’t have any previous customers to ask, one way to get ideas is to look at Amazon reviews of products in your category.

This can be extremely helpful even when the product isn’t in the same format as yours…

For example, if your product is a dating coaching program you can still learn a lot about why people purchase by looking at Amazon reviews for things like The Game or The Mystery Method.

You can find out which buttons you should definitely press by looking at 4 and 5 star reviews.

You can find out what angles to avoid by looking at 1 and 2 star reviews. (Or, little stealth trick, you can see what complaints come up over and over again and position yourself as not sucking in that way… Saying what you’re not can be extremely powerful.)

Another way to learn more about why people buy products like yours is by “funnel hacking”.

This means looking at the sales pages of other products in your category and notating what buttons they’re pushing.

When you do this, you want to be sure that you’re learning from popular, high selling products.

Copying the strategies of a flop won’t lead you anywhere useful…

I recommend hitting up Clickbank to find good sales pages to learn from, because you can see how popular different products are across a TON of niches and industries.

One of the most time consuming parts of writing a great sales page is coming up with ideas.

You can definitely shorten that process with the 2 tips above.

Parts Of A Sales Page

We’re going to go through each of these pieces in more detail with specific tips on how to approach them in the following sections.

First, here’s a quick overview of the parts of a sales page:

Headline & Subheadline

This is the most important factor in determining if prospects will continue reading the rest of the page.

Call To Action

The difference between a sales pages and a home page is purpose.

With a home page, your goal is to help visitors explore and find what they’re looking for.

http://www.russellbrunson.com/hi Russell Brunson

Your home page probably promotes many different offers (paid products, free content, multiple platforms). You might want to establish credibility. You might give information about your personal story. You have a menu at the top to help people find what they’re looking for.

A sales page looks completely different:

https://goto.clickfunnels.com/pricing-page

Because it only has 1 goal: convert visitors into customers.

Calls to action (CTAs) are the buttons that lead to the specific action you’re trying to elicit with the page.

Choosing your conversion is an important part of the sales page.

For some products, going straight for the sale will be the best strategy.

For other models going for a free trial that automatically rolls into a paid plan is the best strategy. (Like Clickfunnels does.)

When in doubt, write the page with the goal in mind to sell the product now.

You can always experiment with alternative conversions later.

The most important thing to remember is that your sales page should only have 1 goal.

Sell the product.

Body

This is the meat of your sales page.

Body copy content and organization will make or break your sales page.

There will be a larger conversation on what exactly to write in the next section.

Let’s talk about the biggest question people have about sales pages:

How long should it be?

Answer: As long as it takes to explain everything.

Going back to the stages of problem awareness, this tool should help you figure out how long your page should be:

Photo credit from Copyhackers Joanna Wiebe

Higher investment products means people will have more questions. (Whether that investment is time, money, or both.)

Here’s another way to think about it, this example comes from Neville Medhora:

If you’re selling a pair or scissors in a store, THIS is essentially all the “marketing” you need: (Just display the damn scissors)!

The scissors displayed in the package is ALL YOU NEED to sell this item because it’s a cheap item, and it’s commonly known what scissors do.

However, let’s say you’re trying to sell something more expensive and less obvious what the benefits are.

As an example, Derek Halpern from Social Triggers has a product he releases a few times a year called Blog That Converts. It’s an expensive ($1,000+) and time intensive (3+ months) product, so naturally there are A LOT of questions people have about the product, and it takes a fair bit of explaining to do.

For the product Derek created a super-long sales page because there’s a lot that needs to be explained before people drop $1,000+ on the product.

The sheer length of this sales page made it a nightmare to even grab a screenshot of before he took it down!

I estimate it’s between 75 and 110 pages long. The only reasonable way to show it was make a gif and scroll it:

Neville Medhora Kopywriting Kourse

Sales Page Technology

There are a few important technology considerations for your sales page.

First, you’re going to want to install the Facebook Pixel on your sales page. What this will allow you to do is show retargeting offers to people who have visited your page but didn’t convert.

You’ll also be able to create lookalike audiences to find prospects who are most similar to people who have become customers.

Secondly, having Google Analytics on your website is key.

You’ll be able to get information about what stage of product awareness your prospects are in based off of where they’re coming to this sales page from.

Are they coming to your sales page from organic search? They might be in a problem-aware state.

Are they coming to your sales page from social media? From “intermediate” and “advanced” articles on your website? They might be in a solution-aware state.

This information can help you understand what kinds of messages will be most effective to sell to this audience.

Finally, you might want to use Pretty Links to keep track of different calls to action on your sales page. Specifically which CTAs are getting attention on your page? (A heatmap tool could also be good to have in the technology stack of your sales page.)

Now that you’re familiar with the parts of a sales page, lets dive into the specifics of each piece 😊

How To Write The Sales Page Body

You should start with the body in any sales page.

I know I said that the headline is the most important factor in whether or not prospects will continue to read… (Design is a close 2nd)

But…

You can’t write a killer headline until you know what the body is.

So my recommendation for your 1st draft is don’t sweat the headline.

Write a simple place holder and move onto the body.

Come back to the headline after you have a complete first draft.

You’ll have much more to work with.

How should you start writing the body of a sales page though?

A Simple Sales Page Copy Template

You’ll instantly have a killer 1st draft if you just copy/paste these elements below and flesh out each section!

[Bold headline]

[Story]

[Show why they need it.] <- Benefits

[Show what happens without it.]

[Testimonials and Stories]

[Justify the price]

[Pricing options]

[Handle objections: Money-back guarantee, FAQ, more testimonials]

“This free sales page template rocks! “— Tweet this

But… What EXACTLY Should I Say In My Sales Page?

I know, you want more than a basic sales page template 😉

You want to be sure that your sales page includes The 3 Keys To Value.

To get excited about what you have to offer, prospects need to…

1. Understand their problem, and your solution
2. Believe that they have this specific problem (Ever noticed that people believe 90% of drivers on the road are dangerous… But they’re not 1 of those dangerous drivers? 🤔)
3. Want to solve their problem (and it’s best if they want to solve it NOW)

How Do I Develop An Angle For My Sales Page?

Here’s 4 tips that will help you develop angles for your sales page:

#1 — Funnel Hack

Remember: DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL!

Source: IBM Industries

There’s already people selling products in your industry.

Look at Clickbank, look at the products being advertised to you on Facebook and learn about what’s already working in your market.

#2 — Amazon

Again, don’t reinvent the wheel.

Hit up top selling products in your category on Amazon.

Read the 4 and 5 star reviews to see what buttons your target market is already telling you works for them.

Read the 1 and 2 star reviews to see how you can differentiate yourself from other products in your category.

#3 — Check out Forums

Look at Reddit and read people’s natural language discussing problems in your field.

Check out niche forums in your industry.

You can even use Twitter search to find people talking about problems that your product solves.

Want to create a high converting sales page?

Learn how to use the language that your market NATURALLY USES.

#4 — Design Your Landing Pages Around Objections

What reasons do people have for not buying?

Create a page that addresses this.

I highly recommend checking out this guide by Pedro Cortés on this topic:

Design Landing Pages around Objections!

The Key To A Great Sales Page Is Benefits

There’s a difference between features and benefits, and you need to learn it.

Instead of giving you vague generalities, here’s a nuts and bolts example of how to turn features into juicy benefits:

When people make a purchasing decision, they want to know “What’s in it for me?”.

How you answer “What’s in it for me?” is by spelling out the benefits.

Here’s what you should do:

Take out a pen and a paper and list out all of the features of your product.

Let’s use a Swiss Army knife as a quick example.

What are the features of a Swiss Army knife?

It has a screwdriver, scissors, pliers, maybe a bottle opener, it’s small, it doesn’t break easily, it doesn’t rust (I think).

Now take each individual product feature that you have listed out, and for each single line item write out a story about how that feature helped someone.

“Bob was on a camping trip with his children one day. Just him, and his two sons Luke and Trey enjoying some crisp clear water and the great outdoors. After not too long, they got their first carp on the line! It was the BIGGEST carp that Luke had ever caught, and that beast really put up a fight. It took all 3 of them to reel that bad boy in! Luke and Trey get a hold on the wriggling monster, and are trying to hold it still while their dad searches for something to pull the hook out. While Bob is frantically searching their car and their gear bags for the pliers, he has the sinking feeling in his stomach that he must have forgot them at home…. Right as he’s fretting he’ll have to tell his sons that they won’t be able to eat the carp just yet, Bob REMEMBERS something… He threw his Swiss Army knife in his pocket on the way out the door! Because it was so easy to grab his Swiss Army knife without a second thought, Bob’s fishing day with his sons was saved! And they had a happy time for the rest of the day.”

For some of the product features, you may have feedback from customers or know their stories of what their favorite features are.

Your product is lightweight.

Great.

Why is that a desirable design feature?

Do people struggle with competitors products who are too heavy?

What was the functional reason behind the feature, and create a story around that.

In your sales pages, product descriptions (on-site), or emails you should never list another feature again.

You can read the whole example in context here:

The “Brain Glitches” Advertisers Use to Manipulate You Every Day

Another way to think about benefits is as 5-foot Benefits and 5-mile Benefits:

5-foot Benefits are so close to your audience’s reach they can almosttttt taste it.

5-mile Benefits can be life changing, but they might take a little bit longer to be realized.

Here are some examples of 5-foot and 5-mile benefits:

Read Copyhacker’s article here

Sometimes “save money now” works better than “turn heads at the beach.” Sometimes it doesn’t.

You can find the rest of that example here:

The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Ads for Busy Entrepreneurs

A Note On Message Congruency…

If your ad is offering a free trial, then make sure the landing page also offers a free trial (and not something else a newsletter signup).

Ignoring message congruency will kill your conversions 💀

Be Easy On The 👀’s

You want to make your sales page easy to read, mmm’kay?

Some simple rules of thumb:

• Don’t use too many fonts
• Don’t use too many colors
• Don’t use too many different alignments (left justified, right justified, center justified — my head is spinning 😵)
• USE. SUBHEADERS.

A great general guideline is that each subheader should have ~300 words under it.

This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but if you notice that 1 section has 900 words it could probablyyyy be split up into multiple sections.

Check out this in-depth guide on conversion-killing design:

4 Ways You’re Annoying Your Customers

💍 1 Tip To Rule Them All… THE REAL SECRET TO KILLER COPY

READ THE DAMN THING OUT LOUD.

Did you stumble on words?

Cross it out.

You need to either remove this completely or rewrite it.

Then?

Read it again.

Keep reading your body copy out loud until you make it through the whole thing without making a single mistake.

Headlines & Subheadlines

When you’re starting to write your sales page, just use placeholder headers/subheaders and work on the body copy.

You won’t be able to write magical headlines until you know what you’re even trying to say.

Only worry about finalizing your headlines after you’ve got a good first body draft.

There’s SO Much To Be Said About Headlines…

But there’s really not.

I wish I could tell you that there’s some kind of super ultra mega shortcut hack to writing good headlines.

Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet.

There are literally no hard and fast rules.

Some headlines can be as long as almost 2 whole sentences — others are less than 8 words.

Both could pull millions of dollars.

So HOW do you get great headlines?

The best advice is to just WRITE 20+ headlines.

Then go through that list and highlight everything that’s really good.

Be ruthless.

This list should be incredibly short.

Pick the 2 or 3 best, and then repeat this exercise all over again.

Where To Look For Inspiration

One of the best ways to get inspiration for headlines is clickbait.

Go browse Buzzfeed.

Learn more about the psychological principles behind clickbait:

I reverse-engineered Buzzfeed’s most viral posts and the truth is shocking!

Go look at top Kickstarters.

You can learn A LOT from people selling products that don’t even exist yet.

Check out a copywriting swipe file for inspiration:

Swipe-Worthy " Swipe File Archive " Marketing & Copywriting Examples

You can also play around with some headline generators to kickstart your ideas:

• https://sumo.com/kickass-headline-generator/
• http://www.title-generator.com
• https://www.internetmarketingcourse.com/freeheadlinegenerator/

Here’s the truth about headlines:

Be prepared to split test them.

It’s not possible to tell WHAT headlines work without doing that.

Asking For The Sale: Calls To Action

What’s going through your head as you think about writing a call to action for your content?

You might be thinking things like, “I don’t want to turn people off by asking them to do something.”

Or, “My readers might unsubscribe from my email list if I start selling them things.”

Or, “What if I come across as pushy and annoying?”

Those are all common fears, but you have to accept…

You’ll NEVER get what you want (your conversion) without asking for it.

Here’s the ONLY hard and fast rule about CTA’s…

HAVE ONE ABOVE THE FOLD!!!!

Your prospect should ABSOLUTELY have an option to make your conversion without ever having to scroll down the page.

Period.

Otherwise…

Nothing else really matters, because you will have to A/B test it.

When thinking about placement of calls to action, besides having 1 CTA that is visible without scrolling down — the only advice I have for you is to imagine the experience of looking at the sales page as a viewer.

They’re going to experience your sales page as “screens”.

So every couple of “full screens” you want to be sure there’s an opportunity for them to make your conversion.

Otherwise what…

• The CTAs should say
• What color they should be

Needs to be split tested.

The only tips I have to offer you are try experimenting with using “My” instead of “Your” on the CTAs, and check out this article:

Powerful Calls to Action: How to Get Your Reader to Take the Next Step - Copyblogger

Closing Thoughts About Writing Sales Pages

You’re flat out not going to write a perfect landing page in your basement alone.

The only way you’re ever going to find out whether or not the landing page you’ve created converts is to put it in front of the market.

So bookmark this guide, use the information to put together a first draft ASAP, and then move onto the next step of the process: conversion rate optimization.

Read these next:

4 Simple Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies 🚀

Reverse Flat Revenue With Conversion Rate Optimization

How to Write High-Converting Landing Pages for Facebook Ads in 2018

The Ultimate Guide to Google Analytics for Busy Entrepreneurs

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Jamie Doershuck is a marketing consultant at The Doer Co who helps 6 and 7 figure businesses optimize their conversion rates. You can work with her here.

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