6. What Goes Into a High-Converting Sales Page (and What to Leave Out)

Hello, welcome back to Copy and the Marketing Podcast for online service providers like you. Learn how to write copy that sounds like them, but converts better. I am so excited because we are getting into the good stuff this week. Today marks the first of four podcast episodes about sales pages specifically. Today we're talking about what goes into a high converting sales page and what to leave out. This is for you if you are trying to sell something on the internet and it is just not selling. But first my name is Sam. I am the founder and lead copywriter at Nomad Copy Agency. And I have been writing for six and seven figure launches and plenty of four and five figure launches for the last six years. Before that I was a sales rep for a tech company. Before that I was in finance sales. So I know how to speak a client's language and make it so translatable and so understandable that people not only say I get it but I want it. So we're going to jump in and talk about sales pages today. Today's episode specifically what goes in them, what doesn't go in them. Then we get down in the next three weeks into the nitty gritty. We're going to talk about things like headlines, what goes above the fold, how to write a call to action that gets people to absolutely click it and follow all the way. And follow all the way through on the back end to purchasing from a conversion page from a checkout page. So let's go ahead and dive in. People come to me all the time and say Sam what goes on a high converting sales page. Sure I can download a template. What do I actually need? And here's the thing I do have a bone to pick with copy templates and with bots that create a sales page for you. And here's why there's so much that goes into a sales page from just the words on the page to the sections themselves. You know we've been told that we need a problem section and an about section and a modules section if you're selling something like a course we're told we need all of these things. But every product is different. Every service is different and every audience is different. So we need to think about a lot of things here not only what you want to write in the message that you need to convey, but also what do your people need to note in order to be able to purchase. So I like to think of it like a sales pages like a salad bar take everything you want, but eat what you take. So why I have a bone to pick with templates is because templates will give you every section that you could possibly need because this person that you bought the template from wanted you to have all of this information. They did it in your best interest. However, what they can't anticipate is what your people actually need to hear. So because this isn't always clear service providers folks like you go and write a mile long sales page for something like a low ticket item that's like $37 or you have a boat load of problem sections because somebody told you you needed a problem section and your audience might not need to hear that in order to purchase. So let's talk about it. What goes into a sales page? What can stay out in my opinion? Here's everything you need in a sales page. You only need the sections that your people need to know in order to purchase. But if it was that easy, if that one line was easy enough to help you go write a sales page, you'd go with one up right now. So the first step really to writing a sales page is to understand what your people need to know. So what I recommend doing is actually pausing this episode go back and listen to the episode called defining your ideal customer and writing for them. You need to know who your ideal customer is first and the best way to do that to paraphrase the best way for you to do that is to ask them ask them what they need ask them what they're looking for ask them what their ideal solution is and then figure out what happens when they get that ideal solution. That's your first step to writing a sales page. Then your goal is to tell a story that they see themselves in so well that they want to purchase from you. So what goes on the sales page? It's a story. It's a flow. First, you tell them what's available and you hook them with a why they should want it. That's your above the fold. And like I said, two weeks from now we have an episode specifically just on above the folds. But for now you need to know that above the fold needs to tell them what they're getting and why they should want it and it needs to ask for the sale asking for the sale is not complicated just tell them click here to buy. Join now. Become a badass. Whatever that call to action needs to say say it there. Then we take them on this journey if we remind them hopefully with some data why what they're doing now isn't working for them. It's not going to get them to the solution and the transformation that they want. And if me saying solution and transformation feels fuzzy to you, you have two options. Go back and listen to the episode that I mentioned or here's what a solution and a transformation are. The solution is the solution that they are looking for to their problem not necessarily the solution that you provide. But of course you're selling something so it's also the solution that you provide the transformation is what happens after you have provided that solution. So we talked in episode three about red bull we talked about energy drinks so the problem is that people are tired however there's a lot of options to go about not being tired. It's anything from get more sleep to take caffeine pills to look into sleep apnea and talk to a doctor perhaps meditate or get coffee and energy drinks. So red bull can only fulfill the energy drinks part of that that is what they are specifically designed to do however they don't sell red bull they sell the energy that you feel after having a red bull because it gives you wings right so they're selling this feeling that happens after you get a red bull. That is the transformation that you want to speak to so we talk about that and above the fold we tell them what it is and why they should want it and how to get it we ask for the sale then we remind them why what they're doing now isn't working. This is likely what you've been referring to as a problem section on a sales page so we've got an entire section dedicated to you've tried x y and z yet you're still here struggling. So another section that tells them the possibilities that come from buying with you buying from you we say you've been struggling with x y and z but here's what you could be doing instead. I will show you how we again ask for the sale we put another call to action there and then we remind them of all the other possibilities and benefits and then again we continue asking for the sale. So we're seeing a theme where we tell them what you offer and we ask for the sale we remind them of what they're doing now we do not ask for the sale because we don't want to motivate people with what you're not getting but rather what they will be getting so we're putting calls to action every time we position the sale we take them on a journey where we say this is what you can get. We take them down a slope that says but what you're now isn't working we take them to the pits of despair depending on how far you want to go and then we take them up a hill we're thinking this of this like a roller coaster up up up up up here all the possibilities this is what your life is going to look like everything's going to be amazing. And then we keep writing that high the other problem that I see templates and bots that right sales pages do is then they take people down a hill they do these dips and that's the least fun part of the roller coaster in my opinion whether it's a real roller coaster or the sales page is that when you go on these dips then you're losing your momentum you're no longer telling people why they should purchase from you you're telling them and reminding them. And reminding them about their problems if we remember back in episode three and four we talked about the limbic system in the prefrontal cortex and where people are making decisions from when people are making decisions from their problems you are going to get clients who are focused on their problems when you speak to their transformation and what happens as a result and you're selling from that place you are going to get people who are enthusiastic about the solution that you provide. So we always want to be selling from a place of potential not a place of their problems. So let's talk about how much needs to go into the sales page because sometimes when I say a section that reminds them of their problems it may just be one sentence it may be an entire section that goes on for a while so when do you need what. The question is less about what sections do you need and more about what your client needs to hear so we're remembering that but if your unique audience needs to know about how the futures are going to benefit them and exactly what time they're going to be meeting and what the retreat that's included looks like and what the dates are and exactly how much time they're going to get from you as the service provider. Then you need to include all of that information if your audience is highly technical then you probably want to include information of this is exactly what happens in each module if you're. audience is less technical and they don't need all of those details, then maybe you just include the titles of modules. So again, I don't want you to get to in the weeds thinking that I'm going to sit here and give you an outline of this is what needs to go on every sales page because every audience is different. However, what you do need to do is tell them why they need to buy and continually ask for the sale. So at minimum, here's how I would design a page. Tell them why they should want it right at the top, tell them how to get it right at the top of the page, and then ask for the sale. In another section, you can include who is delivering and what your authority is in the space so that they trust you and we want to build trust. And we of course want to mention what the outcome of working with you or purchasing from you or getting your free thing will be. Now I am fortunate enough to have purchased several homes in my life. And we in our last home that we purchased printed out our mortgage documents ourselves. And when we went to the library and printed them, it was 111 sheets of paper. If you're worried about my carbon footprint, it was less than flying to my realtor at the time. So we printed out our mortgage and it's 111 pages of paper. And we needed to know exactly where our lot lines were. We needed to know if the fixtures were going to stay, if the appliances and the basement were going to be included. We needed to know if the fence was going to be repaired before we purchased the house or if that was something that was going to be on us. We needed to know that because it was a six figure investment. We are service providers on the internet. Even our high-fact finders don't have hours to go through your sales page. If they are looking for that kind of handholding, they likely should be getting on a sales call with you. So when I see people who have a free thing and their page is several, several scrolls long, it just doesn't need to be that way. A zero dollar offer or a freebie can be sold in a pop-up. It can be sold as just one section on your home page. It can be sold in a one scroll standalone page, which we would call an opt-in page on its own. It doesn't need to be long. The more complicated your offer is, the larger of an investment oftentimes that your offer is, the longer that page needs to be. But if I get on any sales page and I see that the little scroll bar on the right hand side is this big and I realize I'm going to have to scroll my mouse a hundred times. This is not a mortgage level investment. This is not that complicated. You are not going to live in this house. It's not going to give you shelter and safety for the next 30 years. No, this is an offer that you can probably sell in 10 scrolls or less and get the information out. When pages get to be too long, the number one problem I see is that they're focusing on what is included in the offer and not why the person should buy it, which ultimately means that the text is not compelling because you're not speaking to the transformation and you're telling them about yourself and what you are offering versus what is going to happen to them and why they should want it and what the transformation is. This feels difficult and you want my eyes on your copy. You can do one of three things. You can grab an hour of my time at canyouwritethisformy.com where I can just your page and give you a really solid audit and some edits is likely a good idea or if you're looking at your sales page and thinking, oh my gosh, Sam, this is so far gone. I don't think I can do this myself. Great. Let's talk about a VIP day. You can get on my calendar for either of those things at the links in the show notes absolutely and you can always reach out to me at nomad.copy on Instagram or at Samantha Burmister on LinkedIn if you have questions about that. Let's talk about how long your pages should be based on how long they are before we wrap up here. If you're selling something that is zero dollars, as I mentioned, you can do that in a popup. You can do that in a one scroll site, a one scroll page. You can do that somewhere on your website. That does not need to be complicated. In fact, anything under $100 can likely fit on just a checkout page. You may not even need an opt-in page and a checkout page. For then, something that I would call very low ticket, which would be less than $100, you can fit that in a single scroll as well. But typically, that's where we start doing a reminder of why this is for you, maybe a bit of authority building there as well. You can grab the opt-in copy bot for free. I'll make sure that the link to that is in the show notes as well. That will build you a two scroll opt-in page in like 10 minutes or less. All you have to do is plug it into your design. Then we start to get to things that are a bit more pricey. Anywhere from $100 a month to a one-time payment of $500, something where the investment is typically going to be less than 1,000. You'll need everything that I mentioned above, which is your above-the-fold section, plus maybe a Y section. You could also use the opt-in bot for that, plus maybe adding a problem acknowledgement section as long as you then follow it up with information about the solution that you offer. We never want to end a page talking about problems. We always want to make sure that we're asking for the sale multiple times once people start to scroll are the biggest things here. This is also a great example of when you want to ask your people, "What do you need to know to make this an easy yes?" Then just put that section on the sales page. The headings of these sections are super, super important for your scrollers. We have scrollers and high-fact finders are the two ends of the spectrum. Once you start adding scrolls, you need to make sure that your headings are super potent so that people know this is a section that I need to read. That's what we're going to talk about in the next episode. When we get into our $500+ offer, and this is really where we end, because once you're over $500, some people call this high ticket. Once you get over $2500, they call it Ultra High ticket. But basically, you need everything that you needed for your $100 to $1000. But you'll probably want some more details about the deliverables because this is where you start to get more complicated of what exactly is included. What dates are they held? What do I need to know? What's included in the modules? This is where we get some breakdown of what is included that needs to be added. That's what you need at each price point at a minimum. If your people need to know more, tell them. I worked with a coach for nonfiction authors. Nonfiction authors are people who have to do a lot of research to write their books. They are detailed people. They wanted to know everything that was included, and they wanted to be able to search it really easily on the sales page. No jargon. They wanted to know what they were looking for. That's an example of people who need to know more. We tell them. It's important to understand your different types of buyers as well. There's everybody from the wealth-minded to the avoidant-minded. People who are wealth-minded are going to just only focus on the transformation. People who are avoiding something are likely going to focus a bit more on the problem section, and it's our job to guide them to a solution and guide them to a headspace where they're ready to buy. You're also catering to skimmers and high-fact finders. Skimmers are the people who just skim through a site. They might be just looking at the headings. They just want to know how it benefits them, and they're going to move on, and that's going to help them make an easy decision. Your high-fact finders are going to be like those authors that I mentioned who really dig in beforehand. You may also be dealing with people who hold things close to the vest, people who might be highly anxious, people who really want to get on a sales call with you, and that all comes down to your sales process of how you want to run your business. But copy can do a lot for you as far as giving people with certain personas a lot of peace before they purchase. There's a lot that goes into a sales page, and I don't want you to get overwhelmed. But ultimately, that's how long a sales page needs to be, depending on your pricing. We're going to get into in the next couple of episodes headlines. That's going to be a super exciting episode because I think headlines are such an opportunity for being ultra-specific and making your people think, "Oh my gosh, this is for me." We'll talk in the next episode about the above the fold. That is this section, the very first scroll on any page, and then we're going to talk about calls to action, which are the parts that get people to click through. Go to your checkout page and actually give you money. As always, my goal is to help you write copy that sounds like you, but converts better. I'm so grateful that you're here to learn, and I want you to sell more. Because when you win, we all win. I truly, truly believe this. If you have questions for me, the links are in the show notes as far as how to get on my calendar to grab an hour of my writing time or a full day of my writing time. If there is something else that you need, though, it's me on the other side of this. Please, please, please, feel free to reach out when there is something that you need. I do custom packages all the time, and I'm always happy to just get my eyes on something real quick and give you a good push in the right direction. I will see you next time. next week where we talk about creating incredible headlines in your sales pages. Thank you for being here and of course as always be sure to like and subscribe. The algorithm will then love me and I will love you in return.