Let’s be honest.
Your sales page is one of the most important puzzle pieces of your launch.
Whether you’re launching a new course or selling a product, your sales page is THE place where your audience makes the decision to buy…or not!
Copywriters everywhere want you to know that it’s a great idea to start working on your sales page at least a couple of months before your launch.
Yup, months. Not days. 👀
Why?
Because there’s a LOT that goes into writing a high-converting sales page. From research to editing, every stage of the process takes time and brain power.
DIY-ing your sales copy?
I’m sharing 8 sales page copywriting tips that’ll blow your audience away!
1. Do Your Market Research
You may have heard that you need to do your market research before…
…but had no idea what it was that you actually needed to do.
Market research is essential to write sales page copy that speaks to your target audience, their needs, anxieties, and wants.
You may think that you already know everything there is to know about your potential customers, but don’t skip this step!
As an expert, it’s easy to get caught up in your extensive knowledge of your offer and its benefits instead of explaining it to your audience in a way that THEY can understand, too.
Market research essentially helps you marry what you want to say with what your target audience wants to hear.
It’s key to writing a sales page that converts.
So, what are some good ways of doing market research?
Email Surveys
If you have an email list, it’s a great idea to send an email survey to your audience.
If you want to get fancy, you can use a premium tool like Typeform. If that’s not in your budget, a simple Google Form will do!
Here are some of my favorite questions to ask on an email survey:
- What was going on in your life before finding [SOLUTION]?
- If you were to invest in [SOLUTION] in the future, what benefits would you want to get out of it?
- What’s holding you back from investing in [SOLUTION]?
- What were the hesitations you had before investing in [SOLUTION]?
- How did [SOLUTION] make you feel?
Notice how all these questions are open-ended? They’re not simple yes/no questions and they don’t ask about stats like your audience’s gender, age, and income.
These types of questions are called psychographic questions and they’re the best way to understand the WHY behind your target audience’s thoughts and motivations.
My biggest tip?
Make your survey FUN. Add some jokes, GIFs, and thank you’s. Nothing beats humor.
If you really want to motivate your audience to participate in your survey, offer a small reward like a gift card. Works like a charm! 😎
Interviews
Interviews with past customers or clients are pure copywriting GOLD.
Prepare a few questions about your clients’ motivations to invest in your solution, what they got out of it, and what kinds of anxieties and internal blocks they had to work through before they decided to buy.
Then, jump on a 20-30 minute call with them to chat!
Let the conversation flow and go on tangents. This is where the most interesting stuff comes up. 👀
Always record your calls and it’s a good idea to transcribe them after too so it’s easier to see the best parts.
Social Media
If you don’t have an email list or clients to interview, social media is your best friend!
Reddit threads, Facebook groups, forums and basically anywhere on the internet where your target audience hangs out are awesome places to dig up market research that you can use to write an effective sales page.
Market Research: Final Thoughts
Direct voice of customer research > assumptions.
Market research is actually one of the reasons why you can’t write a good long-form sales page overnight.
You need to spend time mining the research data and analyzing it before you even get to writing!
2. Start Your Sales Page with a Statement Your Reader Knows to Be True
Now it’s time to get to writing using what you learned about your target audience from your market research.
First thing you’re gonna do?
Open up your sales page with a statement that your audience believes to be true.
This is also known as speaking to your target audience’s pain points.
Before you talk about all the great things that your online course or product has to offer and how it can change your target audience’s lives, you need to make them trust you.
How?
By making them feel seen and understood. By relating to where they are now.
Start with a statement that feels too-good-to-be-true…
…and you’re dead.
Instead, ask yourself, “what is the starting point that my reader instantly knows to be true?” and build up from there.
This is how to write a sales page that converts.
3. Don’t Jump Straight into Features
Speaking of going too fast into things…
You are probably itching to start talking about all the amazing stuff your audience will find inside your online course or product.
One of my biggest sales page tips is to paint the transformation first and THEN explain the features of your offer, such as all the different modules of your course, tech details of your product, etc.
First you need to explain WHY your target audience should care about the features of what you’re selling.
If you don’t, they won’t be interested enough in all the details…and your conversion rate will suffer!
4. Show Your Audience That They Can Trust You
People don’t buy from people or companies that they don’t trust.
The best way to build trust with your target audience? Social proof. Lots of it.
Your sales page needs to show that there are people or businesses that have gotten real results after investing in your offer.
Here are my favorite things to use as social proof:
- Testimonials
- Case studies
- Video testimonials
Strategically sprinkle your social proof throughout your sales landing page and make it SUPER easy to read with your sales page design.
5. Be Specific
If I gotta pick one tip on how to write a good sales page, this would be it.
Whether you’re writing a short form sales page or a long form sales page, your target audience needs to know that your solution solves their SPECIFIC problem. So, when writing your sales copy, focus on a very particular group of people that you are speaking to.
It can feel scary to narrow your focus down. You may think that you’re setting yourself up for lost prospects because you’re not addressing everyone, but the truth is…
…when you’re trying to sell to everyone, you’re going to end up selling to noone!
So, be specific in your sales copy.
Speak your target audience’s language, address their unique objections and anxieties, and paint the transformation that they ACTUALLY want to see in their lives!
6. Have Clear CTAs
Typically I’m all for fun, quirky copy…
…but your CTA buttons are one of the places where it has to be CRYSTAL CLEAR what you want your target audience to do.
If your prospects are not sure what will happen when they click on a call to action, they won’t click on it.
They shouldn’t be asking themselves, “what will happen if I click this button?”. They should know AND it needs to be clear what the value of clicking on your CTA is.
On a similar note, avoid chunky language on your CTA buttons that may be clear…but just not engaging.
For example, which CTA button would you rather click on:
“Click here to speak to one of our representatives and get access to your free trial”
OR
“Get your free trial”
?
I bet it was “get your free trial” because it just sounds infinitely easier and your perceived value is much higher.
(No one ever wants to speak with a representative, duh.)
Your CTAs are literally how your prospects convert, so you want to make sure that they’re enjoyable to click on!
7. Make Your Audience Understand That The Cost of Doing Nothing > Cost of Your Solution
Not taking action is always an option.
Maybe it’s not your competitors that you lose your prospects to…
…but simply your target audience thinking that investing in your solution is just not urgent enough.
That they’re okay just not doing anything about their problem right now.
“This sounds great,” they think. “But I can probably figure it out on my own or get this later…”
…and they’re off your sales page.
So, make your audience realize that the cost of doing nothing is more expensive than investing in your solution.
How?
Paint a future transformation that they can’t resist.
Show them what they’re missing out on right now and how your solution gets them to that next place.
Focus on the benefits. NOT the features.
8. Convince Your Audience That Your Product/Service Is the Most Logical Solution to Their Problem
Show them that investing in your solution is the smartest thing they can do in their current state.
Once they reach the end of your sales page, they should come to the realization that your sales page is THE solution for them.
This way, they won’t be able to resist clicking that final CTA button.
How?
By focusing both on the features and the benefits.
It’s the combination of painting a transformation they really want AND showing that your offer has all the things that’ll make that transformation become their new reality.
Way too often people focus too much on the features and don’t actually explain WHY these features are important.
Or they spend their entire sales page on big claims that are not supported by any concrete steps or social proof.
Benefits + features + social proof = high-converting sales page.
Ready to Write a Fantastic Sales Page?!
Heck ya!
There’s no shame in DIY-inig your sales page copy.
(As long as you don’t get started on it the night before your launch…)
Plan in advance, go deep on market research, and focus on what your audience wants to hear a little more than on what you want to say.
You got this!!
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