Archive for June, 2008

Issue 70 : Writing Flawless Sales Pages (Part 3)

Sunday, June 8th, 2008
This is the third and final part of the series about “Writing Flawless Sales Pages“. In this issue I am going to break down a few things that you should do once you are finished writing your sales page!

You just wrote a great page that you know will sell! What do you do next? After you have finished writing this great sales page here are a few things you can do to make sure it is effective:

  • Review Your Writing.
    The first thing you will want to do is look over everything you have written and make sure there are no spelling or grammatical errors, but this should be common sense to anyone after they have written a document of any sort.
  • Proof Reading Your Page.
    If you are not the best writer and this is your first sales page then you should get it proof read by someone who knows a thing or two about writing. In fact, there is a whole slew of proof reading jobs that are available for writers on the internet.
  • Create a “Thank You” Page.
    This is basically a page that the buyer will be redirected to after a purchase is made. For a lot of digital products, the URL link to the file will be on this page for download. Now the great thing about the presence of this page is that it gives you a chance to follow up on your sale, make additional sales; and of course, to thank your customer for the purchase they have just made!
  • Testing and Analytics.
    Once you have your page up and running you will want to run it for a period of testing. This will be great to see the outcome of what you have just created. If you see that traffic isn’t converting then you will know that changes need to be made. If your sales page is indeed a perfect page then you will notice that you can sell something that no one would ever need; however, I don’t suggest you start selling stuff that you don’t personally support.
  • Drive Traffic to Your Sales Page!
    Even if you have the most exquisitely written sales page that converts at 100% (which is probably impossible) you will not make any sales if no one ever sees that page! You have to bring visitors to your page! The best way to do this is by using PPC advertising. It is really simple to start a Google AdWords Campaign so I suggest that you start there if you have money to advertise! If you don’t have money to invest then there are a lot of ways to increase traffic to your page but it will take some time so patience is necessary! To generate High Traffic on your page you need to capitalize on Search Engine Results by creating great quality backlinks with keyword anchored text!

This is what you need to do once you have finished writing your Sales page. If you come across with any badly written sales pages that are selling great products… then just re-write it with the key points I’ve previously explained in Part 2 of the series and you will increase sales for sure! If you see a great sales page then take note of it and try to use the techniques to your advantage on your own page!

This concludes the “Writing Flawless Sales Pages” Series and in the next issue of the ‘ONE YEAR MILLIONAIRE‘ I am going to look at BANS (Build a Niche Store)!

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Issue 69 : Writing Flawless Sales Pages (Part 2)

Friday, June 6th, 2008
In the last issue I covered everything you need to know in order to prepare to write a great sales page. Now that you have everything set up you should be ready to go. I am going to explain in detail each necessary element of a perfect sales page. If you take all these ideas and use them effectively then you can easily increase your sales conversions.

Writing a ‘Sales Letter‘ is obviously a much different task then writing a ‘Short Story‘ or writing a ‘Movie Review‘. In each area there are different rules of thumb which must be done in order to have written an acceptable piece. Here are a few things that you should do to make the most out of your sales page!

  • Explain What you are Offering.
    There is no point having a sales page if you are not going to tell the reader what they are buying. Try to be as clear as you can when describing exactly what it is that you are offering for sale. I have came across a few pages on the internet in my time that I’ve been working as an Internet Marketer which have had confusing sales pages. These are the types of pages that you reach the end and still don’t know what they are selling. There are a lot of E-Books being sold on the internet which have these types of confusing sales pages. Always do your best to make sure that the reader knows what they are going to purchase; you don’t want them coming back asking for a refund because it isn’t what they expected!
  • Highlight The Benefits.
    Every time you are trying to sell anything whether on the internet or offline you will want to make sure to show off the benefits of your product! For example: The product is ’simple to use’, or ‘does the most thorough job’! Always make sure that your product seems appealing to the reader! Never go out of your way to highlight a fault or negative aspect of the product you are trying to sell. Even if it is being dishonest… leaving out a small detail isn’t the same as lying to a reader and thus has no legal repercussions. There are a few exceptions such as in cases where there could be a safety issue… you always want to point out anything that has to do with safety because a person’s safety is always more important than making a sale.
  • Offer a Free Gift/Extras.
    It is always a good idea to offer a bunch of free gifts to go along with your product or service as extras if they act soon. Provide a deadline. If they see this on a page it will give them a reason to buy sooner if they are at all interested!If you are selling an informational digital product on the internet there are a lot of companies on the internet that offer free stuff that you can give out to your buyers! These include service coupons, travel coupons, etc. These kind of things are really easy to get your hands on but as an extra incentive to buy your product it doesn’t hurt to have it there!
  • Use a Sense of Urgency.
    A small thing like this could be one of the things that either makes someone walk away or buy a product. Give your readers a sense of urgency so that you have higher chances of making a sale; rather than having someone come to your page and put it aside for later. They may forget about it, or just get too lazy to actually take action! If you say something like “There is only 100 copies left…” or “This product is only being offered at this price for 2 more days!” the reader will think about it more seriously or even buy a product without thinking.
  • Take Advantage of Human Emotion.
    One of the reasons that sales letters or sales pages actually succeed is because we are appealing to Human Emotions. We have the benefit of selling to Humans (a being who’s logic can be swayed through words,images or actions) and not to robots (a machine who responds systematically).We know that every person is different and because of that.. we can target key emotions which could trigger the need or want of a certain product or service. If you call someone “fat” repeatedly day after day then eventually that person will try to go on a diet. If you then take that idea and introduce a secret formula to weight loss you’ve already sold thousands of prospects without trying; and you can thank society’s social standards for your earnings.

    These are a few things that you could do to capitalize on certain emotions:

Remind your Reader of Their Insecurities.
Everybody has insecurities. Obviously this can only be used to a certain extent and isn’t 100% guaranteed. The reason is that not everybody has the same insecurities. For example: if you are selling a product to lose weight there is always a percentage of people who are completely satisfied with how they are. Remember that even though someone is obese does not necessarily mean that they are insecure about their weight!

I am sure that I can find more girls who are in good shape that show signs of insecurity than obese sumo wrestlers showing those signs. It all depends on which way you look at it. You definitely need to know how to be able to read your prospects.

The reason that you need to add this logic into your sales letter is because if someone is indeed insecure about something… reminding them will give them another reason to make a purchase and they only need 1 for it to count! If you take a look at a few key phrases in weight loss sales letters you will find things like:

“You can have the body you always wanted!”
“Summer is around the corner! Look your best!”
“Are you sick and tired of hiding your body?”

These are a few examples of how a writer can make a reader re-evaluate their needs.

Even if it is the slightest feeling of insecurity a short sentence like this can turn an accidental page browse into a sale! If you take your web site’s niche and do a little bit of research you can generally have a good idea of the possible insecurities that you can play around with.

Invoke a Sense of Fear in Your Reader.
Have you ever been scared into buying something? I know for a fact that a lot of electronic stores work hard to scare you into paying for an extended warranty on a product! It is a common sales tactic to make you think you will need something for fear that something will happen if you don’t buy it.

In the ‘make money online‘ niche there are a lot of web site’s that offer programs that may or may not work; however, people are still buying it day after day! The reason is because the way the sales pages are written give readers the impression that they could end up losing out on an incredible opportunity. If you’ve ever taken an Economics class then you may know a thing or two about ‘Opportunity Cost‘. Opportunity Cost is what you would have sacrificed choosing an alternative option. One of the reasons that Opportunity Cost is important is because it isn’t restricted to money or finances… it could be anything from a ‘Week of Wasted Time to a Giant Google Check‘!
For example, if a website is selling a “get rich online” program than they are not just selling their product/service/information… they are also selling the dream that goes along with it! They will try to scare you into buying their product by saying things like “if you don’t buy this program you will never be able to quit your 9 to 5 job” or “not taking this opportunity could be the biggest mistake you ever made in your life!”

Tell a Heart Warming Story.
Did you know that telling a nice little story which has something to do with either the creation of the product/service or how it was used in a situation can boost your sales? I know this because I found myself buying a product I really didn’t need simply because of the Heart-felt story that I read on the sales page. The story makes you feel more familiar with the seller and captivated me to the point where I thought I had to buy the product. After I did buy the product I realized that I didn’t really need it and probably wouldn’t have made that purchase if I didn’t read the short story! The reason this works is because people are not robots… they have emotions and if you can sway them in your favor. Sometimes people think with their heart instead of thinking with their head!

  • Post Testimonials.
    Posting up testimonials for your product or service is always good! You will always want to vary the type of testimonial that you show on your page. You can’t have 5 testimonials from 5 successful businessmen in the same field! You have to have testimonials from seemingly normal people if you want to convince other normal people to buy your product! If they only see testimonials from people who own their own business then they may feel that even though they buy the product they will not be able to make the most out of it!Always have a picture of the person who is writing the testimonial. There is nothing worse than having a lot of great testimonials sitting on a page with no visible proof that they were uniquely written. Obviously a picture isn’t much proof that they actually wrote it and believe their statement but at least most people won’t look too deeply into that. A great way to get some good testimonials for your products is to offer your products for free to a few people for review purposes!

    Testimonials add more depth to your sales page. It is basically like a vote of confidence for a product or service from a third party.

Using all these techniques you should be able to string together a great sales page! Writing isn’t for everyone but you can still make a killing just by knowing what you need to do! If you want to sell then you have to be able to live with the fact that much of what you are doing is simply manipulation. Never sell something that you don’t personally believe in or have at least had experience with. Finally, never feel bad about the techniques that you use to make a sale because everyone does it including charity organizations and big companies. In the end, business is still business!

In the next issue of the ‘ONE YEAR MILLIONAIRE‘ I am going to go over the last details of writing your sales page. I am going to talk about what you need to do once your page is written!

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Issue 68 : Writing Flawless Sales Pages (Part 1)

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
If you have ever done an Affiliate Marketing Campaign before then you probably know that they each vary in terms of conversions. If you are attempting to market a product or service that nobody wants or needs then you might have headed in the wrong direction; however, did you know that simply changing the wording of a sales pitch can make people believe that they need to buy something that they didn’t even want in the first place?

Today I am going to talk about how you can write a perfect sales page that can turn a dead campaign into a money tree!

A lot of people believe that they are not good enough writers to have their text viewed by others on the internet, so they end up hiring freelance writers to write for them. I am almost certain that anyone with the strategic writing elements that I am going to give can be successful and make great affiliate commissions!

Before you can start writing your pitch there are a few things you are going to have to do. Remember that we are trying to generate the best possible combinations to make sales (so if you think that the product or service you are trying to sell is useless, then switch to something that people actually need/want). There is no point selling golf balls or light bulbs on the internet because people can buy them easily at a store. You want to try and sell something that may not be available in stores. Even better, you might want to sell them **secret** information. Just by labeling the information as a secret people will be curious as to why it needs to be secret. You can sell a product with this notion alone!

So you really have to select a product that you know people will buy! I remember when I first researched Internet Marketing I fell into a lot of the traps that were set up for me and I bought dozens of programs that promised wealth! Not only did they promise money, but they promised me a lifestyle and I couldn’t turn it down. If I was looking to choose a product for an affiliate campaign I would definitely think my chances were better with a product that even I was convinced into purchasing!

After you have chosen the product that will be the main object of your affiliate earnings, what you can do is register to affiliate programs of a couple competitors for similar products. The reason I think you should do that is because you can come up with a very logical campaign! If you are using Google AdWords to advertise your affiliate products/services then you can set up a system that can completely change the way you view affiliate marketing. The idea is that you can use multiple ads to achieve one goal. This may cost more because you will be running many ads simultaneously, but because you will be taking up a few spaces (hopefully on the top page of ads for those keywords) you will likely drown out the competition to a lower spot.

You can also write short reviews about all these products/services on a blog or review page. The benefit is that you can generally point them to the one that you want to go by giving it a better review and a better rating, and since you have affiliate links to the competitors at least you can still make some commissions if they don’t take your advice with the reviews. That is what they call “playing it safe”.

Finally when you are about to get ready to write your sales page you will need to do one last thing. Research.

Whenever you are jumping into a new campaign, think of it as walking into unfamiliar territory. You have to start getting to know the terrain and as much as you can about this new area. If you are promoting a product similar to one you’ve promoted in the past then you can simply use the same methods or closely-related ones. If you are promoting a hosting/domain service then chances are you want to research all the big names in hosting to see who offers the best affiliate program. The second thing you will want to do is make sure that they provide quality service because if they don’t then your online reputation can crumble to bits. An unreliable hosting service promoted by a sneaky internet marketer is not likely to be a positive headline to read on a blog! Whatever you are trying to sell, you have to make sure that it offers something useful to your readers/surfers!

Once you’ve researched companies providing affiliate programs you will have to do a little more research. This time you will be looking into people who are promoting those programs and see what they are doing to be successful. Take down some notes, look around and see if there is something that can be improved and get ready to make some money!

Now you have all the information that you need to know before writing your sales page. In the next issue of the ‘ONE YEAR MILLIONAIRE‘ I am going to continue and break down each part of a sales page so you can take advantage of each step in a big way!

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