How to write an effective sales page

No one should be afraid to sell the fruit of their work. It's no shame to want someone to buy from us, just as it's no shame to write to sell. Writing a sales page is not easy because it requires clarity with respect to one's business, method in writing and honesty with respect to what we propose, but in this article I give you some indications that can guide you in this work.

The sales page: how it is made

The sales page is the first opportunity we have to put our product or service to the test. It's the first official release of what we want to promote, in which we stop repeating it to ourselves in our heads and start telling the world, we present it to whoever will buy it.

Precisely for this reason and for the responsibility that comes with writing a sales page is a demanding activity that requires work on 3 aspects:

• structure
• content
• form

Structure

Each text must be designed as an experience that we want to give to the reader who balances the satisfaction of receiving useful information on the one hand and the incentive to read more and get to the end on the other.

The satisfaction of receiving useful information: the inverted pyramid

The inverted pyramid is a writing scheme that allows you to organize the content following a precise logical thread. It provides that the most important information is written at the beginning, followed by the relevant details and finally the ancillary information.

It is a scheme that you can use to organize and write the sales page but it is also valid for other pages, such as blog articles for example. We will see in the section dedicated to the content which is the main information, which are the relevant details and which are the "very detailed".

The incentive to read again: headline, incipit, hooks

Headlines

Once we figure out how to organize information in order of importance we need to make sure the reader starts reading us. How you do it? With a headline that when well written is capable of condensing credibility, style and desire all together. On the sales page the headline contains the promise that the product or service makes. It must be convincing, powerful because if well thought out it pushes the reader to explore the text in search of more information. A headline that works makes you want to continue reading, intrigues, captures attention.

Incipit

It takes readers less than 15 seconds to figure out if they want to trust you and if your message is worth their time. This is why the incipit has a huge responsibility: it must trigger a strong motivation, it must promise useful, interesting content, capable of satisfying a need, solving a problem, giving a new perspective, a change, however small or large. It is in the incipit that we build the first real emotional bridge with the reader, igniting his curiosity.

Hooks

It is as necessary to capture attention as it is necessary to keep it alive: how do you do it? Underpinning the text with hooks that highlight noteworthy moments. The player must be conquered block after block without ever losing its brilliance.

The sales page must be a text in motion, in tension which, in addition to providing useful information, stimulates the reader to continue reading. This is why there must be valuable information in the details , the modulation of the narrative rhythm in the key phrases that underlines a turning point in the speech.

Content

We get to the juicy part of a sales page: what do I put in the structure? What do I write about?

• The need
• The USP
• The description
• The purple sensation
• The price
• The reviews
• The CTA

The need

All our products and services start from the need to solve someone's problem. Generally our brand exists to help someone. So the most important thing should be written in the incipit of a sales page: why do you need me? You are in this situation, you have this problem, you are looking for a way to get out of it. In this way you allow people to be able to recognize themselves in what you are talking about. The need is a very strong incipit because the reader can understand that you are talking about him who empathizes and is more willing to dedicate his time to reading.

eg. let's say I'm an organic farm that makes home deliveries of fruit and vegetables, my client's need could be that he doesn't want to give up eating well, even if he doesn't have time to go shopping.

The USP

After the reader understands that you are talking to him and his problem it is time to introduce you and your solution. Not only the description of your product/service but the reason why you with your service or product are the best choice. Here the big work is in recognizing what makes you, your product or your service different from everyone else: this special power is called the USP Unique Selling Proposition . Make it clear that you are the right person to get where he wants.

There can be no identity if there is no difference.
Levi Strauss

The USP defines what you do but especially how a product or service improves a situation or solves a problem . This is an advantage that customers can expect, it is why they should prefer you over your competitors. Why? Because it's about something your competitors don't offer, can't offer, or aren't communicating about.

How can you improve their life? You will have to give a very personal answer to this question which does not end with the description of your product but which connotes it with your particularity, with your special way of doing it.

Returning to the example of fruit and vegetable crates, the USP could be “fresh and organic fruit and vegetables delivered to your door.”

The description of the product or service

This is where there is space for information about the product or service that your sales page promotes: it is the central body of the structure, that of relevant details . In fact, here are the details that better explain what it is. The amount of detail depends on how much information people need to get a clear idea of what you're saying.

In the case of a box of organic fruit and vegetables delivered at home, for example, it will be necessary to say on which days of the week deliveries are made, which fruit and vegetables you will find in the box of the week, until you accept the orders, how much the delivery costs , as you can do if you want to replace some vegetables provided in the box, to which territory deliveries are made.

The feeling of having found what he was looking for

After you've addressed your prospect's need, after you've explained what your solution is, it's time to piece together the clues and let them imagine how positive they would feel with your product and service . Here you highlight everything he gets thanks to you: you can list a series of points that help see that product or service used in everyday life. They are concrete, tangible benefits. This section is very useful especially if what you sell is new, strange, complex to explain, uncommon.

The price

Is the price okay or not? For me it goes. Because come on, let's face it, everything is beautiful, but when you're about to buy something you also want to know how much it costs. Why should our customers be different? And if you don't have a "fixed" price because maybe you sell services and there are infinite variables that determine the price, indicate at least one "starting from a total of euros" : it helps you screen out the people who are really interested in buying and in the meantime it protects you from a thousand emails and useless estimates from those who don't have or don't want to dedicate that budget to the purchase.

I usually insert the price section here, but it can also be placed at the beginning of the sales page if the price is the strong point of what you are selling or if, for example, you are making a discount. You can also repeat the price several times during the sales page if the sales page is particularly long and you want to invite purchases several times.

The reviews

If you have reviews, it's time to get them out. If you don't have any, start asking your customers for them and collecting them. What if you're just starting out and no one has bought from you yet? Invest perhaps by giving your product or service to a small number of people who can test it and ask them to leave you a review. Reviews are a huge lever in getting people to buy, so it's important not only to enter them when you first write the sales page, but also to continue to collect and publish them over time so that there are always fresh and up-to-date comments on customer feedback. people.

The CTA

After the reviews, it's the right time to insert a CTA, a call to action , a real push to action. People have just heard the opinion of those who have already bought from you and were satisfied.
Now offer the reader the possibility of being able to do something they want which, if everything has gone as it should, is about buying. People need to know what to do: tell them loudly .

In summary, a good sales page:

• Tell about him : the customer (need)
• Tell about yourself writing the sales page (USP)
• Tells them how your product/service will make them feel (positive feeling, reviews)
• Gives useful information (product/service description, cost, details, etc.)

Form

Given that the structure is the same for all those who want to follow it, given that the contents to be communicated are those for you and probably for many others who do your job, it is in the style, as well as in the USP, that we can differentiate our sales page. We take writing as a tool to distinguish ourselves.

The work on the form is divided into 3 moments:

• clarity
• tone of voice
• rhythm

Clarity

It presents the reader with a clear map of your world which, on a verbal level, is made up of your keywords, those that have more meaning for you than others.

On the web there are 2 types of readings.

Speed reading where you read in fragments and close reading where you read the whole text word for word. The second reading is triggered only if the reader was struck by the first reading, the fragmented one, if he senses that there, in that text, he can find what he is looking for. This is why it is necessary to structure the text on several levels to satisfy both the first and second reading phases by acting on both the visual and the argumentative aspects.

In terms of layout, it is necessary to avoid walls of text by trying to bring out visual focuses through titles, paragraphs, keywords, boldfaces which become at a glance interesting elements on which to gaze and help to find information even with a reading distracted. White space is essential for the reader to breathe while reading, maintain concentration and focus on the text.
To facilitate the reader to enter the second level, the argumentative, narrative, the deepest one, use direct, concrete words full of meaning.

Give things their name without going around it, use synonyms only if they really say the same thing as the original word. Don't use difficult and incomprehensible terms to those who are not in your sector (almost always your customers or those who are interested in your service/product are not in your sector), call products and services for what they are, at best get help to study names that help understanding and not distance.

The tone of voice

Use your voice to talk about your products or services. Don't become someone else, don't take the tone that doesn't belong to you. Write as you are and feel; don't think that writing complicated means being "more professional" or that looking different than you are can help you communicate better.

Write the sales page as if you were facing a customer and you have to convince him to buy from you. Use your ways: this type of honesty will help you be more convincing and differentiate your sales page from the thousands of others that exist on products or services similar or equal to yours.

Rhythm

It is the movement that helps you make a text flowing , alternate short sentences with longer sentences, choose words capable of suggesting a certain atmosphere thanks to vowels and consonants.

Roy Peter Clark said that the narrative journey should be paved with gold coins. Don't play all aces at the start but also don't let the surprises sink to the bottom at the end of the text. Dose the thicker phrases with the more musical ones, dose information and emotion (I am thinking of the part of needs or that of positive feeling). A text should be a sort of musical score , where everything holds together, where the central motif resumes and is exploded in different ways (the customer's need which is the other side of your solution) as well as a sales page.

I've already told you about walls of words in relation to clarity: it's also a matter of rhythm. All they do is block the flow of thought and make reading difficult. In essence, digital text needs paragraphs, titles, subtitles and bold letters to modulate the visual rhythm.

Reading on the web is first and foremost a look. Short and impactful sentences shouldn't be distributed randomly but represent a change of scene, a crucial point, a turning point for the reader. The ideal is the alternation between long and short periods because this variation breaks the monotony, makes pauses appreciated, keeps curiosity high.

2 problems when writing a sales page

If reading your sales page it seems that it is not working, that it is weak, it could have one of the 2 most frequent problems concerning the writing of a sales page:

1. You haven't worked well on the target: you don't really know the needs of the people who are part of it.
   My advice then is to do research: take the time to read what the people you want to attract write, their online comments on your page or that of your competitors, in social groups. As you read what your target writes, write down the exact words they use to describe the needs related to the product or service you want to promote with your sales page. Your sales page should be the answer to their questions before they even ask you.
2. You speak for yourself or for the insiders and not for your customers. You take for granted information and knowledge that your audience does not have, you are generic and approximate because you think you are saying trivial things. The best way to be clear is to imagine that the reader knows nothing of what we are saying. We do not address those who already know our services perfectly but those who want to understand if that product or service is right for them.

In general , you can't talk to everyone: every time you think you're doing it, you're actually not talking to anyone. It is necessary to exclude, select, take a position: you can do it in the services you sell, in the about page, in all the pages of the site thanks to your tone of voice and your gaze on the world.