1. Write A Riveting And Intriguing Headline!
Your headline is ultimately the single most important factor that will determine whether the rest of your sales letter (which incidentally contains your offer) will be read or not by your prospective buyer. Thus it makes sense to devote extra time and effort to create the absolutely best header that you can.
Oh! And it certainly helps if your headline has a modicum of originality as opposed to being a complete duplicate of some other headline that you stumbled across on some other sales page on the internet?
Why bother with originality?
Well it is quite possible that your prospective buyer may have stumbled across that plagiarized headline of yours on some other website just like you did and if they happen to have had an unpleasant experience on that other website when they see a similar headline on your website that unpleasant experience will invariably resurface, automatically encouraging them to click away!
Don't get carried away by overly emphasizing every aspect of your header. Abide by the cardinal rule that if you emphasize everything you are emphasizing nothing! One last thing to note about constructing the perfect headline is that it should be short, concise and taut (as much as possible anyway).
2. Your Sales Letter Should Be One On One!
Remember that when you write to everyone you are writing to nobody! In other words structure the communication of your sales letter (or sales page) as if you were addressing one person, and one person alone! When you construct your sales page your goal is to make your reader feel as if you are having a heart-to-heart conversation with them alone.
3. Address Your Readers Concerns!
That person reading your sales page is not actually doing so because of its Pulitzer-quality writing, but because that magnetizing headline of yours promised to solve a problem that has been gnawing away at them! Most importantly they are even willing to pay you cold hard cash if your sales letter convinces them that you can actually resolve their problem.
4. The Body Text Of Your Sales Letter Should Follow Through With The Promise Of Your Headline!
Make sure that the main thrust of the rest of your sales letter reaffirms the offer promised by its headline. In other words do not promise one thing in the headline and then meander off in a totally different direction within the body text of your sales copy. This will only confuse your reader and ultimately lose you the sale!
5. The Sales Letter Is About Your Reader Not You!
Remember this is not about you but all about your reader. So address their concerns and issues, and as much as possible resist the temptation to talk about yourself. The only time when it is okay to paint yourself into the picture is when you wish to forge a stronger bond with your reader by sharing a similar experience.
6. Avoid Page Leak!
So what is page leak? Any element that can distract your reader's attention away from your ultimate goal should be removed from your sales page. That means removing all outbound links from your sales letter (don't want your reader clicking on one of those and then being diverted to another website and getting permanently distracted from that wonderful offer of yours now do you?).
7. Sell One Item Only!
Too many choices, too many ideas, too many options do not make life easier for your reader but paradoxically make it harder for them to reach a conclusion. When it comes to marketing an abundance of choice is actually not liberating but rather paralyzing. When a prospect cannot choose between one option and the next eventually all momentum they had to reach a conclusion is sabotaged by apathy and they simply stall to a shutdown!
So do yourself, your sale and your prospect a favor, keep it simple! Sell one item only!
8. Create An Irresistible Offer!
Figure out and make an offer that is just too good to pass up!
9. Go Easy On The Hype But Knock Yourself Out With The Facts!
It's a whole new brave world of internet marketing out there and hype is no longer a credible currency (well at least it is a much reduced one) these days. Your sales letter will have a much better conversion rate if you back up your claims with facts and credible reasons.
10. Effective Selling Means Tapping Into The Right Emotion!
If you don't know this by now then it is high time that you did. People buy for emotional reasons not for logical or rational ones! They merely subconsciously delude themselves into believing that they made the purchase based on a rational decision.
Consider the case of the middle-aged business man (and loving father of three) who went out and bought a flashy red Porsche 911 on the underlying premise that he would be able to negotiate the LA commute that much faster and hence ultimately be more productive. The truth of the matter (which by the way his wife was well aware of) was that the man was merely trying to relive his glorious youth when girls still checked him out (can anyone shout mid-life crisis)!
A sales letter that appeals to a person's logical and rational mind is going to have very limited success!
11. Write The Way That You Actually Speak!
Writing the way that people normally speak is harder than you might think because we have been taught to do the precise opposite in school! However writing to reflect natural speech, like pretty much everything else, becomes easier with practice. It also helps if you read your sales copy out loud to yourself (or better yet, have somebody read it out to you).
12. Keep Your Sentences Short And Simple!
Remember that your sales letter is your advertising department, sales department and PR (public relations) department all rolled in one, so it is certainly in your interest to construct the very best possible sales letter that you can!
That means you should write short, simple-worded and powerful sentences as opposed to lengthy mind-numbing dissertations. Also try to use energetic words (verbs work best) with which you can paint powerful images that appeal to the emotions (don't forget that a picture speaks a thousand words).
One very effective form of sales copy is a staccato, rapid fire style of writing, that is punchy, short and to the point! Oh, another thing to avoid as much as possible using words your readers might not be familiar with (a good example is the word "stacato" that I just used).
13. Emphasize Benefits Not Features
Your reader is interested in what benefit he or she will derive from buying your product and how it will improve their life not the one million supposedly great features you took great care and time to compile and mention in your sales letter!
A good rule of thumb to remember is that features appeal to the rational whereas benefits appeal to the emotional. And as we all know now, emotion-charged letters are the ones that clinch the sale not those laced and oozing with cold hard logic.
14. Identify The Emotional Reasons Why People Buy Then Focus On One!
There are a number of well-recognized emotions and reasons that motivate people to buy and they include:
o Fear
o Love
o Greed
o Comfort
o Laziness
o Sex
o Power
o Self-Improvement
o Recognition
The ideal sales letter should be themed around one of the above listed reasons, and one alone (remember that whole chat we had about too many choices leading to confusion and apathy).
15. Sprinkle Your Sales Letter With Weapons Of Mass Persuasion!
What are the Weapons of Mass Persuasion (WMPs)? Weapons of Mass Persuasion include:
o Testimonials
o Screenshot Evidence
o Charts and images that backup your claims
Quite understandably in this day and age people are naturally skeptical especially when it comes to the internet and the only way in which you are going to be able to break through that barrier of skepticism is by backing up your claims with some form of proof and evidence.
Perhaps the strongest weapon of mass persuasion in your internet marketing arsenal is the testimonial! Why the testimonial?
Because the average person's actions and choices are pretty much based on what everybody else is doing and choosing. That's right! Human beings are little more than herds animals that subconsciously fashion their "unique" decisions and actions to mimic those of the majority!
Nobody except the most intrepid explorer wants to navigate uncharted waters first! After all, who knows what horrors may be lurking in the depths? But if some else has done it before and testified that it was great then it has to be okay, right?
The power of the testimonial lies in what is known as social evidence...if other people are doing it then it must be okay!
16. Create A Sense Of Urgency
Human beings are hardwired to dread the consequences of loss even more so than they look forward to the rewards of gain.
So knowing this tells you that if a prospect is aware that they have a limited time only to buy your product then they are going to be that much more inclined to make the purchase right away than if they think they have all the time in the world!
17. Professional Appearance!
Make sure that your sales letter exudes a high degree of professionalism both in appearance and content with respect to grammar and use of language. A sloppy letter will set off internal alarms in the subconscious of your reader and thus make it harder for you to claim the sale!
18. A Relevant Story Goes A Long Way!
Stories appeal to the emotional aspect of our minds and so if you can integrate an interesting story relevant to the theme of your sales pitch then you'll exponentially make your sales letter that much more memorable (stories are easier to remember). A good story incorporated within your sales letter could be the difference between a miss or a sale!
19. Have A Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Competition is not to be feared because it means that the market you are targeting is evidently economically viable; in other words profitable.
Competition does mean that you have to get a little more creative to get your product to stand out from the rest of the crowd. That "standing out from the crowd" should be emphasized in your sales letter as your USP or Unique Selling Proposition. In other words your USP convinces a prospective buyer why they should buy from you as opposed to your competitors!
20. Call To Action
It is amazing how many marketers overlook this very simple but all too important aspect of their sales letter.
Make sure that you have a clear and easily understood call to action! A call to action is just the marketing way of describing that button or instruction that tells them where to click to make their purchase.
It is advisable to have the call to action replicated many times throughout your sales copy (some people are way too impatient to read through a long sales letter and a timely inserted call to action could be the difference between a sale or a person who clicks away from your site because they couldn't find where to pay).
Also ensure that your call to action form or button is very obviously that. You'd be surprised at the number of lost sales that result simply because the customer couldn't readily identify where they were supposed to pay!
Well that's it! Judicious application of these tips should help you increase your conversion rate and thus ultimately make more money online.
More Tips On How To Make Money
Ba Kiwanuka is the webmaster of http://www.internetbusinessmart.com
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