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Sales Page Basics in 11 Simple Steps — Part 2: Headline

Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 6:01 am

In Part 1 of this series, we talked about the pre-headline, or as I like to call it, the “Ladies and Gentlement, can I Have Your Attention, Please” component of an effective sales page.

Remember, the idea of any landing page, especially a sales page, is to get browsers (i.e., visitors) to take an action. In the case of a sales page, this action would be to buy the product or service you are promoting on your sales page. If you have a landing page, aka a “squeeze page,” you are seeking to turn browsers into list subscribers.

The ideas I’m about to present work for any type of “action page.” That is to say, they work on all pages where your intent is to entice browsers to take your desired action(s).

With all that said, let’s jump to the most important component of any sales page:

The Headline

I call it the “I’ve Got To Find Out More” Headline because that’s what you want your headline to do. You want to present a 1-2 sentence headline that makes the reader want to find out more about what you are offering. You want to generate enough interest to that he actually LOOKS FORWARD to reading your sales letter.

You want to build anticipation.

Here’s an example:

“How to Launch Your Own Opt-In Mailing List and Milk It For Everything It’s Worth!”

Again, this headline conveys a lot of information…

You immediately know the nature of the offer itself — we’re going to be talking about mailing lists
You immediately know that there is a promise that will show YOU the way to build a mailing list. The “how to” lets you know that you can expect to find out information on “how to” do it.
You immediately know that you will be shown how to get the maximum profit out of your mailing list — which is something near and dear to all of our hearts.

Now, this headline is very specific, very targeted and it pushes the emotion button — which is exactly what we want here. You wouldn’t even be at the website if you weren’t interested in mailing lists, so reinforcing the content is a great thing to do because it lets you know that you’re in the right place and you’re going to find what you came looking for.

The main thing you want to do with your headline is to stir up a desire to find out more. Focus in on one quick benefit, possibly even a “summary” benefit, which is what we did in the example. There will be many benefits later in the sales letter, but the “summary” benefit is “you are going to learn to make a lot of money by starting your own mailing list.” It is a “mini” presentation of the offer itself. Use your headline to refer to your offer in some way.

Another way that you might also want to use your headline is to offer some free information. For example, if your offer is on creating your own information product, then you might use the headline,

“5 Free Sources For The Hottest New Product Ideas That Everyone Is Asking For”

Then, you merely blend these 5 free sources into your sales letter itself. That way, you are providing quality free information as you weave in your ad copy for your offer. The word “FREE” in your headline is a powerful tool.

There is no more powerful word than “free.”

Use it wisely and it will be a huge benefit to you.

Next up: Part 3 — Hypnotize, Mesmerize, and Simonize! (Or something to that effect)

Sales Page Basics in 11 Simple Steps — Part 1: Pre-Headline

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 2:06 pm

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Everybody laments poor traffic. But there’s one thing that’s psychologically worse than poor traffic and that is untargeted traffic. Imagine that you finally got some good traffic numbers (perhaps through a Stumble, a Digg, a FaceBook post, or a Tweet) yet you still didn’t sell anything.

I can tell you that I’ve been in both places (no traffic AND a ton of traffic with no sales) and it’s the latter situation that totally sucks!

The key is getting targeted traffic to your sales page. Once you get targeted traffic (ready, willing, and able buyers), you still have to persuade them to buy your products and/or services. That’s what this series is about: Your Sales Page.

It takes special talent to convert “browsers” to “buyers.” Below is a simple 11-step process to help you with the task.

Step1: The “May I Have Your Attention, Please” Box

The first thing we want to do is get the reader’s attention focused in on a major benefit of your offer. Have you ever heard someone begin talking on a loud speaker, “Ladies and Gentleman, may I have your attention, please?” That’s exactly what we hope to accomplish as soon as the visitor arrives at your website.

We want to get their attention. Now, traditionally, this would be done with a headline. But, I like to do things a bit differently than everybody else, so this is what I do: Instead of using the headline first, I use what I call the ‘”May I Have Your Attention, Please’ box”. Others may call it the “pre-header.” Whatever you call it, call it effective!

Take a look at an example:

This is really a glorified headline. It is a headline on steroids. Because it is highlighted in a box, it grabs much more attention. And when it grabs your attention what are a few things that leap out at you?

Immediately you see the “3 *Exclusive* Free Bonuses” and the “You Won’t Find Anywhere Else Online!” Notice the reason you saw those two things so clearly: The first is highlighted by using a different ink color and the second stands out because it is underlined. Two easy things to do that really grab the reader’s attention…

…and they take less than 5 seconds to create.

You might also have even subconsciously soaked up the “order today.” In this “attention” box, you’ll notice several things…

You become aware that you’ve got some bonuses awaiting you. If nothing else, you’ll probably be interested in at least seeing what they are – since they are exclusive.
You’ll become aware that you are about to find something that you can’t find anywhere else. There is something at THIS website that is unique and different and nobody else has it.
A subtle seed gets planted that you need to order today. Before you even get to the offer, you’ve been presented a call to action.

I have done extensive testing on sales with and without this “attention” box. I’ve found that they outpull the sales letters that did not have the box almost 2:1. How else can you DOUBLE your sales in less than 30 seconds of work?

I highly recommend that you use one of these boxes as the FIRST point of contact with the reader when they arrive at your website. Here are just a few ideas of how you can use this “attention” box…

Hit them with a powerful and significant benefit.
Make some attention-grabbing promise.
Offer some kind of freebie or discount.
Refer to a deadline.
Mention your bonuses
Include a testimonial from a well known “guru” in your field.

Whatever you do, use this section to convey to the reader that there is a reason to stick around. The web moves at the speed of sound, so you don’t have long. Make a strong immediate impression and let them know that it will be worth their while to take a closer look.

Next up: The Headline, of course!

Building an Online Business Empire, Part 1 of 10 — Choosing a Business Method

Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 1:36 pm

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In Part 0, we laid the foundation for building an online business empire; basically, we talked about what we’re going to talk about. Now, onto the “real work.”

The first thing you have to decide on is “What is my business going to be?”

Some things to consider:

What am I good at?
Do I have any special talents?
What do I like to do?
Can I learn what I don’t know already?
Can I work without a boss?
Can I really work from home, in my pajamas? I mean, really work hard?
Is there enough material in me to make my own products?
Do I have industry connections that will ease my transition into whatever market I wish to enter?
Can I get help?
How much in liquid assets can I avail myself of? Meaning, how long can I go without making any money before I have to get a “real job?”
Do I have the support of my spouse or significant other?

Many of these “issues” can be alleviated simply by starting out “part time.” Keep your day job and build your business every other waking, non-family hour.

Let’s get to the real meat of this, then. What type of business should I start? There are a few excellent choices to start with.

Sell other people’s products. Known as “affiliate marketing,” this is one of the easiest businesses to get into. And it can be very lucrative. Many affiliate programs pay 50, 75, or even 100 percent commissions (they hope to sell the buyer on “back-end” products after you sell them the first product). It’s not hard to imagine how selling a $100 product with a 75 percent commission can add up! Sell 3 a day, $225! Or, over $6000 a month. All of these sales, too, by the way, are done fairly passively, meaning you don’t have to call anybody or continually sell. Once you set up a sales process, you’re on auto-pilot?
Create your own products. You have specialized knowledge that other people don’t have yet they seek it. You might be the parent of a “special needs” child, or you may have run the marketing operation of a small advertising agency. You might know how to train animals or have a special talent for baking cakes. Explore your experiences over the course of your lifetime and you’ll come up with dozens of product ideas for which you can create your own products. Then, you can build your own affiliate army and have other people sell your wares.
This one is a hybrid of the two above, of sorts. Private Label Rights (PLR) materials are materials that you get (either free or you pay for them), modify to suit your tastes and – more importantly — the tastes of your potential customers, and sell. In effect, you’re selling other people’s products (as in affiliate marketing), but you’re changing them up (sort of like creating your own product), but after the initial outlay of labor and/or money, you keep all of the profits. I have a really good course on starting and running your own PLR business called Internet Millions.
On the flipside of buying or acquiring PLR materials, why not create them? You sell your PLR to people who need well-written material. You don’t have to worry much about marketing, setting up niche websites, the sales process, and the like. You sell to the dozens of very good PLR membership sites that exist; they’re always looking for good material (and trust me, there is a lot more crap writing out there than good).
Membership sites. This is where you serve up content but for a price. It’s a great business model IF you have a lot of content because you receive regular monthly payments, rather than a one-time payment for a product you sell. However, I think a membership site is something you work into your business plan after you’ve established a profitable business.
There’s always eBay and Amazon. If you have physical products like books, gadgets, or other “hard goods,” these two sites are ripe for building a business.
Advertising. There are a lot of notable blogs that make a considerable 5 or even 6 figure monthly income based on serving up ads on your own site for other people. Google’s AdSense is the big player on campus, but there are others, most notably yahoo and Microsoft.

Of course, you can (and I encourage you to) marry more than one of these methods into your business plan. I would suggest that you start with no more than 2, however. My choices would be PLR and/or affiliate marketing PLUS AdSense. I would spend very little time on AdSense, and my thinking goes like this. AdSense will serve your visitors with ads that could actually help them, but they can also hinder your sales. For example, let’s say you’re promoting (“affiliate marketing”) a product that promises to solve a particular snoring problem. On your website, you write a post or page that talks about the negative health effects of snoring and you conclude with a link to the product you’re promoting (or “pre-selling”).

If you have an AdSense ad on that page, it is very likely that the ad will be about snoring and how to stop it (in fact, this is exactly how the ads are supposed to work — they aren’t called “contextual” for nothing). So instead of leading your reader to the sales page of the product you want to sell, you have sent them to a competitor.

Not good. Use sparingly. I suggest you place contextual ads only on pages your are not selling from. Seriously.

So there you have it — a few very good methods to get your online business empire going. Next up, in Part 2, we’ll brainstorm ideas, keywords, site concepts, and other things.