Over the past 10 years, I’ve studied various sales pages of successful startups. I’ve learned a lot from them.
First, you need a great product. Without a great product, creating a sales page would be a waste of time.
If you’ve gotten your product right and people are willing to pay for it, then you can think about creating a perfect sales page.
How do you accomplish that?
Know your audience
Over the last two years, clinical psychologist, University of Toronto professor and lecturer Dr. Jordan Peterson was able to accumulate millions of followers online.
In this period, his book became an Amazon bestseller and sold 1.1 million copies. He generated $100,000 recurring revenue per month.
His speaking shows sold out at every venue he spoke.
Let’s check his stats:
The below graph shows he had a few followers on YouTube as at the 16th of July 2016.
Dr. Peterson now has about 1.1 million followers on YouTube today.
According to SimilarWeb, his website receives over a million visits per month.
He has been among the top 15 Patreon creators for 8 months in a row.
He has 700k followers on Twitter and 160k followers on Instagram.
Few people knew Dr. Peterson before mid-2016.
How did he become a superstar overnight? What’s his secret?
The answer is simple:
He knows his audience: Students. Yes, students who care about topics like depression, personality traits, values, intelligence, religion and other topics.
It’s hard to find sites that target students with deep interests in these topics. Dr. Peterson saw that gap and filled it with high-quality content.
You’ll become popular and make a lot of sales online if you know your audience.
Before you write a word on your sales page, you should ask yourself this question:
“Do I really know my audience?”
Conduct online research. Visit forums and a platform like Quora to see questions people are asking.
The more you know about your audience, the better you can target them with a relevant sales page.
You can never know too much about your audience.
Create a unique value proposition
Customers care more about the value or benefits they’ll get after buying your product or service. They don’t care about how much you make.
They care about themselves.
They care about what they’ll gain from you.
Value is what drives people to convert.
Let me give you an example:
Adidas.
Adidas has 33.9 million followers on Facebook and 20.2 million followers on Instagram.
You’ll believe it makes sense for the company to spend more time on Facebook than on Instagram. You’ll be wrong if you’d guessed so.
In fact, Adidas social media team has stopped posting on Facebook. Their last post on Facebook was on the 6th of March 2018. That was three months ago.
Meanwhile, Adidas remains active on Instagram. The last update on their Instagram account was posted 11 hours ago.
If you pay attention to the last two screenshots above, you’ll notice that the brand’s post on Instagram receives more likes than on Facebook.
Why is that?
Facebook announced earlier this year that they would rank posts from friends and family over posts from organizations and other pages.
That means Facebook users will see a few posts from brands they follow.
Adidas may have decided to abandon Facebook because it doesn’t give them the value they want. Adidas wants to reach its fans – its customers. It seems like it can’t do that on Facebook.
If a brand like Adidas cares a lot about what it gets from digital platforms like Facebook and Instagram, why not your customers?
Create a remarkable value proposition that makes prospects read each word on your sales page.
Here’s our value proposition at OmniKick:
“We help you increase your leads, social fans, and customers.”
We make that bold on our homepage.
What’s your value proposition? Is it unique?
For example, ShoeBoxed is a receipt scanning and expense tracking software. Their unique proposition is simple: They turn their users’ receipts into valuable data.
Make sure prospects see it on your sales page.
Charge the right price
A new report by the Centre of Retail Research predicts that 10,000 UK retail stores will close by the end of 2018.
The total number of retail stores in the UK is 317,000. That means 18.4% of retail stores will close this year alone.
The report also predicts that online retail sales will reach 17.8% in 2018.
Offline retailing is disappearing. More consumers are coming online to buy.
Buying online is easy. Orders are delivered to your doorstep.
However, that’s not the only benefit consumers get from buying online.
They also have the opportunity to compare prices from different retailers before they buy.
When shoppers walk into stores, it’s a bit hard for them to leave because the product is $1 more than the price they expected.
It means they’ll have to walk out because of a small price increase. That can be stressful, so few consumers do that.
But not online. It’s so easy to be on different retailers’ sites at the same time. It’s easy to compare prices within seconds.
If shoppers aren’t happy with your price, it’s easy for them to leave and visit a competitor’s site within seconds.
The internet gives them more power and freedom.
I don’t mean you should compete through pricing. If you sell your product at a lower price, it doesn’t necessarily mean shoppers will convert.
Consumers consider several factors when buying online.
Despite this, you should still charge at the right price.
Offer your product at a price that makes people feel they are getting the most value.
Remember value is what consumers buy.
If the value is high, they may buy from you even at a high price.
Use your sales page to show different pricing options and demonstrate the value that comes with each.
For example, HubSpot has different pricing options and shows the value that comes with each one.
Hire the right copywriter (if you aren’t writing your sales copy)
If the person writing your sales page knows nothing about your company, product or service and customers, you’re doing it wrong.
To write an effective sales copy, the writer should have a deep knowledge of the topic.
And if that’s you, I guess you know your product and customers inside out.
If you don’t, you should hire someone who does.
Imagine someone who knows little or nothing about A/B testing writing a sales copy for an A/B testing tool?
How would he/she write an effective sales copy?
Only someone with a deep knowledge of the field will know what to include and what to exclude from the sales copy.
A writer who lacks the know-how of a field or product must first become immersed in the product and field.
For example, a copywriter who isn’t a designer, or a creative can’t write an effective sales copy for a complex toolkit like the Adobe Creative Cloud.
If such a copywriter wrote the sales copy, it would mean customers know more about the product than the copywriter. That isn’t something you want to happen.
Customers who can notice mistakes on the page may have little or zero confidence in the product.
If you’re hiring someone to write your sales page, ensure that he/she knows the technicalities of your product and niche. n
Write high-converting headlines and subheadings
There’s a debate going on that robots will take away all our jobs. I don’t believe that’s happening.
Amazon made waves in 2016 when it announced the opening of its cashier-less grocery store, Amazon Go. Amazon Go opened to the general public on the 22nd of January 2018. Everything in the store is automated.
In April 2018, China Construction Bank (CCB) opened the first fully-automated bank in China.
As automation expands to every industry imaginable, one thing is sure:
Automation will never replace creative writing.
A lot of work goes into writing highly-converting headlines and subheadings. Human-work is needed in this case.
If you want prospects to convert, you need to put in the time and effort to create headlines and subheadings that get attention.
When you visit the homepage of Shopify, you’ll notice that their headline and subheadings were what their site’s visitors want to read.
You need to embark on boring research to write subheadings like that.
Put time and effort into your headlines and subheadings. They are what visitors see first when they land on your sales page.
Describe the important features of your product
Your sales page is the place where visitors want you to go into detail about your product or service.
Describe every important feature of your product and the benefits it offers.
Take a look at how Apple describes one of iPhone X features.
Each product from Apple has its own sales page that describes its important features.
The iPad Mini 4 sales page is another example.
Here’s how we describe our advanced popup technology product, here at OmniKick.
Show or tell the benefits of your product
Google’s rich results testing tool recently adds support for events, movies, and TV shows.
If you’re a search marketer, I’m sure you’ve seen a couple of structured data in Google search results like these.
With rich snippets, you can add more details to your search engine listings.
With a tool like Google’s rich results testing tool, webmasters can see which data is available for Google to use.
Rich snippet is a big benefit for both webmasters and search users.
It helps search users find the information they are looking for much faster than before.
It helps webmasters make their search listings more attractive to Google search users.
Benefit. That’s what Google is showing webmasters here.
By using their rich results testing tool, Google demonstrates to webmasters how they can help them get more search traffic.
You can learn from the world’s largest search engine. Use your sales page to show prospects how your product benefits them.
People want to know what they’ll get after buying.
Uber uses its sales page to tell customers what they’ll gain by using Uber.
Use the right words
The right words will get customers to act on your sales page.
The wrong words will make them lose interest in your products.
A single word change could have a big positive impact on your bottom line.
For example, DeWalt changed the copy of their CTA from “Buy Now” to “Shop Now.” They got 17% more clicks, and their revenue increased as a result.
Words are powerful selling tools. They can boost your sales.
Use words that motivate buyers to convert. Use words that make them think and buy at the spot.
For example, Big Sun Solar, a solar energy company in Texas uses the phrases “get a quote” and “learn more” as their CTAs. These phrases help them turn visitors into leads. If you’re considering buying solar panels, you’ll want to know the cost. And if you’re not sure about solar panels and want to learn more, the second CTA clearly addressed that.
Deal with objections on your sales page
Your prospects will have objections.
You can’t prevent potential customers from having objections about your brand, product or services. But you can handle it.
Handling objections mean dealing with it ahead of time. Address customers’ concerns on your sales page.
If customers have to contact you about their objections, then it’s probably too late. You’ve lost lots of potential sales because of those objections.
No product is 100% perfect.
Successful companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon continue to handle objections from their customers or users.
How you deal with objections is what matters.
What’s your response to a prospect who thinks your product is too expensive?
What do you have to tell a prospect who thinks your product doesn’t have some features?
And a lot of other possible questions customers could ask on your sales page.
You may not be able to deal with every possible objection your prospects may have, but, at least, deal with the most popular objections.
Make visitors trust you
Web users know too well that they can’t trust every website they come across.
So, how do you make visitors trust you?
It’s simple:
Show them proof that your business is real and it delivers its promises.
Show them your happy customers. Display customer testimonials on your site.
For example, ChowNow added a video where customers share their experiences with the product.
They even added more information about the customer in the video. You see the name of the customer and the name of their company.
That shows prospects can verify these customers.
Circle Surrogacy is one of the most successful surrogacy agencies. On the website, the agency make visitors trust them by using displaying the number of babies that have been born with their service.
Testimonials from customers give prospects a reason to trust you.
On Your 6 Designs sells high-quality handmade Kydex holsters. The page is well-designed and they use testimonials.
Add a video to your sales page
According to a study, consumers are 64% more likely to purchase after watching a video. The average web user spends 88% more time on a site with video.
The great thing about online video is that many people prefer it over reading. Watching a video is easier than reading an article.
No wonder few people read books, and more people watch TV.
Watching is easier. All you need to do is sit and relax while you watch.
Reading requires more effort. You have to read each word, sentence, and paragraph.
Many prospects will rather watch a video on your sales page than read the entire text you have on it.
For example, MedCognition, a healthcare startup that creates augmented reality medical simulation training software has a video on its homepage.
Include a video on your sales page to ensure that most visitors see its content.
Use OmniKick
OmniKick can help you increase sales?
How?
OmniKick is an advanced popup technology that collects emails of visitors on your site and detects their presence when they return in the future.
The harsh truth is that no matter how captivating your sales copy is, some visitors won’t convert in their first visits to your site.
Most visitors aren’t ready to buy your product or service the first time they land on your sales page.
For example, let’s say you sell digital marketing services, visitors aren’t ready to contact your marketing agency the first time they visit your site. Most times, it takes more than seven visits to convert a visitor.
By collecting visitors’ email addresses, you’ll continue developing relationships with them.
And when these visitors who had given you their emails return to your site, OmniKick will help you detect each visitor and address them by their names. That enables you to personalize your greeting message to each customer.
OmniKick lets you impress your visitors. That increases your chance of turning them into customers.
It’s free to start using OmniKick. Sign up today.
Conclusion
That’s it!
Again, here’s a recap of this article:
- Know everything you can about your audience
- Create a unique value proposition that helps your business stand out from the competition
- Charge the right price
- Hire the right copywriter who knows about your product or service and niche
- Write attention-grabbing, high-converting headlines and subheadings
- Describe the most important features of your product
- Show or tell the benefits your product or service offers customers or users
- Use the right words on your sales page
- Deal with objections ahead of time on your sales page
- Make visitors trust you
- Add a video to your sales page
- Use OmniKick
Don’t forget to start using OmniKick today. It’s free.
