Posts Tagged ‘online selling’

Why don’t they buy? (part 1 of 2)

December 7th, 2009

What is it that stops people from clicking the ‘buy now’ button, and entering their credit card details in your sales form?

The 6 reasons

There are 6 basic reasons why a person won’t buy a product or service. Each individual may refuse to buy for one or more of the following reasons…

The benefits aren’t clear
They have no need for the product
They can’t afford it
They’re not asked to buy
They don’t believe the product can deliver on the benefits promised in the advertising
They don’t trust seller

Benefits aren’t clear

A benefit is an emotional reward that the owner gets when he or she uses the product. For example, a man who buys a custom-tailored suit enjoys the pleasure that comes from looking as good as he can possibly look.

Most Internet advertising incorrectly focuses on describing the product itself, rather than the benefits of owning and using the product.

This is a mistake, because a person doesn’t set out to buy a collection of components. He or she is interested in what the product will do for them.

Every product has particular features, and they do need to be included in the ad. But a feature should only be included to support the benefit of using the product. It’s a product’s benefits that matter.

No need

Nobody voluntarily buys a product for which he or she has no need. It’s impossible to sell a person anything until he or she has decided they want what the product offers more than the amount of money required to obtain it.

Having said that, it isn’t necessarily true that a person has no need for a product. It may be that the person hasn’t understood what they’ll get if they buy the product. People don’t buy products. They buy the thing that the product promises to deliver.

For example, people don’t buy cars. They buy transportation, and/or status, and/or convenience, and/or thrills.

It’s highly likely that a sales page that doesn’t get many sales isn’t communicating what the product delivers. As a result, potential buyers don’t understand why they might need the product on offer.

Can’t afford it

Sometimes, a person really can’t afford to buy. In this situation, the solution is to find ways to help a buyer fund the purchase.

It’s more likely that the buyer can afford to buy, but has decided it’s not worth more to him or her than the money it costs. In this situation, the advertiser is almost certainly failing to describe the benefits of using the product in a way that excites the potential client.

For example, a Porsche 911 has several benefits. It will get you from point A to point B. It looks fantastic, with sensual lines and has the appearance of moving even when it’s standing still. It’s a very fast car, with superb handling and a solid reputation for bullet-proof construction. It’s also a very expensive automobile, and few people would pay the asking price if the company focused only on the ‘point A to point B’ benefit.

The phrase ‘can’t afford it’ may, or may not be true. If your product is expensive relative to the market, or involves a non-trivial amount of money, you need to focus on the more exciting things your product will do for its owner.

Not asked to buy

It’s such a simple thing, you’d think every advertiser on the planet would ask people to buy. In fact, amateurs seldom ask people to buy.

It’s more likely that an ad will end weakly, with the advertiser taking a ‘softly-softly’ approach in case the prospective client feels pressured to buy.

This is a mistake. Anyone who reads your ad through to the end is interested in your product, but hasn’t made a definite decision to buy at this point. Why not? Because most people try to avoid making decisions. Decisions involve commitment. Most people tend to avoid making commitments.

Likewise, most people tend to avoid taking action. When it comes to money, most of us have learned the hard way that it’s usually safer not to buy. Inaction is the natural state of your average human being!

An ordinary person, having read your ad, will not buy if you don’t ask him or her to do so. Advertising that doesn’t force the issue will end in failure. People will simply finish reading the ad and move on.

After asking a person to buy, you must now tell him or her what they need to do to physically make the purchase.

Don’t believe product will deliver benefits

An ad may well disclose all the benefits that come from owning and using a particular product, but if the potential client doesn’t believe the product can do all those things…the sale won’t happen.

Any advertiser that makes claims for a particular product must be able to back those claims up with credible evidence.

What constitutes evidence depends on the target market for a product. For example, an unsophisticated market will be happy to believe testimonial evidence. Such a person may accept that a health-product produced the results claimed for it by users of the product. A more sophisticated audience will understand the weakness inherent in such a claim and demand stronger evidence. A health product may have to show the results of peer-reviewed double-blind scientific testing.

You need to assess the requirements of your particular market, and provide supporting evidence that speaks directly to the expectations and experience of your target audience.

It may also be that the claims being made for a product are perfectly true, but the product is so far ahead of the rest of the market, the claims are totally unbelievable.

If you’re in this situation, you’re going to have work even harder to demonstrate the truth behind your claims.

Don’t trust seller

The 6th reason why people don’t buy is they simply don’t trust the seller. Some markets are less trusting than others, and you need to adapt your approach for the market you’re selling to.

You can increase your trustworthiness in a variety of ways…

Build a relationship over time
Join an industry body
Obtain certification for your product
Use a secure server with an up-to-date certificate
Use a trusted 3rd party to process credit cards. This gives the client an independent way to get their money back
Use a certified delivery service that allows people to track their order
Publish client testimonials with contact details (having obtained the necessary permissions)

In my opinion, it’s the first of these that has the most impact. If you can begin the relationship with something that requires a low level of commitment from a future client (i.e. something free), you give him or her the chance to get to know you.

Whatever you do during this process, it should involve enough client contact for the person to get used to dealing with you. He or she should come to trust you enough that you answer the question ‘can I trust you?’ and remove it from his mind.

Then 6 became one

All the reasons why they don’t buy come down to one thing — doubt.

Doubt is the #1 sales killer, because it dampens excitement and enthusiasm. If you can overcome doubt, you make it possible for today’s jaded consumer to get excited about your product.

And once they’re excited, the sale is in the bag.

If you remove doubt that a potential buyer wants your product, you’ve taken a giant step closer to the sale. If you remove doubt about what the person needs to do to place an order, you’re one step closer to the sale.

If you remove doubt that the product can do what you claim it can do, you’re one step closer to the sale. If you remove doubt about the trustworthiness of your business, you’re one step closer to the sale.

If you remove all doubt…you’ll get the sale! But how do you remove all doubt? That’s the subject of part two.

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Posted in copywriting, online selling

Features and benefits in advertising

November 30th, 2009

Every advertiser knows their product comes complete with its own features and benefits. Every advertiser also knows sales are made on benefits, not features.

Ask an advertiser to tell you the difference between a feature and a benefit, and you may well draw a blank.

Is it a feature or a benefit?

Take a quick look at the following list…

64-bit processor
You get your work done faster
1 megabyte of RAM
Powerful enough to do everything you’re going to want to do
24 inch 1900 x 1200 pixel TFT LCD
A big clear screen with plenty of room for your documents

I’m sure you already know the odd-numbered items are features, and the even-numbered items are benefits. It’s pretty obvious when they’re listed this way.

People make their buying decisions at an emotional level, which is why its the benefits offered by your product that ultimately influence the sale. This doesn’t mean features aren’t important too. Features help establish the credibility of your claim, and may also provide the buyer with a rational justification for his/her purchase.

Features and benefits both belong in your ad. The key is knowing when to introduce them, and the best way to use them.

What is a benefit?

A benefit is a desirable outcome that arises through the use or ownership of your product. For example, the benefits of car ownership may include…

Prestige
Flexibility
Save time

You can regard something as a benefit if it clearly describes an improvement in the buyer’s life. It’s not a benefit if the buyer has to translate the meaning of what you say. For example, prestige may be a benefit to a buyer of a luxury car. Plenty of legroom, expensive leather, lots of gadgets and a V12 engine are features that convey prestige.

What is a feature?

A feature is some aspect or component of a product that delivers an outcome. For example, a V12 engine delivers speed.

It’s certainly true that some features are so well understood by the buyer, they’re instantly translated into benefits. Despite this, your ad should still describe the benefit. This ensures the buyer responds on an emotional level. What’s more, the buyer may not be interested in the specific features that deliver the desired benefit.

The buyer’s subconscious will bring your ad to the attention of his/her conscious mind, as soon as it detects the particular benefit that motives him/her. If your target market consists of speed-freaks, you better make it very clear that your product delivers plenty of speed.

Lead with your #1 benefit

Your ad must lead with the product’s #1 benefit. That is, the number one thing your target market most wants to get from a product like yours. And by “lead”, I mean start talking about the benefit in the ad’s headline.

Here are two examples that illustrate the point. Which of these would you put at the top of your ad?

Do this and you’ll earn $25 million

Do this and you’ll never have to work again

It’s a tricky choice to make, isn’t it? After all, $25 million is a lot of money. But that first headline isn’t without its problems…

Such a large amount of money may be dismissed as fantasy
The reader has to translate the money into an actual benefit
The reader may not regard this amount as enough

The first headline asks the reader to think. It forces the prospect to use a technical part of his/her brain, and translate the amount into a clear benefit. The problem with doing that right at the start of an ad is we don’t want the reader to think. We want the reader to start fantasizing. We want him/her getting excited about the benefit our product conveys.

We want the reader to respond on an emotional level.

If the reader is bogged down with facts and figures, he/she isn’t getting excited. Despite the large sum of money being discussed, the ad starts out with the reader in the wrong frame of mind.

Benefits are exciting

The second headline puts the reader in a different frame of mind. Instead of dealing with facts and figures, it talks about the benefit directly. No thinking involved!

This greatly increases the chance the reader will accept the statement at face value. And if that happens, the reader will start day-dreaming about the joys of not having to work. This will motivate the reader to find out what it is he or she has to do. It has the prospect start reading the ad.

Benefits are exciting. The benefit is the thing people who buy the product actually want. For example, a car-buyer doesn’t really want a specific brand of car. The buyer wants whatever he or she thinks that brand signifies. It might be prestige, performance, environmental responsibility, fuel economy, size or safety.

Of course, your ad can’t dwell exclusively in benefits. A product’s features are important too, because they lend credibility to the benefit on offer.

An ad headline should get the prospect interested enough to read the ad. The introduction should build on this interest. Once you’ve secured it, the reader will want to know why your product is able to deliver the promised benefit. And this is the point where you should introduce the product’s features.

Each feature ought to be explained with the benefit (or benefits) in mind. It must be made perfectly clear to the prospect exactly what benefit a particular feature delivers.

Features belong in the middle part of the ad. They’re there to help the reader understand how the product delivers on the claims (benefits) made for it. The ad must then end by talking about benefits.

End with the benefit

The buyer wants the desired outcome (benefit) that comes with owning or using the product. A prospect will buy only if he/she believes the product will deliver those benefits. The middle part of your ad should prove that your product delivers everything you claim for it.

You must then turn your focus back to the product’s benefits. Remember, a person responds to your product on an emotional level. He or she will make a buying decision based on the benefits alone.

Your ad needs to close by restating the benefits, now made credible in the mind of the buyer, and explain exactly what the prospect has to do to get the product. In particular, you should find a way to remind the prospect that the main benefit is available just as soon as he/she places an order.

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Posted in Advertising, copywriting, online selling

Tags: ad copy benefits features online selling sales copy

Four simple ways to boost your sales

November 29th, 2009

Every business suffers from slow periods, where nobody seems to want to buy. One great way to get through such a time, is to get serious about prospecting your existing client base.

You’ll find four great ways to boost the sales you make from existing customers in this article. And they’ll work for you no matter what you’re selling.

Follow up immediately

Every time you make a sale, follow up immediately with a thank you email.

In this email, you want to thank the client for his/her purchase. You should also include any information required to use the product, as this will help the client to start enjoying its benefits much sooner.

The other thing you ought to do, is offer the client a related product or service.

The most responsive prospect you’ll ever come across, is one who just bought from you. That’s why it really pays to include an additional offer in your post-sale thank you email.

This offer should be for something related to the product the client has just bought. Ideally, it will be the type of product that has the client say “of course I need that.”

One great way to increase your chance of securing this add-on sale, is to include a voucher with an exclusive discount in your email. Put an expiry-date on the voucher, and stick to it. This will increase the pressure to buy.

Don’t have a related product? Maybe you can sell an upgrade on the product they actually bought? Maybe you can source a related product?

After all, even if only 1 in 10 clients responds, your overall sales will increase by 10%. And of course, you can automate the entire process (money without work). This is a way to sell more product, without doing any extra work, or spending extra on advertising.

Offer your clients a freebie

To make sales, you first have to get people to visit your site. So why not find a way to get your existing customers to visit your site?

One great way to do that, is to mail your existing client base, and offer them a freebie. This could be anything, but ideally it will be related to something you’re selling. For example…

An advertising site offered every one of their existing clients 1,000 extra banner impressions totally free of charge. All their clients had to do, was visit the site and enter a coupon number into a form.

On doing so, the client was then taken to a page that offered him/her another 100,000 banner impressions for $19.95.

It cost the company very little make this offer, and the take-up was high.

More importantly, the take-up on the $19.95 offer was also high. That’s because the mailing was sent to existing advertising clients (i.e. very well targeted), and because the client came under additional pressure from the law of reciprocation.

Reward clients for referring others

Referral programs are quite common, and generally focus on paying commission in return for referring new customers.

Another approach, is to offer people the product free in return for referring others who buy. I came across a site that gave away a free mailing to their list for every two clients referred. That’s essentially a “buy two, get one free” offer, but somebody else is paying for the advertising.

Use an auto-responder to send the thank you

You can be pretty certain that a new client isn’t going to know your product as well as you do.

Your clients are highly likely to appreciate a series of emails that explain how to get the most from a product. You might create a series of 10 emails. The first is the post-sale thank you letter, while the remaining 9 each explain a different aspect of the product.

You can then include a specific offer inside some or all of these emails. This is especially powerful if your offer relates directly to the feature or benefit you described in the email itself.

For example, an ad product might set aside an email to describe the extra visitors that will come if the client uploads a banner ad to their account. The reader is then offered a special deal on banner design, and possibly even extra banner displays.

The seller’s goal is to help the client get more from his/her initial purchase, and in doing so, create opportunities to sell more product.

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Posted in online selling

Tags: direct selling online selling sales

How to write a powerful sales ad

November 26th, 2009

To turn any potential client into an actual client, you need to answer the questions your potential clients are asking.

Every potential client goes through a process when thinking about buying something, and must be satisfied that he or she has answered these five questions…

What does this product do?
Do I want the outcome this product delivers?
Do I believe this product will deliver the outcome?
Why should I buy the outcome from this source?
Can I afford it?

Every product has its own specific set of features that need to be described in the ad. There’s a good chance your sale copy answers those questions already. After all, you know your own product better than anyone.

The above five questions aren’t necessarily focused on a product’s features. When I’m asked to look at a sales page and find out why it’s not working, it’s usually down to a failure to answer these questions.

What does the product do?

It’s the most fundamental of questions, and you have to answer it right at the start of your sales copy. It sounds so logical. So simple. Surely every advertiser gets right to the point, don’t they?

Well, no actually. An incredibly large number of advertisers begin their sales copy by naming the product and talking about how good it is. These advertisers make a dangerous assumption that their potential clients already know what their product is, and what it will do for them (meaning the potential client).

Some advertisers even assume naming the product is as good as describing what it does.

It’s easy to forget the reader doesn’t share your intimate knowledge of the product. Consider the following ad headline…

Have it all done for you automatically

Do you see the problem? The advertiser is using the ad headline to describe a major benefit, but fails to provide a context for the reader. What will be done for me automatically?

An amateur might think of this as a curiosity device, hoping people will be desperate to find out more. In reality, we’re all too busy to pursue an ad headline like this.

The writer of this ad either doesn’t know, or has forgotten, what an ad headline is supposed to do. As a result, he or she has killed any chance of getting the sale.

Do I want the outcome this product delivers?

Describing what the product does must be done in conjunction with describing the outcome the product delivers. By that, I mean the benefit that comes with owning or using the product.

Most advertiser’s either describe what the product does, or the outcome it delivers. As you saw in the above example, this doesn’t work. You must describe both.

Once again, it seems self-evident. Of course you should do this! But are you? The following examples show the headlines of two ads. The first is a typical ad headline, while the second describes both the product and it’s benefit in one simple statement…

Flu, colds and other health problems!

You will make money with this advertising!

The first headline is oh-so-close to getting it right, but not close enough to win a cigar. Is the advertiser offering to give you a dose of the flu?

Ending the headline with a question mark would have been better. Starting the headline with “Instant cure for” would have been better still.

Meanwhile, the second headline tells you exactly what’s on offer. It’s advertising, and there’s money to be made. Anybody in the market for advertising knows immediately that they need to find out more.

The ad must now set out to convince the reader that the product can deliver on the promise made.

Do I believe the product will deliver the promised outcome?

Every potential clients wants to believe the promises you make for your product. For example, what advertiser wouldn’t want to make a profit on the money they invest in advertising?

The problem every advertiser faces is the long series of past disappointments experienced by the prospect. Consider the following ad headline…

Discover the sizzling new cash secrets that generate $7,000 a week!

This headline will certainly grab the attention of anyone interested in earning money. Such a person will certainly want to believe it’s true. Now the advertiser has to prove its true.

If this was your ad, what would you say to clinch the deal? It’s a useful exercise to go through, and I encourage you to think it through. What things need to be in a sales page to make a statement like this credible?

Why should I buy the outcome from this source?

You’ve made your prospect an offer he or she can’t refuse. You’ve convinced the potential client that you, or your product, will deliver the promised outcome.

Now the ungrateful sod has the cheek to think about another supplier? Yes, unfortunately.

If you’re the only supplier, that’s great. All you need to do is say so, and the question is answered. If you’re selling something the prospect can get at Walmart, you have a big problem. Here’s why…

Your prospect doesn’t know you, or anything about you. He or she is taking a big risk buying from you. Human nature will drive your prospect to reduce that risk (i.e. look for a trusted source), unless you provide a good reason to buy from you. You need to attack this on two fronts…

Provide evidence that you’re a reliable source. Testimonial evidence is a big help here, especially if the testifiers can be contacted
Offer benefits available only if the prospect buys from you. Find something other than price, because anyone can offer a discount.

Can I afford it?

Congratulations. Your potential client wants the outcome your product delivers. What’s more, you’ve convinced him or her that you can deliver that outcome. The would-be client has decided to buy. Surely the sale is in the bag, isn’t it?

Not necessarily.

The prospect may decide he or she doesn’t want the desired outcome badly enough to actually fork over cold hard cash. If so, he or she will think “I can’t afford it.”

It’s not that the client doesn’t have the money (unless you sell something very expensive). It’s more about the need to rationalize the purchase. In particular, the prospect must be able to justify the purchase to significant people in his or her life. Such people include…

An employer
Colleagues
A spouse
Friends
Famolu

You can’t rely on your prospect to do this for him or herself. You must equip your prospect with a rational explanation for the purchase.

You don’t need to do this to convince your prospect to buy. You need to do this to give your prospect the ammunition he or she needs to justify the purchase to others. For example, consider a product that costs $30 per month…

For just $1 a day, you get a guaranteed $600 return per dollar invested. And you get it in just 30 days.

That’s a whopping 24,000% return on your investment per annum! You’ll never make a profit like that from your bank, will you? Especially while your bank is paying a lousy 5–10%.

In this case, the rationalization breaks down the amount paid to its smallest sensible component: $1 a day. And note the word payment is never used. The term investment is used because it implies there is a profit to be made.

What’s more, the desired outcome is described as both a “return on investment”, and a profit. This is just in case the reader doesn’t know what “return on investment” means. And allows the advertiser to reuse the word “investment”, thus extracting twice the benefit.

The reader is then asked to contrast the sheer brilliance of the product on offer, against the “lousy” return those rotten scoundrels at the bank are paying.

How to answer the five questions

It’s important that your ad doesn’t actually ask the five questions. Yes, it must answer them. But it has to do so in a way that gives a potential client the answers he or she needs, within the context of supplying useful information.

If you actually ask these questions in your sales copy, your prospect will not understand why you’re doing so.

The prospect isn’t aware he or she is asking these questions. They occur at a subconscious level. That’s why you need to answer them within the wider context of your sales copy.

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Posted in copywriting, online selling

Tags: direct selling online selling sales sales copy

How to create web pages that sell

November 26th, 2009

There’s an old adage in direct marketing that goes: The more you tell, the more you sell. It’s every bit as true today as it was back in the 1950s.

Most amateurs think a sales letter, landing page or online sales page ought to be as short as possible. I’ve often had clients tell me there are too many words in an ad, and that people will “never read all that.”

This myth is totally incorrect. People don’t buy because the advertiser is kind enough to leave out a bunch of words. People buy because they’re excited about the product on offer, and the advertiser was thoughtful enough to answer all their questions on the sales page.

The less you tell, the harder it is to buy

Consider this from the perspective of someone looking to buy life insurance on the Internet. What are the questions such a person might ask?

Is the product right for me?
Is the company credible?
Can I afford it?
Is it overpriced?

These are the key questions relating to life insurance, in the mind of someone who has already decided to buy.

A web page that aims to sell life insurance must answer every one of these questions. If it doesn’t, the person is unable to buy. He or she is simply left with unanswered questions, and will be forced to leave the sales page to get the answers they need. As soon as that happens, the sale is lost.

So how much should you say?

That’s a good question. I learned everything I know about writing sales copy from a genius, who consistently produced wildly successful ads. He would answer this question with an exasperated grunt and a roll of the eyes…

You say exactly as much as you need to say to get the sale. And no more.

In other words, leave out everything that doesn’t contribute to the sale. Exclude nothing that’s necessary to close the deal. If you can say it all in two sentences, then do so. If you need 100,000 words to get the sale, that’s how many you should write.

It sounds simple, but it takes experience and skill to get it right. All you need to do is try different versions of your sales page, and measure the results. You’ll soon find out which approach works best.

Fast to download

Most people now have a fast Internet connection. We no longer have to wait more than a second to view a web page. Even so, you should make sure your sales page loads as quickly as possible.

Get rid of any graphical elements you don’t need. Keep the design simple, and eliminate other distractions. After all, this is your sales page. It should contain only those elements necessary to get the sale.

Easy to read

Your sales page must be easy to read. The color of the text ought to be radically different to the background color. For example, having light blue text on a slightly darker blue background is insane.

The body copy fonts should be reasonably large, but not too large. You’re looking for something that is both easy on the eye, and easy to read.

You can enhance readability by limiting the width of the page. I like to keep the width of the actual text down to around 500 pixels. Any more than that, and the eye has to scan too far to find the beginning of the next line.

The basic rules of page design apply to web page design. Include plenty of “white” space, guidelines to help the reader’s eye, and ways to keep people reading.

Don’t split the page

With direct mail, you’re often forced to continue a sales message over multiple pages. You don’t have to do this on the web. So don’t.

The problem with spreading copy over multiple pages is that people often stop reading at the end of a page. Your goal is to keep people reading all the way to the end. On the web, the best way to achieve this is to keep everything on a single page.

NOTE: There are special instances where you do want people to click through to the next page. These are more likely to occur in lead generation rather than sales copy.

Pack a punch

Most products and services don’t require that you adopt a sophisticated tone. Taking on “airs and graces” will kill the sale stone cold dead.

If you’re selling something that regular people are going to buy, your sales copy needs to pack a punch. You should use short, power-packed words that excite the reader.

As a general rule of thumb, the old-English (often with a Saxon root) version of a word is the better one to choose. It will tend to be short, and guttural in sound. In almost every case, it’s more powerful to use short punchy words than longer soft-sounding (often with a Norman root) words.

Treat sentences like words

Your sentences, like your words, will sell more when they’re short and punchy. One trick I use to keep sentences short, and easy to understand, is to limit a sentence to a single point. For example…

The new 64-bit processor is faster, and more powerful than the old 32-bit processor, yet costs the same, giving you the power to do more without spending more!

This sentence is unnecessarily complicated, because it attempts to cram two separate points into a single sentence. This makes the sentence harder to understand, and the benefits are lost as a result.

The two points are more powerfully expressed in this two-sentence version…

You get more done in less time with the powerful new 64-bit processor. And best of all, you get it for the same price as an old-fashioned 32-bit processor!

Splitting the sentence in two makes it possible to inject extra power (e.g. the words powerful, old fashioned) into the point being made. The author is able to focus on each point individually, and so has the ability to highlight the benefit. At the same time, the paragraph is simplified and easier to understand.

Tell the client to buy

Are you a polite person? If so, you’re at a disadvantage when it comes to writing copy for the closing part of a sales page. Impolite, but highly successful advertisers, do not ask the client to buy.

They tell them!

And when I say tell, I mean they assume the sale and tell the client what to do to place an order. Here are two different ways to ask for the sale…

If you’d like to order, please click here.

Click here now!

The first example is very polite, but it’s also weak. The second example might seem abrupt, but it’s much more likely to result in a sale.

We’re talking about the end of the sales message here. At this point, everyone who isn’t interested has already stopped reading. The people who are still reading are very interested in your offer.

They’re also human beings. They spend their whole lives avoiding action. The last thing they want to have to do is make a decision.

The very last thing you want to do is leave the decision in the hands of your potential clients. It’s far more effective to avoid the decision altogether, and tell the client what he or she needs to do to place an order.

Don’t ask — tell. Assume the sale, and it’s usually yours.

Please note that I’m talking about the end of the sales page here. Don’t use this technique at the start of the sales page. If you start your ad with a headline that says “Read this now,” you’ll lose most of your potential clients right there.

The forcefulness I’m talking about is only appropriate at the end of a sales page.

And even at this point, you’re not really being rude. You’re simply assuming the sale and explaining what’s required to make the purchase. In context, it’s not being rude. It’s being wise.

Summary

Your sales page can only be successful if you give your prospects all the information they need to buy. Don’t leave any important question unanswered.

Your sales page needs to load quickly, and contain short exciting words that pack a punch. Keep everything on one page, and remember to tell the prospect exactly what he or she needs to do to buy.