Free Resource To Help You Brainstorm Your Sales Page

To help you start organizing your amazing ideas for your next sales page, we’re sharing a sales page template in partnership with Living Plate Rx.

Download it here

Let’s say you have an irresistible program you want to put out into the world. Where do you send prospects to sign up? Although it may be tempting to reuse an existing page on your website, the best destination is a focused sales page. If you’re wondering how a sales page differs from something like the homepage on your website, here are a few key differences to keep top of mind:

• A focused sales page is designed with a single goal in mind: converting curious visitors into paying clients.
• A sales page uses clear, concise language to communicate your value proposition and compel action.
• While a homepage typically has multiple calls-to-action that encourage visitors to explore and learn, a sales page has a single call to action to eliminate distractions and keep them focused on the offer.  
• The performance of a sales landing page is easier to measure and optimize.

If you’ve never built a sales page it can feel overwhelming to get started, so we’ve broken down the must-haves and nice-to-knows in 10 steps below. Special thanks to Jeanne Petrucci, MS, RDN and founder at Living Plate Rx, a meal-planning service for nutrition professionals. Jeanne has first-hand experience with creating high-converting sales pages. We’re grateful to her for sharing ideas around how a sales page focused on using the power of nutrition to better manage menopause symptoms would come to life. You’ll see visual examples of this fictional sales page throughout this post.

1. Capture: Start with a Compelling Headline

First and foremost, a strong headline is never about you, at least not directly. Instead, your headline should be framed around what’s in it for the reader. Think of it like a promise you’re making to your audience, with the rest of the sales page working hard to clearly answer how you’ll deliver on that promise and why they should believe you.

There are a few key elements to a strong sales page headline. Let’s unpack them through our example from LivingPlateRx.com.

• Clarity: The headline should clearly communicate your offer’s value proposition. Living Plate Rx’s headline makes it apparent that the offer is about managing menopause through nutrition. There’s no ambiguity or guessing.
• Relevance: Menopause represents the end of fertility for women. It’s a phase of life that’s often associated with challenging physical and emotional changes. Notice how the headline taps into these dynamics by including the phrase “reclaim your youth.”
• Specificity: The headline doesn’t promise something vague about making menopause more manageable. It’s very specific about the relationship between nutrition and taking control over widespread complaints around menopause, like weight gain and loss of energy.
• Emotional Appeal: Starting the headline with the word “unlock” is a strong choice as menopausal women can feel like regaining control over how they feel is out of reach.. Again, the inclusion of reclaiming youth appeals to the emotional brain. Some women continue to feel symptoms of menopause even after their last menstrual period. If a reader is motivated to feel more like her old self, why would she want to wait a second more to get started?

2. Connect: Build Trust Through Storytelling

When it comes to selling, storytelling trumps facts every time. Why? Because stories have the unique power to engage, build trust, and create an emotional connection with your audience.

Of course, you can connect with your audience using the written word (more on that in the next section), but video is also an effective tool for storytelling. Here are the top three benefits associated with incorporating a video sales letter into your landing page:

• It builds empathy. A talking head-style video featuring you, the real person behind your brand, identifying with the audience’s struggles and sharing your value proposition feels more like a 1:1 interaction. Demonstrating that you’ve been in your audience’s shoes, and/or have treated lots of clients going through the same struggles, goes a long way towards creating a connection.
• It cuts through the noise. Video is a visually engaging way to give your audience a break from the words on your page, while still covering their key pain points and your promised value. Get tips on how to write a strong script.
• It drives up conversion. 89% of people say watching a video has convinced them to buy a product or service.

3. Communicate: Debunk Objections Through Clear Copywriting

Copywriting is a specific type of writing used in marketing and selling. The goal of copywriting is to compel your audience to think, feel, and take action. It requires you to put your own needs and wants aside and step inside the head of your ideal clients to understand their pain points and potential objections. Only then can you clearly articulate that you understand their problems and know how to solve them.

Remember: You aren’t hard-selling your program or offer. Instead, you’re selling a solution to a bothersome problem, much like a mattress store focuses on selling a good night’s sleep. The right mattress is simply the conduit to better rest.

There are multiple frameworks that great copywriters use when crafting their marketing materials. Here are two of the most popular:

1. AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action). The goal here is to capture the audience’s attention first, perhaps using a compelling statistic or unexpected statement. This is followed by building interest in the product or service, creating desire for it, and motivating the reader to take action.
2. PAS (Problem, Agitate, Solve). This framework identifies the reader’s problem first, amplifies their pain points, then offers a solution. Keep reading to see how it plays out in our example.

• Problem – Menopause often depletes a woman’s energy and confidence.  Imagine a 55-year-old woman dealing with stubborn subcutaneous fat in her abdomen. She may have tried other solutions that demanded severe calorie restrictions and left her feeling lightheaded and cranky. The copy in the white box in our sample sales page speaks directly to this problem and hints that this time will be different.
• Agitate – As we move down to the green headline, we see agitation in action. The bullet points speak directly to issues many menopausal women face. The copy is serving to zero in on those problems and bring them top of mind for the reader. Note the use of “I” statements and quotation marks to put the reader directly in the narrative.
• Solve – This section of copy ends by proposing a better way. “It doesn’t have to be this way.” Again, it puts the reader in the driver’s seat, compelling them to take action as opposed to being a passive player. Menopause is a biological phenomenon that happens TO women, whether they’re ready or not, and that can lead to feelings of helplessness. This copy promises women that, even though they can’t stop menopause, they can take control over their journey. Then it puts a link in close proximity to encourage action.

4. Confidence: Showcase Your Expertise

Even the best copywriters still face audience objections. Confirmation bias is “the tendency to gather evidence that confirms preexisting expectations,” and it can come into play when a potential client is evaluating your sales page, particularly if their experiences with solutions in the past have been disappointing.

If you’ve done a good job of empathizing with pain points and selling your solution, it’s now time to sell your expertise and bust through objections.

• Tell them why they should work with you. What personal connection do you have to their problem? In our sample page, Jeanne starts off by sharing her age and her post-menopausal status. She’s letting the reader know that she has been through the physical and emotional toll of menopause. She has first-person experience.
• Tell them what else qualifies you to solve their problem. Next, Jeanne shares her credentials. She has accredited nutrition education. She’s worked with gold-standard institutions. She’s also worked with people just like the reader and seen for herself “what kitchen confidence can do.”
• Show them who you are. Put a friendly face to your copy to help humanize it. Note how Jeanne’s photo shows her away from the office and maps nicely to her narrative of being a busy mom and private cooking instructor. On top of her expertise, she also looks warm and approachable.

You can also address objections more directly on your sales page. Make a list of objections you’ve run up against from clients in the past or what you imagine top objections will be. They could be around any barrier – from time to price to skill level, and more. Add them to your page, verbatim, and then answer them directly and genuinely.

One final thought on instilling confidence. Offering a money-back guarantee can help to bust through any last lingering doubts around risk. Many companies use these guarantees to boost reader confidence and conversions. Before implementing a money-back guarantee, it’s important to make sure you understand the pros and cons, along with the various laws in different jurisdictions.  

5. Corroboration: Include Social Proof

Sharing your credentials and personal experience is helpful for convincing your audience that you’re the real deal. But getting other people to corroborate your effectiveness takes it to the next level. It’s called social proof and it’s a critical component to any sales page.

The BIRG (Basking in Reflected Glory) phenomenon of social identity theory states that people are motivated to maintain a positive social identity. So, they tend to associate themselves with successful and prestigious groups or individuals in order to enhance their own self-esteem. Social proof, in the form of testimonials, can be used to signal that a product or service is popular or endorsed by others in the target audience’s social group.

• Try to include names and pictures, as it adds an extra layer of credibility that the endorsements come from everyday people.  If a client is hesitant to put their full name, you can layer in some privacy by using a first name with just a last initial. This approach is still more convincing than something like a quote from “Happy program participant.”
• Be sure to get written permission to use a client’s name and likeness on your website before you hit publish.

6. Call-To-Action: Make It Easy For Clients to Buy

You’re creating a page to sell your program or services – the operative word being “sell.” You want to make it as easy as possible for your page visitors to take action, which means they shouldn’t have to hunt for your CTA (call-to-action) buttons or guess what you want them to do.

• One offer per page. You should have only one CTA per sales page. Since it’s the action you want visitors to take, make the language action-oriented. You can mix up the wording on your buttons, but they should all lead to the same place.

• Multiple buttons per page. Having only one CTA doesn’t mean you have to stick to putting it in one place. Sprinkle CTA buttons in logical places amongst your blocks of copy to ensure visitors who are motivated to convert can do so in an instant.

• Make it pop. Give your CTA buttons a highly visible color. Don’t make visitors guess what’s clickable – invoke the power of contrast to show them.

7. Consistency: Create a Coherent Brand Experience

Just because your sales page is standalone, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t look, feel, and sound like you. You can carry the branding from your everyday practice over to your sales page. That means using the same logo, photography or iconography style, color palette, and tone of voice.

For example, if your brand tone of voice is approachable and friendly, you don’t suddenly need to flip to authoritative because you’re communicating through a sales page. You can preserve your friendly tone while using the proven strategies outlined in this article to inject the right amount of relevance, empathy, and urgency to compel action.

8. Claim: Cover Your Bases

When you’re selling a health and wellness program it may be important to include a medical disclaimer that explains the limitations of the information and makes it clear that information isn’t intended to replace professional medical advice or treatment. The disclaimer is meant to both inform the client and protect the practitioner from legal liability. You should consult with a legal professional to ensure your medical disclaimer is comprehensive and sound before publishing your sales page.  

Dive Into a Video Overview With Jeanne Petrucci

Are you eager to learn more about the eight fundamental elements of a sales page? Check out this tutorial with Jeanne below.

9. Create: Host Your Sales Page

You’re almost ready to start wireframing out your page, but first you need to decide where you’re going to host it. There are a few viable options to choose from. The avenue you ultimately choose will depend on where you are in your business maturity and how comfortable you are building a page yourself vs contracting an expert to do it for you:

• Create a standalone page on your existing website. If you have a website that you’re already DIYing (or paying a contractor to manage), building out a landing page within that structure might make sense.

Remember: the only way out of your sales page should be through a CTA button. If your website platform requires that the same navigation bar on your regular website also appears on a sales landing page, it can affect your conversion rates. In an A/B landing page test conducted by Unbounce, removing the navigation increased the click-through rate by 105%. Try to avoid giving your visitors places rabbit holes to get lost down.  

• Host your sales page externally. If you don’t have a website yet, or you’re less comfortable with the technical side of building a landing page, an option like Unbounce could work well for you. It’s a cloud-based software platform that allows business owners to create and publish custom landing pages, pop-ups, and sticky bars – no coding or web development experience required.

If you’re not quite ready to fully build out a sales page yet, Practice Better makes it extremely easy to create a very simple, basic page with no design or coding skills. It’s as easy as customizing your booking page in the platform. For more advanced sales page functions, working with external software is best.

No matter which option you choose for hosting your sales page, make sure it’s mobile-friendly since many of your visitors will visit it from their smartphones.

10. Check: Analyze Your Results

If you want to know whether your sales page is working, program sign-ups are the ultimate metric. But if you haven’t defined what success looks like, then you can’t answer the performance question accurately.

• Set your goals up front. How many sign-ups do you expect over a particular period of time? Keep it reasonable and related to your promotional efforts.
• Keep an eye on your page views (plus time on page and bounce rates, if you can). Knowing how many visitors came to your page vs how many opted in to your offer will let you calculate your conversion rate (the average is 4.02%).

The best thing about a landing page is that it’s not static – you can make tweaks and changes any time. By tracking your page’s performance you can make data-informed changes to your headlines, CTA button placement, copy, and more until you get your sales page to your performance happy place.

Take a Shortcut to Your Ideal Sales Page Using This DFY Template

We hope you’re now on board with how powerful a sales page can be for your business. When you build it with purpose, it truly is a proven way to convert your ideal audience from “take a hike” to “take my money.”

We’d like to help you jumpstart your own revenue-generating sales page. So, we’ve created a free sales page template in partnership with Living Plate Rx. Download it over here and start wireframing your own high-conversion sales page today!

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Practice Better is the complete practice management platform for nutritionists, dietitians, and wellness professionals. Streamline your practice and begin your free trial today.

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