You need a sales page for your product.

That near enough goes without saying.

But what kind of copywriting should you use?

And should you use a professional copywriter or should you write the letter yourself?

A lot depends on your budget.

Without doubt, copywriting is an art.

So if you’ve got a big product launch that’s potentially in the multiple thousands of dollars of sales, it’s definitely worth budgeting for a copywriter.

But when you’re first starting out, even a few hundred dollars for a copywriter can be out of your budget. And at that price they may actually not be any better at writing sales copy than you are!

Start with the headline

This is critical.

If the headline doesn’t pull in readers, it doesn’t matter how good the rest of your copy is.

They won’t get to the page, so they won’t read anything else.

If your mind goes blank at the very thought of crafting a headline, you’re not alone.

Fortunately, you can “cheat” and get inspiration from a headline generator like this one.

It won’t necessarily craft the world’s best ever headline but in my experience it comes up with suggestions that are pretty good and that you can use either “as is” or with a little tweaking.

Go with your first instinct on the “best” headline from the ones on offer – it’s usually better than over analysing or procrastinating.

Induce pain

Most people do their best to avoid pain.

In NLP terms, it’s called an away-from motivation.

In old-school terms, it’s carrot and stick. The pain is the stick and the carrot is your solution.

The more you can get inside your reader’s mind, the better.

So if you’ve got a story to tell of how you were in some awkward situation and that’s one that your readers can relate to, fantastic.

If you’ve not been in that situation, you’ll have to use your imagination.

The more you can get your reader to relate to the situation and imagine themself in it, the better.

Use words – and maybe pictures – that help induce that state.

Remember that people relate to words differently.

Some are visual – so phrases like “imagine” or “picture yourself” will work nicely.

Others are primarily audio – so mix in phrases like “I hear you” to show you relate to their way of working.

And some are kinesthetic – they major on feelings and gut instinct. So you need to mix in words that they can get a grip on (literally!)

Chances are that you fall into one of these three groups.

And if you’re primarily a visual person then writing words may not be as easy for you as if you’re mainly audio. Because we tend to read out loud in our head, which is an audio function.

That’s OK.

You may prefer to do a video sales letter and those can work nicely. Ideally with a transcript for people who prefer not to watch long sales pitches.

But you can test that later.

The important thing is to start.

Because you can’t improve on thin air.

Once you’ve worked up enough pain, it’s time to move on to how you’re the solution to the pain.

Provide the pain killer

Which – naturally – is your product.

Explain how it can solve all the problems you’ve identified earlier in the letter.

Don’t be afraid to go into a lot of detail.

Although people claim they don’t read long sales letters, that’s not true.

Some people do.

Others don’t.

But the ones who don’t still judge the sales letter by the size.

If they have to scroll down forever, the product must be good.

After all, there wouldn’t be so much copy if it wasn’t!

Yes, some people use that way to judge.

And most won’t read all of an 18 page sales letter.

But some will.

Cover all possible worries

Face to face, you only need deal with whatever worry or issue is stopping your potential customer from buying.

Online, you don’t have that luxury.

So you need to cover every possible thing that could block a sale.

That’s one of the reasons those sales letters are so long.

Provide a short-cut path

People skim.

Especially online.

That’s one of the reasons I use short sentences and paragraphs – it’s easier to read and looks less daunting.

But sub-headings are an excellent way to help the skimmers understand what your copy is about.

You should be able to read just the headings and know what the product is about and why you should buy it.

Use bullet pointed lists

• They’re easy to read
• They’re often a bunch of mini headlines or benefits
• Bolding alternate items makes them even easier to read
• It’s a cop out but it works if your last bullet is “And there’s more…” or similar
• Use tick marks or other identifiers if you want
• Don’t make your lists too long
• An odd number of items often works well

Consider a guarantee

Not every sales letter includes a guarantee but they can often boost sales.

The usual corny guarantee logo still works – people spot it and know there’s a guarantee, even if they don’t read that section.

Avoid weasel clauses – the kind where it appears that you’re doing your level best to back out of the guarantee even before they’ve bought.

Risk reversal is excellent – that’s why there are 7 or 14 or 30 day trials.

The longer the guarantee the better:

• If it’s 24 hours, the clock is ticking in your head
• If it’s 7 days, that’s still quite short
• 14 or 30 or 60 days are better – ideally 60 days
• If you can, a year or longer is even better
• A lifetime guarantee is the ultimate!

Cynically, the longer the guarantee the more people forget about it. There’s no urgency in their mind.

But it works very well.

Call to action

We need to be told what to do.

So tell people to click the buy button or the add to cart button.

When he was alive, Gary Halbert found he got best results when he explained what would happen after the phone call to order had started.

I’ve not tested it yet but chances are high that would work well online and cut down the number of people who click the buy button but don’t buy.

So, in the interests of experimentation, click the buy link below:

Click here to get more help with your copywriting

A new window will open in your browser and you’ll be taken to the sales page for my product that teaches you how to write copy.

It’s on a site called the Warrior Forum and it includes the sales letter itself and then various comments and questions and answers about the product, including a demo video.

When you click the “buy” button on that page, you’ll be taken to Paypal and asked to enter your details.

Once you’ve done that, you need to confirm the purchase and you’ll be taken to the Warrior Plus site – they handle my sales for this product.

They’ll have pre-ticked the boxes that alert you when I launch a new product and also when they alert you to other offers. You can untick those if you want.

Then you click the button that goes through to your purchase. This will take you via a quick confirmation so that you’re added to my email list and you’ll then go direct to the download page.

See how that could work?

And it all happens after you click the buy now link!

After all, I couldn’t write about copywriting without asking for a sale.