Our third landing page makeover is for Helen Graves, a business coach who works with solo entrepreneurs, mostly female in the 30-50 age bracket. She would like to increase the sales of her CD info-products to her newsletter subscribers and site visitors.
Here’s the background:
- The Goal:
Sell 50 CD-info products within a single 4-week period. (Without accurate traffic numbers, this may be an unrealistic goal.) - The Problem:
Current promotions – solo email, ads in newsletter, and site link – have generated a total of 5 sales. (Tracking statistics, however, are currently unreliable.) - The Current Landing Page:
http://www.helengraves.com/createsuccess.htm - Page that Generates the Click-Through:
http://www.helengraves.com/resources.htm
Let’s take a look at 10 things she might try to increase her sales.
The Maven’s 10-Point Critique
Helen does a lot of things right in her current landing page. Formatted in the classic, long-form letter style, the landing page works as a logical progression from her sending page, copy/visuals work well, testimonials stand out and are interspersed through the text, etc. Because the page does so much right vis a vis overall look and appeal, I’m going to focus primarily on specific copy points and suggested changes.
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#1 – Revise your prehead to the singular “you” voice.
No matter where the visitor is clicking in from, you want all the primary copy pieces – prehead, headline, subheads, call-outs, etc. to speak to that visitor as one individual.
#2 – Use your prehead to set-up the big idea that follows in your headline.
If your big idea is about making the important work of marketing easier, more fun, and worry-free – then say so. Perhaps with a provocative question – If you’ve been wondering “what the hell I got myself into” when you made the jump from employee to business owner – hang tight! Help is on the way!
#3 – Focus your headline on one big, unique, emotionally resonant idea.
What is the promise behind the product — Reduce frustration or enjoy your new found freedom as a business owner? Is your marketing-phobia keeping you from realizing your business dreams? You’ll strengthen your headline, and the rest of the copy will flow more smoothly, when you really articulate the ultimate promise for the visitor.
#4 – Flip the hero image and headline.
This is a small suggestion, but eye-research suggests left placement for images, right placement for text for maximum effectiveness.
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#5 – Big Test 1: Start your letter at the paragraph “I’ve been right where you’re at.”
This is a big suggestion and one you should really test. Similar to telling a compelling story, this kind of opening creates instant rapport with a visitor who is feeling anxious and uncertain and will keep them reading to see if what you say is true. So eliminate EVERYTHING (you can move the testimonial) before “I’ve been, etc.” and add your photo here, too, for a little extra oomph and credibility.
#6 – Big Test 2: Revise the “3 Marketing Myths” and use as your headline.
I like this section but find it impedes the momentum of your sales message. Use this in some sort of lead/headline fashion instead and you’ve set up the problem “Don’t let these 3 myths kill your chances for success” for which your info product is the solution.
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#7 – Keep the subhead “Still on the Fence?”, but eliminate the section.
I understand your thinking here, but you’ve just given a visitor a reason not to order right away. Why not reiterate the risk-free nature of the offer – perhaps expand it to a FOREVER GUARANTEE. (You could also consider testing a whole new concept – offer the first chapter for free and collect email addresses for follow-up in a subsequent step.)
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#8 – You list 5 bonuses. Free Shipping and 3 Easy Payment invitations, however, are not bonuses. They’re offer sweeteners.
Show me pictures or some sort of symbolic representation of the three bonuses. Then pull out the free shipping and 3 easy payments into insets or big visual bursts. You can then address them in the copy. “I want to make sure that nothing stands between you and this info! That’s why you’ll get all this with FREE SHIPPING. What’s more, if $97 sounds a little too rich for your wallet now (It won’t be later, though. I promise!) you can buy in 3 easy installments of just $XX.
#9 – Eliminate the redundancy between the “Yes, Helen!” section and the order form recap.
Basically you’re saying the same thing in a very similar fashion. Cut, cut, and cut some more until you have one, super-strong order area.
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#10 – Eliminate most of the copy on the actual order page.
Your landing page has already done the heavy lifting for your sales message. Once your prospect has clicked the “Try it Now” button they don’t want anything to get in the way of them receiving your product. So keep the copy short and on point toward completing the sale.
BONUS RECOMMENDATIONS:
- Get some testimonials from actual customers. Experts are great, but I’d like to see how your book has helped “real” people like me, your prospect.
- Test the button language and colors. Instead of “Try it” test, “Order now” and “Buy it now” risk-free, etc. Test bright red/orange as button colors.
- Use 2 order forms, one for single-payment option and one for the easy payment option. Since the cart pre-populates the price, what a visitor sees is a total of $133 at first glance. That’s a stopper and for those sitting on the fence, it may be just enough to abandon the sale.
My thanks to Helen Graves for her support of Heifer International.
Here’s your chance to be the Copywriting Maven’s next landing page makeover!
Got a landing page that’s more poop than pop? Willing to share with Copyblogger readers? Prepared to put a little of your own “skin in the game” for a Maven Makeover? Then follow your click to Maven’s Landing Page Makeover page for all the details.
Reader Comments (18)
I have a question for anyone – do these long copy pages still work to draw in lots of people?
Whenever I come upon such a page I either scroll super fast through or just exit immediately – they are quite off-putting.
Is there a better way to sell such products online?
Will be interesting to see how this works out
The fast answer is, “it depends” on the complexity of the product/service being promoted, if you’re going for a sale or a lead, and the target market’s general preferences.
I’ll be writing a post about this very thing this week on Copywriting Maven, but I’ll say this now – for those who are ready to buy, they may not need as much information as those who are still gathering info. For the former, a mere skim of the heads and subheads and they know whether or not the product’s for them. For the latter, they’ll require more information before they can proceed.
A longish landing page done right can easily accommodate both kinds of prospects.
These sorts of pages are still around for a reason — a lot of users still respond to them.
A lot of us here are power users and wouldn’t give them the time of day but you’d be surprised just how successful a good sales letter can be.
Jeremy, there are alternatives to the long copy sales letter, but there’s really no alternative to giving all the necessary information. When it comes to info product sales, people want a lot of information.
Roberta mentioned one tactic that I like — giving away the first chapter or two for free. A good information product, whether text, audio or video, will begin by “selling” you on continuing to consume the information (take a look at the beginning of any good business book, for example).
So, in essence, you can deliver the same information in the form of content. People who swear they will never read long copy read it all the time… it’s just in a different format. Then you send them to a shorter landing page that reiterates the benefits of buying, offers testimonials and gives the guarantee and ordering mechanism.
Long Copy Sales letters are only effective if one structures it in such a way that every sentence pre-sells the next sentence to the reader, so that he is compelled to read on.
Most people don’t take the time to read through the entire letter and that’s where the P.S. and bulleted points come in handy.
What I tend to do is to print out the sales copy and read it at the comfort of my bed. I always enjoy studying an effective sales copy!
Does anyone else find it ironic that she is a “marketer” and trying to sell a marketing self-help cd… but she needs help marketing it?
So basically its an ineffective product as it is. Awesome!
No surprise to me, Chris. Marketers like myself are happy to reach out to other marketers for advise, ideas, and fresh perspective. I find copywriters, in particular, eager to help others. (When I write big, complex packages, I have a few writers I call on for review/editing duty.)
Why not give a free sample on the website? Give me an audio clip, give me a couple of pages from the workbook, give me a video lecture from Helen.
Also, I don’t really know what you are trying to sell until midway through the letter. I see the picture at the top of the page, but are those DVD’s are they CD’s? Tell me more earlier, before you make me read half of your ad.
Jay is right. Something a little more interesting and not as much text to get the point accross to the potential customer as soon as possible. Audio or video clips would be a great idea.
I had my landing page sales letter looked at by John Carlton. I had a clip of my audio and he said to take it off because it doesn’t do justice to the whole package. I am still a little unsure about this! He also said not to use an extract of the ebook that goes with my (insomnia) audio program.
In general… from a consumer standpoint I get totally TURNED OFF by the long long long pages full of marketing speak as if you have to be led and strung along — actually somewhat insulting.
If you’ve got something to SELL then tell me what it is, how it benefits me, and let’s get on with the program. I must admit I’ve seen several of these pages across the web and they look like they were shot out of the STANDARD MKT. FORM LETTER web page machine from somewhere.
I did not think people were still putting the form so far below the fold. It is nice that she has information on the landing page but the problem is the amount of information. If people can’t find the form in a few seconds they usually just click out of the site. I know I would of clicked out of it if I could not find the form. The best thing IMHO is to cut out 80% of the content and have an informative blurb. Then the form works for me.
I thought that these super-long landing pages were outdated and scared people away. I would never personally fill out a form that was Begging me for my sign up.
I agree with Jeremy.
Nothing ever truly goes away, Darrell, but as you’ll see my recommendations always include an emphasis on testing. Long-form landing pages or short form squeeze pages? Testing is the key to determining what works and doesn’t for your products/services and markets.
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