Hello,

Thanks for your input. It has helped me sort out a lot of ideas. And I look forward to drawing on the wisdom you have shared with me when I revisit the sales letter.

Cheers,

Mark

Jane -

You said...

Can you point out an example of a successful sales page that doesn't fit that mold? It would be interesting to compare the two approaches.

Also, just because something is unoriginal isn't a reason all by itself not to use it -- and just because you and I have seen a bazillion of "those" sites doesn't mean that the target audience has.

Jay Jennings
jayATjayjenningsD0Tcom

Good point Jay,

Clearly, the "unoriginal", "cookie-cutter" approach to writing sales letters is heavily used because it works. The objective is to lead readers through the AIDA buying process and get the sale. Relying on a novel copywriting approach to get a high conversion rate, must surely be a high risk strategy.

Logically, the sensible way to write a sales letter is to at least start with what has been demonstrated to work. Subsequently changing elements of the sales letter and testing the effect, is how conversion can be improved further.

After all, the market is the only expert that counts here. And that is what we should be listening to. I can see the need to make changes incrementally and systematically, and doing lots of testing each time a change is made.

In retrospect, my initial challenge was with positioning of the product. It was lack of clarity in this area that made writing a compelling and cohesive sales letter almost impossible.

Contributors, on this forum and others, have commented on my initial efforts from different poistioning perspectives. Which helped enormously with clarifying my own thinking. I now look forward to rewriting a more targeted and persuasive sales letter.

Cheers,

Mark

Jay,

Mark admitted that he'd used cookie-cutter software to create his sales page. It was totally inappropriate for his type of product, assuming it's ever appropriate.

I'm not aware of whether cookie-cutter sales pages have any track history of creating success for those who use them. I imagine not. The point being this: if you don't know how to craft copy (even screaming-in-yer-face copy) then how will you know what to tweak or refine? My answer: you won't - which is why you should get a professional to do the copy (better returns in the long run) OR learn the art of copy writing.

And an example of long, persuasive copy which is mostly minus the hyperbole is at www.actionplan.com - see the page on the Infoguru book.

Absolute genius. Highly targeted. Spoke directly to my pain. Gave me a sample, a guarantee, useful bonuses, reasonable price point etc etc etc. Even the name is good.

You see, it isn't just a case of does the copy get attention, create interest and desire and inspire action. There are also the matters of credibility and value proposition. Samples help a lot. Presentation within the product.

For me this was an irresistable offer, because it was so highly targeted and so credibly presented. With the free sample chapters (which were well presented) and the guarantee, I coudn't really go wrong. It is without doubt the best ebook that I've bought, but a lot of the value has been in the infoguru forum, as I'm sure GLB will attest to.

I have bought other ebooks that cost more, and had about 5% of the value. I asked for my money back. One of them, by a well known copywriter, was badly presented, sloppily done, did not contain a huge amount of valuable information. There were no hints, tips or exercises to do that would help me improve my skill. Basically, the price point was all wrong. Had it been $40 cheaper at $27, I would have kept it.

It's all very well writing "grab them by the jugular copy" and making the sale (assuming you can without sample chapters etc.), but what use is any of that if the customer ends up feeling they have been overcharged, they ask for a refund or they say nothing, but just feel uncomfortable about the whole thing. Are they going to come back and buy the more expensive items off you that are on your backend - I don't think so.

I would maintain that the offer and proposition are actually the most important things - people will buy good things with mediocre copy; when they buy mediocre things with good copy they must invariably end up dissatisfied.

Hi all this is my first post on this forum . Im here to learn from people with a lot more experience and success online than myself - just designing and writing my first 3 commercial sites.

Said that, I must agree with Jane . When I was an internet newbie I have "fallen" for hyperbole copy and got all hot and bothered about those wonderful bonuses. I have bought from many well known online marketers (not naming names) just to be let down by the quality of the product at the end . Michel gives about 10 times more valuable info in his free ebook than some of the stuff I bought .

As a result of that I am extremely sceptical of all online products. A screaming sales letter will only get me to click on the x button on my browser. Take a look at the http://myws.sitesell.com sales letter. In my opinion one of the best on the web. Highly informative and credibility building. The Middleton one is persuasive as well. I respond (and Im sure many others as well) very well to listing the chapter and subchapter names (that contain benefit keywords) in a sales letter for a book. The free initial chapters in an informative "state the problem then convince that this book/software/whatever is the best solution out there." is a must for me to buy anything.

About the pricing: Bundle the bare bones pdf book with audio files on the topic, so you increase the value. If you want market penetration price it lower than comparable products (but not so low to make your product look "cheap").

If you wanna go with the fact that you have more experience than others than price it higher to give it an instant quality feel.

English is not my first language, so if this feels like ramblings I apologise to Admin .

All the best!

Getting back to pricing. I have a couple of thoughts.

First, you said you've been using it for business coaching for a while, right? What were the results? In time and dollars saved or earned, what did your clients get out of it? Can they get the same results without your coaching?

Use THAT as your benchmark. Let's pretend that, using your system, a typical businessperson could get an additional 20 hours of productivity while cutting down their work week by 10 hours. Week after week for ever.

What does that mean to a typical business-person? Could they put a dollar amount on it? If we conservatively put a $50 an hour value, and they're getting a net 30 hour gain (20 hours more done in 10 fewer hours), then the benefit is $1500 a week. Figure 40 work weeks in a year, and you're looking at a benefit of $60,000.

What's a good price to benefit ratio? 1 to 10? That would be $6,000. 1 to 100? That would be $600.

If you can document the results and convince your prospect it will work for them, too, the decision should be easy. I'd buy a $60,000 benefit for $600, as long as I knew it was real and would work for ME.


Another benchmark would be to compare against your coaching. What did you charge for your coaching when using this system? How much of that coaching was for things unrelated to the system? Whatever that amount is, it seems unlikely you could charge MORE than that amount for the system, alone. So, test your pricing at something less than the system-portion of your coaching fees.


Critical: Get testimonials and case studies. Make sure they are believable and transferrable (meaning the reader can believe it could work for them, too).

Does this help?