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Your Success Begins at the Top

Website sales pages are pages that directly sell products or services. These can range from short product descriptions (similar to the ones you see on Amazon.com) to full-blown sales letters.

When someone opens a page about a product, it's usually the headline that makes your prospect either read further or click away. Yet the majority of online writers write throwaway headlines that are usually nothing more than the product name.

The headline should contain a strong selling message. This message can identify the audience for the product or service, stress the usefulness of the product, or highlight other potential benefits.

A well-thought-out headline increases the selling power of any online document, from a Web page to an e-mail.

But, it takes more than a compelling headline to sell products or services online…

The Benefits of… Benefits

Too many promotional websites stress the features of a product or service — the bare facts about how it works, what it looks like, how and where it's made, who designed it, and so on. Effective copy translates features into benefits — the reasons why customers should buy the product. A benefit explains what your prospects are most interested in… what the product or service can do for them.

In General, It Pays to Be Specific

People visit websites because they want information. And they are quickly turned off by pages that are long on puffery and short on content. So be specific. Don't write, "saves you money" when you can say "reduces fuel consumption up to 50 percent." Don't say "we're reliable" if you can tell the customer, "The repairman arrives within 24 hours or we fix it free of charge." Remember, specifics sell.

Make Sure Your Sales Pages Don't Fall Flat — Support Your Claims

Even if you stress benefits instead of features, even if you make specific claims, your customer still may not believe you. In his book Direct Mail Copy That Sells! copywriter Herschell Gordon Lewis describes modern times as an Age of Skepticism:

"This is the Age in which nobody believes anybody, in which claims of superiority are challenged just because they're claims, in which consumers express surprise when something they buy actually performs the way it was advertised to perform."

How can you overcome skepticism and get people to believe you? Here are some things to include in your sales copy:

• Track Record — The most powerful copy for promoting a product or service is to say what it has done for other customers and the specific positive results.
   
• Guarantees — Offer a guarantee: money back, free replacement, free revisions and reworks, unlimited service, or work redone at no cost. Guarantees allow the customer to try your service at no risk, which will ensure satisfaction.
   
• Client List — Include a list of your most prestigious, well-known clients. This impresses prospects by association. They figure if you are good enough for American Express or Lever Brothers, you're good enough for them too.
   
• Case Studies — These are success stories, which tell how a particular customer benefitted by selecting, buying, and using your services or methods. They present the reasons why the customer selected your service over competitive offers and the results achieved through its application.
   
• Demonstrate Your Reputation and Stability — Talk about your track record and past successes. Cite number of years in the business, number of employees, the size of your operation, number of warehouses, number of plants, number of offices, annual sales, profits, reputation. This is usually done on a separate "about the company" page.
   
• Use Illustrations — Help customers visualize how your service works or is put together and why this makes it better.
   
• Show, Don't Tell — Don't just say your product or service saves money or improves life. Show that it does. Let's say you're selling an energy-efficient, air-flow management system to building owners. Instead of just talking in a general sense about energy savings, provide sample calculations that show exactly how much money buyers can save based on utility rates, building size, and thermostat setting. Put an interactive tool on your site that makes it easy for the visitor to perform the calculation and come up with the money saved based on his specific situation.
   
• Use Comparisons — If your product or service clearly beats the competition, you can include comparisons, as long as they can be supported by documentation (i.e. specifications taken from competitors' brochures).

An Urgent Need…

Creating a sense of urgency is one more tactic that can help your website's sales pages do what they're meant to do… Generate sales!

Give your prospects a reason to call, or register, or e-mail now, rather than later. If you can only take on a limited number of assignments, and you take on new clients on a first-come, first-serve basis, say so.

If your website's sales pages aren't performing to the best of their ability, you have an urgent need! Stop letting sales slip through your fingers and contact Kethyr Solutions today to find out how we can help.

Contact Kethyr Solutions today for more information or call us toll-free at 888-538-4971.

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