Hey Jan, good idea! I will mainly be focusing on the sales page content for this, but in the comments I'll be answering any and all questions about ancillary sales page stuff like the autoresponder etc :)

Hey Paul, in Day 1 of the process I'll show how I lay out a skeleton outline.

I show it here also:

https://copywritingcourse.com/effective-sales-letters/

 

....but I'll be doing a live example which might be more useful for you to see!

Kan't wait to get started too!

Hmmm....couple of people have asked this already. Will make sure to address this.

(Hint: I have a list of "sections" a sales page should have, and I go through the skeleton outline of those and answer each one).

You'll see the process in action this week ;)

Looking forward to this! Bring it on Nev!

Oh wow, lots of good questions I hadn't thought of before Dejan!

Possibly a shirt-worthy comment :)

Hey Zakaria, great questions!

I'm surprised by how many people are requesting info on the pre-research of a product.

As you'll see in the coming days, I generally start off in Google Docs, then when that's done, I start making it look pretty by putting it into LeadPages (or you can use whatever page making software you like).

Will show all these things soon, great questions!

Hey ((G))erard! :-P

I agree with all that. Generally when writing for a client, I am writing WITH them.

This means I have them on a video call with me, and can instantly ask what their customers respond best to. This is far better than me having to do all this research myself (only to come to the conclusion the owner probably already knows).

I often go straight into writing....BUT only after I've outlined a skeleton of the sales page. I'll be demo'ing that part tomorrow :)

Hey Carolyn!

I think it's important you know RIGHT AWAY what the "action" of any article, post, or sales page should be.

I always assume the goal of the sales page is to get them to click a "buy" button somewhere.

Tomorrow I'll do the first draft of the page, and you can follow along in the coming weeks!

Glad you're excited too :)

I wasn't specifically going to try to break any 3 second barrier, as I'm a big believer in doing some PRE WORK to get people interested in your sales page.

Watch along to see how I do it, feel free to ask questions along the way!

Hey Nadine, great questions!

It seems a couple of people are interested in tone, I'll make it a point to address that.

Your last question might be answered tomorrow as I "Skeleton Outline" the whole sales page.

There's usually a few sections every sales page needs, and we'll cover those!

Hey timely stuff for me right now!

My Q: Being a slight contrarian, do I REALLY have to write a 17,549 word long-ass sales page that takes 8.9 seconds to scroll all the way to the buy button?

Snarky language, but a real question :)

Hey Mike!

Generally longer form sales pages are not written JUST to be longer form, it just means there's more than needs to be explained.

So if you sell a $3 light bulb on Amazon, you probably don't need a crazy amount of copy to sell it....people already know what a light bulb is, and it's cheap enough to buy without question!

However if you're selling a brand new technology light bulb that costs $300 but lasts forever, uses less energy etc.....then you might need a longer form sales pitch to show why spending $300 upfront will actually SAVE them money in the long run.

That sales letter will naturally just be longer since it needs to explain more.

Hey Yair, great idea....I'll make a section in this experiment where we talk about how to track things.

However ultimately "success" is determined by how many sales you make, and it's a difficult problem without lots and lots of traffic, and lots and lots of sales to tell if your sales pitch is "optimal."

I'll try to formulate some hard rules for people just to gauge success though, good suggestion!

I used to do them all, now I have some help.

...however in this specific post, yes I made both of the stick figures :)

Hey Kate!

That's actually one of the counterintuitive things about a long-ass sales page.....sometimes the price will be very high, and the whole sales page is justifying why it's so high, and why it's worth it.

However for small pages (such as selling a $3 light bulb on Amazon) you won't need as much copy because the price is low, and the product is self explanatory.

We'll address "length" of sales pages for sure!

Well it's certainly got WAY LESS AGGRESSIVE thankfully!

I love old school copy, but there's definitely this "scummy-ness" about a lot of old school stuff (not all of it, but some of it).

Before the internet was in everyone's pocket, direct mail often just flat-out scammed people.

They would make ridiculous claims without anyone being able to verify if it's true or actually works.

The first step will answer the last part of your question....we'll build a "Skeleton Outline" of our page, and then start filling it in.

Hi Neville,

Thanks for this. Hope to write a better sales page with you.

-> Why do sales pages have to be so long? Can short sales pages do the same work that long sales pages do?

-> What percentage of your visitors read the whole sales page? I've found myself scanning most long-form sales pages, though there have been some sales pages I read completely (Jon Morrow's for instance).

--> Do long-form sales pages still work even when most people scan them instead of reading?

-> This isn't directly related to sales pages, but are there free or inexpensive tools that can tell us how many visitors read the whole page?

-> If you want to write about something that you have no knowledge about, how long does it take to research about the niche/product, and how do you go about it? Will you be covering the research part in this series?

-> Do you have or made any templates to use when writing long-form sales pages? If yes, can you share some with us? :)

Yikes, great question.

It super depends on the product, but I'd say maybe 12-24 hours of work time.

Often it'll take people months to make a sales page, but in my experience it doesn't take me that long.

HOWEVER, if you count iterations and such, a sales page is an ever-morphing organism.

Hey Augusto, we'll definitely be going over all this tomorrow :)

Hey Matt, for that we use my 70% Content and 30% Sales ratio to keep people happy!

(This is also how you write an advertorial without pissing people off)!

Hey Bina, I probably won't go TOO deep into Video Sales Letters, but much of the concepts from a sales letter to a video sales letter are the exact same!

Hey John, great question!

I will be addressing it, but the answer is often: SPICE IT UP WITH IMAGES!!

I love copy, but there's also far superior ways of demonstrating a product that with a big wall of text.

I think images mixed with text is the optimal way of communicating a sales page.

We'll also track our pages to see how they are doing, and the stats will show if your page is "too long."

Hey Neville,

I have a question that I couldn’t figure out by myself yet.

How do you check the decision factors of the buyer without assuming it’s a price, shipping, service, etc?

People are different, and their motives also very different, usually a good copy can address only one of those factors.