Most important parts of a sales page
Copywriting is an art form all of its own within marketing. There are many professionals who make large incomes from concentrating purely on copywriting and doing nothing else. Big name marketers will pay serious money for a copywriter who has a proven track record of pulling in sales. The performance of sales copy has nearly as many statistics as the NFL, and no part of a sales letter has been analysed more than the headline. A top class copywriter will usually produce many different headlines, select one which they believe will perform best, and then test the others against it. Often, even the most experienced copywriters are surprised by the results, and the winning headline will become a new control in further testing.
As well as the main headline, sub headlines are critical. Often a busy reader will just skim a sales letter, and not really read it in great detail. The sub headlines basically need to convey the message of the entire letter, only in an abbreviated form. Read a sales letter’s sub headlines without looking at the text in between, and see if you receive the full meaning of the letter just from that. If not, the sub headlines probably need working on.
Bullet points are another crucial part of a sales letter, and they need to be short, sharp and to the point. They also need to emphasize benefits to the reader, and not features of the product alone. Potential buyers are interested in how the product can improve their life, what end benefits the product will deliver to them. Nowhere is this concept more important than in the short, dynamic bullet point that play such a key role in creating excitement within the reader.
The end of a sales letter is also of great importance because it is here that the sale is made. The letter must have a top quality call to action to entice the reader to part with his money. A good PS has also been proven to increase response rates, if it is an effective summary of the key benefits of the product.
Resources for writing a great headline
The headline is the most critical part of a sales letter. A top class copywriter will produce many different versions of the same headline, and test them against the control headline, which will have been developed with experience and research. The results of these tests are often a surprise, even to big name copywriters, and can result in new controls being developed. If you are a marketer who cannot pay thousands of dollars for a top class professional sales letter, you are going to have to do the best you can without these luxuries.
The great feature of sales letters for the aspiring copywriter is that they are visible. Nobody writes sales letters to hide them. This is your first valuable resource, the thousands of internet sales letters which you can study and create a swipe file from. If you go to the affiliate networks such as Clickbank and PayDotCom, you will be given a clear indication of which products on the marketplace are selling well. The sales copy that is working to sell these products is there for anyone to study.
Also there for anyone to study are the materials created by some of the world’s best copywriters. A legend such as Gary Bencivenga has created a full copywriting course on his own website, so take full advantage of this. The late Gary Halbert’s website also has many of his old letters and copywriting tips. Many of the top copywriters of today have blogs, where new posts appear on a regular basis, so it is always worth checking back. Writing a headline is sure to be discussed regularly.
If you are prepared to spend some serious money, there is even a software tool which will analyse headlines and give feedback on them. It is called Glyphius, and works from your desktop. You can test various headlines, and get scores on them. Software is no substitute for humans, and there is no guarantee the Glyphius results will be mirrored in the real world. The tool can be a time saver, though, in deciding which headline to run as a control.
What Sort Of Products Sell Best On eBay
Trying to make a living on eBay is not a bad idea, after all
many thousand of people are doing just that. The question comes
when you are deciding what to sell. If you are coming at eBay
from a background in offline business, then the choice is
usually a simple one, especially at the start. As you already
have your stock in your offline business, you can afford to try
out some listings on eBay to see what happens. If you are not
already in business, then it will be a much harder job to
decide, and a much riskier start up.
So many people who come in to selling on eBay think they need
to have the latest high tech gadgets in order to make serious
profits. There is no doubt that these products do sell
incredibly well, and if you can source a supply of them, you can
make some serious money. Of course, being high profile, the
competition is huge, and you will have higher overhead as a
result of needing to pay for featured listings. In many cases,
it is the exact opposite of the latest gadgets which can be the
best money makers. Antiques and collectible items are often
unique, and always in demand with collectors.
Because the items are not being mass produced, the market is
far less efficient, and more prone to divergences. You can pick
up very cheap items in places where they are unwanted and nearly
seen as junk, and then re sell those items to people who value
them a lot more highly. This kind of divergence arbitrage has
proven profitable for many new eBay sellers. Another possibility
is to source unique and non branded stock from little known
manufacturers in foreign countries, and then contract with the
manufacturer to sell the item in your country. These kind of
deals can often be more profitable than just competing with the
whole world on brand name goods.
-
More Useful Links!
