Sales Page Template

Here I supply eight critical elements to include on your sales page template. Bookmark this page for reference.

Your sales letter is extremely powerful when you use the proven science behind good copywriting. Simply adopt this 8-element structure to give you a head-start:

When selling (and remember you are selling in your letter or advert) most professional sales people tell you to follow AIDA; no I’m not talking about a person called AIDA; I’m talking about the acronym AIDA which stands for:

Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.  Add an extra sprinkling of A for Attention and your sales letter sparkles.

More on AIDA

The AIDA formula is a long-standing favorite for structuring your sales message when writing a direct response style letter.

AIDA is an acronym for:

Attention: Attract your prospect’s Attention
Interest: Create a strong Interest for your prospect
Desire: Stimulate your prospect’s Desire for what you are offering
Action: Clearly tell your prospect what Action to take

I’m not the only professional copywriter who has created their own variation of the AIDA formula.

Robert Collier’s formula was

Attention
Interest
Description
Persuasion
Proof
Close

Victor O. Schwab suggested AAPPA for your sales page template.

Get Attention
Show people an Advantage
Prove it
Persuade people to grasp this advantage
Ask for action

There is a whole section on copywriting formulas in Richard S. Hodgson’s The Greatest Direct Mail Sales Letters and in his Direct Mail & Mail Order Handbook.

It’s worth remembering these formulas are simply a guide to how to organize the content of your sales page template and to make sure you haven’t missed an important element. A more complicated formula may confuse, rather than help, you with your writing.

For most professional copywriters the formula is not slavishly followed because the structure is part of the copywriting skill. It is one you will also develop as you write more and more sales letters.

A good way to be sure you’ve included everything you need to – in your letter; order form; on the envelope – and you’ve written it in the most persuasive way possible is to have a final checklist.

8 Elements for Your Sales Page Template

Let’s go through sales page template techniques that match these elements:

1) Grab ATTENTION with your headline – spend the majority of your time on this. Use eye-catching words such as You/Your; Who Else; Which; Now; New; Bargain; Free; How/How to; Hurry or Breakthrough.

2) Whatever your headline promised your first paragraph must reinforce it. Keep it short and to the point. Resist the temptation to ramble. Keeping it focused keeps your reader’s INTEREST.

3) Draw your reader in – describe exactly what your offer, what it does for him, how he benefits. If there are a number of steps to a process describe exactly what they are so you start to create his DESIRE.

4) Remember human nature. Something’s good? We want it too! Give your reader feedback from your delighted customers. Make sure the testimonials are descriptive and identify the problem your customer had or the result he wanted and the solution or outcome you delivered. You keep your reader’s DESIRE high.

5) Lose – Make sure your prospect understands why he cannot possibly ignore your offer. Make absolutely sure he understands exactly how much less his life is if he does not respond to your valuable proposition. You  harm him by not doing everything possible to clearly show the loss he would experience.

So tell him what he loses if he doesn’t take up your valuable offer. How he’s missed out on key benefits or results, how his life will never be the same again…

OK, so I’m exaggerating, but I’m sure you get the picture. People make buying decisions based on their emotions and then use logic to justify the decision. If we weren’t influenced by our emotion, people would never buy expensive cars, designer clothes or larger houses. After all a small, cheap car gets you from A to B, just as a more expensive car does.

Appeal to your prospect’s emotional wants and desires – the detail of features you provide helps him justify the logic of buying from you.

This is still part of his DESIRE – his desire not to lose what you have already created an interest in.

Depress your reader with what he might lose if he doesn’t take your offer.

6) Repeat the benefits – raise the desire again to own or experience your service or product. Get your reader excited about what he can expect to enjoy.

And then…

7) Action – tell him EXACTLY what to do now. This is where sales page template commonly breakdown. They forget a specific ‘call to action’ describing, in simple to follow steps, how to get what you’ve been promising throughout your letter.

So go on, tell him to send the completed request form in the envelope provided. Tell him to call the Freephone number and place his request NOW. Tell him to send the email confirming his interest. Provide the purchase now button. Don’t let him ‘cool off’ by not leading him through the steps he needs to take immediately.

8) And finally add the P.S. – your second headline (and the final sprinkling ‘A’ of the AIDA-A acronym). Having spent so much time preparing your main headline you have already discovered your second strongest – and that is probably a natural P.S.

Make your P.S. as compelling as your headline. Its job is to get your prospect to read your letter and remind him of the most important reason why he should respond.

More on Testimonials

I constantly advise that when writing a sales letter one of the most effective ingredients is a good testimonial. Not just one that says “Great job, would recommend”, but one that is more specific about

• what was happening before,
  
• what solution you provided and
  
• the result your customer enjoyed.

And when you’ve done that consider your existing customers.

• Which of these gained a great result from you?
• Which of these make you feel proud of what you’ve done for them?
• Have you asked for their testimonial?  If not, perhaps now is a good time to ask.

Use this question structure for your sales page template, not only does it produce a good testimonial for you, it also makes it easier for your customer to think of what to write or say. And one final point, the testimonial is no good if you can’t share it with your prospects.  So make sure you get permission to use it – along with your contact’s name, company name (if appropriate) and location – in your marketing material.

Pre-Heads

A pre-head is part of the initial Attention in the AIDA acronym and should be a natural introduction to the main headline. One advantage of having a good, enticing pre-head is that it moves the main, larger font headline down to the area of your page where your prospect’s eyes naturally rest when they first look at the page.

Get the Right Appeal

When you are deciding upon your offer and crafting your sales page template you need to know your target prospect in as much depth as possible. Once you have that intimate knowledge of them you can position your offer to match what appeals best.

Here’s some popular appeals that might resonate with your target audience:

He (or she) wants to:

1. Satisfy their curiosity
2. Be successful – in life or in business
3. Be comfortable
4. Make their work easier
5. Gain recognition or praise from their peers or superiors
6. Save money
7. Make money
8. Satisfy their ego
9. Gain self-respect
10. Be fashionable
11. Be a recognised expert
12. Protect themselves, their family & their possessions
13. Protect their reputation
14. Avoid embarrassment
15. Save time
16. Gain status through possessions
17. Get a bargain
18. Get something for free
19. Protect the environment
20. Prevent or relieve boredom
21. Get ahead – in their career or social status
22. Enjoy beautiful items
23. Be popular
24. Be their own boss
25. Enjoy leisure pursuits
26. Gain better health
27. Become fit
28. Get rid of aches and pains
29. Be sexually attractive
30. Satisfy their own sexual desires
31. Gain knowledge
32. Be good parents
33. Relax – with friends or alone
34. Be safe and secure
35. Live longer
36. Enjoy their life more

Which of these do your products or services satisfy? Could you make an offer that would match other desires?

The more of these appeals you can meet the better chance you have of increasing the response to your sales page template, adverts and web pages.