Why Your Sales Copy Sucks and 7 Things You Can Do To Fix It

Most new and even old entrepreneurs are like me; they are not professional copywriters or even novice copywriters.  In fact, most have never done any copyrighting at all. 

Yet, if you’ve been trying to build a business for more than a week, you know that copy is what sells, not the product itself. The problem is, expert copywriters cost from $10,000 to $50,000 or more for a sales letter. 

It’s not that all budding entrepreneurs are flat broke, yet most don’t have that kind of money to toss to the copywriter.  So what are you going to do? I had to learn the hard way, and I am far from an expert. 

However, using the tips and training of top marketers like Eben Pagan, Dave VanHoose and Dustin Matthews, Russell Brunson (to name a few), I collected a framework that works and is what you must know to get your sales started.  Using these tips, you can make your product sell.  This is the bottom line.

Here are the top 7 Tips from My Mentors…

1.  Use what is known as copy doodles.  These are the little notes on sales pages that look like handwritten note. 

This isn’t normally what most people list first.  However, the so-called copy doodles create what is known as pattern interrupts in the message and actually keep your customer engaged in the letter. 

It focuses them on key emotional grabs and benefits exactly when you want them to be.  It also attracts the eye without even reading the message.  This is important to get people reading.

2.  The headline is vital.  It really is the most important thing to get people started reading.  Your headline must deliver what your customer expects to see. 

As Eben Pagan emphasized with me, it is how you get into the conversation going on their head when they arrive at your web page.  The word FREE remains powerful in your headlines, there is no doubt about it. If you can create a punch in a few words, you want to. 

However, there remain just as many examples of longer headlines that grab your web visitor fast. Other key aspects of your headline include being specific.  Abstract sucks because it does not sell. 

People like to know how much, how long, when, why, and what you are going to do for them.

3.  Your introductory or opening story is key to keeping the visitor reading.  As Dave VanHoose constantly reminds me; stories sell, facts tell. 

Which do you want to do?  One of the things a story does is create an emotional connection and then makes you a real person to the reader. You will also make it clear that this is something you actually use, and that it is a solution to a specific problem. 

The story builds value and leads to other aspects of the sales letter.  It gives the rest of the sales letter value.

4.  The benefit of the benefit is very powerful.  What’s this?  The benefit is what a feature does for you.  So you say, “What about features?”  We will get to that. 

First, the benefits must tell what emotional satisfaction it will achieve for the customer.  If you can then show that the initial emotional gain results in an additional emotional solution, you have now created real power.  You latched on to the benefit of the benefit.

Benefits should be listed in bullets, and you can’t have too many bullets.  Find as many benefits as you can in your product and list them all in your sales letter.  There can’t be too many.

5.  Features are needed and should be included.  Remember, features alone do not sell.  All your competition has mostly the same features. 

So you must have features with real benefits and a real value proposition.  There must be some unique value in you offering the feature you offer, or they will just be a list of features.

6.  Use bonuses.  They must feel irresistible to the reader.  How do they become irresistible?  They must be relevant to what you are selling.  If the bonus adds value to the product, then it has irresistible potential. 

If it is just thrown in because you think it has some relationship, you run the risk of being the only person who sees the relationship.  Make your bonuses directly related to improving results, and enhancing the existing benefits of your product.

Here are two of the most important aspects of your sales copy.  You must do this…

7.  A strong call to action is needed when you close.  You should re-state the benefits, and re-state the offer.  In fact, the offer itself should be so irresistible, that it nearly sells the product on its own.  Use fear. 

I don’t mean treachery, I mean fear of not getting the benefits, and not solving the problem or situation the person is their to solve.  As part of your call to action, include a P.S. or two that further emphasize what benefit of the benefit the visitor will lose by not buying your product right now.

8.  The biggest and most important thing for boosting your sales is, when you have social proof, you must include it.  This is input from customers.  Testimonials are stories of real users.  Remember, stories sell, facts tell.  

You cannot have too much social proof.  In the fast advancing social aspects of the web, things like Facebook likes and shares, tweets, and blasts on networks like LinkedIn are terrific social proof.  You must incorporate them.

Alright, that was 8, and I promised you 7.  But as I was writing, I thought Dustin Matthews would kill me if I left out the last two. 

The bottom line is, if you can do just an average job of including aspect of the above 8 elements in yoiur copy, you will start making sales, and/or boost your sales if your copy is flat. You’ll have more customers, and you will also increase the amount of web traffic coming to it.