Today you’re going to learn how one of my student’s increased his conversion rate by a jaw-dropping 300% by making simple changes to his sales page.
This technique is called The 5 Point Conversion Rule, and will boost your conversion rate by 300%.
Using this tutorial I’ll show you how to make the perfect sales page, even if you have a regular page and have never done anything like this. You’ll turn your sales page into a beast before you know it.
When you start using the information you’re about learn here you will see an instant increase in revenue as a result.
Table of Contents:
Before you begin
Before I show you my student’s page, and before you implement my advice (or anyone else’s) take a copy of your current page and save it somewhere safe.
This is called your ‘control’ version and you’ll measure all changes against it. The purpose of your new version is to beat the control.
If your new version performs poorly after 1000 visitors, revert back to the original and start again.
Then ask yourself; who is your product for? Who is it NOT for?
When you get clear on who you’re speaking to, and why, you’ll have a better understanding of how to communicate with them more effectively.
The truth about conversion rates
It’s important to understand that you will never experience a 100% conversion rate. The vast majority of the people who visit your sales page will reject your offer, and that’s ok.
The fact is we only need a small number of people to take action in order to get outstanding results.
Cold traffic
As a rule, cold traffic typically converts at around 1%.
You could look at it like this; anything above 1% is a good result – unless your prospects know who you are and have received a decent level of value from you prior to pitching your offer.
Through delivering that value you will naturally increase trust. This means your prospects are warm.
Warm traffic
If you’re promoting an offer to warm prospects you should expect a much higher conversion rate. I’ve seen ‘marketing guru’s’ boast of conversion rates upwards of 5%.
Realistically, it’s unlikely your conversion rate will go beyond 25 – 30% on front end offers.
However, on backend offers, like upsells, you can expect to see a 30% conversion rate on those offers.
Common sales page mistakes
As you can see, this is my student’s sales page (he’s called Craig) and his website teaches people guitar how to play guitar.
But there are a few problems with this page, let’s go through them one by one.
Maybe you’ve made these mistakes too.
- Mistake #1: Too many options
- Mistake #2: Conflicting messages
- Mistake #3: Confusing copy
Mistake #1
The first mistake is that this sales page is offering too many options and asking the visitor to do too many things.
Successful sales pages have only two options; buy or leave.
Anything else is a distraction.
Mistake #2
The second mistake is that the message isn’t 100% clear. All successful sales pages need to make it clear that a product is for sale.
It’s not clear if the reader should subscribe to an email list, share the page on social media, or make a purchase.
Mistake #3
On this sales page the copy immediately invites the reader to become an affiliate and promote the product.
This means the page is attempting to appeal to multiple groups of people; buyers and affiliates. Again, this is confusing for prospects.
It also has links above the fold to different sections of the website. All of these mistakes combined will lead to a low conversion rate, and confused prospects.
Sales page formula
To correct these mistakes, or create a high converting sales page from scratch, we need to use a formula called ‘A, I, D, C, A’.
These letters stand for:
- Attention
- Interest
- Desire
- Consideration
- Action
This is an easy way to help you remember the right way to structure your sales pages and marketing messages.
We can apply this formula to lots of aspects of marketing, in fact each of these stages also matches each stage of marketing funnel.
You could, for example, use this formula when crafting emails, blog posts, videos, or any other way you choose to communicate with your audience.
But right now we’re going to look at this formula as it relates to sales pages.
I’ll walk you through each of these stages in more detail now.
1. Attention
You must immediately grab and hold your prospects attention.
The best way of doing that is with a strong headline that speaks directly to your prospect. I’ll show you how to write a headline that does this later.
2. Interest
Once you’ve grabbed your prospects attention, next you need to hold that attention.
The best way to do that is to trigger their interest. And what are people most interested in? Themselves.
In copywriting we say that prospects are tuned into Radio WIIFM – What’s In It For Me. In a few minutes I’ll show you how to keep them glued to the page by triggering their interest.
3. Desire
After you’ve grabbed their attention, and engaged their interest, the next stage is to increase their desire.
This isn’t the desire for your product, but the desire for what your product does for them or for what it allows them to do. There’s a big difference.
We only introduce your solution (your product) once they understand why they need it.
4. Consideration
At this stage your prospect is aware of your product and how it benefits them. But they are not ready to take action yet.
They might have questions or objections that prevent them from taking action.
It’s here that your copy must address those questions and ease their concerns. There are a few ways to do that, which I’ll show you.
5. Action
The final stage of the formula is to ask your prospect to take action.
If your copy is doing its job, the next logical step for your prospect to make is to purchase your offer.
This is the easiest stage to work with because you’re giving a direct command in asking them to click the buy button.
Sales page structure
Let’s break down the sections of a high converting sales page, so you know exactly how to write each section.
1. Headline
The purpose of the headline is to grab attention and get your prospect to read the next line, and nothing else.
Resist the urge to be vague or clever with your headline, keep it clear and simple, straight to the point while making a bold promise.
Your prospect wants to either moving away from a negative state, or wants to move towards a positive one.
One of my favourite structures for headlines to use numbers and promise specific results in a set timeframe.
You could take this a step further and remove obstacles.
Here’s an example:
“10 ways to lose 20lbs in 6 weeks without crazy fad diets or expensive gym membership”
There’s a handy tool here that will analyse headlines for you and suggest improvements.
Also look at magazines, search for best selling books on Amazon, viral blog posts, and even examining clickbait has its place in copywriting.
You could quickly build up a swipe file of headlines that inspire you, so you’re never stuck for headline ideas.
2. Hook
The hook is the opening sentence of your first paragraph and is designed to keep visitors reading your sales page.
To do this we need to tap into their interest and amplify it.
There are a few ways to do this.
The first way is to trigger their curiosity; asking a question or making a bold statement are both proven ways.
Also another technique is called rubbernecking and taps into our desire to see controversial content.
No matter which hook you use, it must provoke an emotional reaction.
The easiest way is to start with highest point of tension or drama of your story, because it’s often the most interesting part and creates curiosity.
Highlighting a common problem that your prospects face, and telling the true story of how you overcame the same problem is an effective way to engage your audience.
When they can see that someone else, who started in a similar situation as they managed to overcome the problem, they begin to realise that they can do it too.
3. Benefits
At this stage of the sales page we need to introduce the benefits of your product or service.
Because you’ve already identified your prospects problem and proven that a solution is possible, it’s time to increase the desire for it.
To successfully increase their desire, you must appeal to both their logic and their emotion.
Most purchases are made because of emotions, but we need both because your prospect needs justification for buying.
Emotion is the REAL reason why they buy, but logic is the reason they give to OTHERS.
How do you deploy both on your sales page?
With features and benefits.
Make a bullet-point list of all the features your product has.
Now what are the benefits of each feature?
The benefits are how your prospects life will change after they buy, and how other people will view them once they’ve solved their problem.
4. Objections
Even though you’ve increased desire, your prospect will most likely still have concerns about buying.
There’s a range of questions running through their mind, and you need to address them and tackle them head-on.
This is the consideration stage, because they are examining their options and weighing up and pros and cons.
Common questions most prospects ask themselves at this stage are:
- Will it work?
- Will it work for me?
- What do I need to make it work?
- What if it doesn’t work?
You can answer these by using FAQ, social proof in the form of testimonials, and money-back guarantees.
If you can spin your answers into another positive you’ll knock down more obstacles while increasing their desire to purchase.
5. Call to action
Now you’ve removed the obstacles, it’s time to ask them to take action and purchase your offer.
This is the final stage and the easiest.
All you have to do is tell your prospect to click the buy button, and what will happen when they do.
Take this opportunity to tell them what happens next. If they’re going to need their credit card, putting card icons underneath the buy button is a suitable way to communicate that.
You could also inject some urgency at this stage. This will make the purchase a little impulsive, because when something is limited it naturally becomes more desirable and more valuable.
You could offer a time limited special discount for fast-action takers, and redirect the page once a countdown timer reaches zero.
You could offer limited places, and close the offer when that number has been reached.
Or you could offer special bonuses and remove them after a period of time, or number of purchases.
Now you know how to increase your conversion rate by 300%, without too much additional work, or hiring expensive copywriters.
Have fun & profit!