Why All Of Your Copy Is Sales Copy
Writing sales pages—you either love it or loathe it. Even copywriters, who make a living using words to persuade, may struggle with the sales page.
Why? Why is it so painful to squeeze out the words that will lead the prospect to buy?
WHAT’S A SALES PAGE?
Let’s back up for a hot second and pretend most of my blog readers aren’t conversion copywriters. (Reality.)
You may be wondering what I mean by a sales page.
At its most basic, a sales page is a web page on which you can make a purchase.
Here’s one just for fun:
Buy my course: “How to start your own goat-milking biz with just a laptop and a dream.”
(Imagine a picture of a goat using a laptop)
Button: Buy now for only $99!
^^^ That’s a sales page. An effective one? Probably not...unless you’re super-primed to start the goat-milking hustle, and you were just thinking, “Man, I wish someone would come up with a course to help me launch this goat-milking biz I’ve always dreamed of.”
Boom! You stop your scroll on a Facebook ad offering exactly that, and within minutes your $99 is gone and your goat-milking biz dream is in motion.
In the olden days, sales copy was known as direct response. (Still is. I just like saying olden days, so I feel younger.) Ever get a long letter in the mail, asking you to take advantage of a one-time special offer with umpteen bonuses? Probably a direct-response piece. The sales page is the online version of the direct-response package.
WHY WRITE SALES COPY?
If the words “sales copy” make you break out in hives, why subject yourself to such torture? Can’t you just sell stuff without any copy?
I’m gonna say no.
No, you can’t sell stuff without copy. Okay, I’ll compromise: You can’t sell stuff online without copy.
Maybe you can walk into a car dealership and buy a car without ever seeing a word of copy. Yet, I’m skeptical. Surely, you saw a commercial for the vehicle, or heard a radio ad. Copy.
Even if the copy isn’t the deciding factor...you still need it.
Even if you sell with only 21 words about goat milking and laptops...still had copy.
Even if it’s you selling on a one-on-one call...you still had to have some idea what to say to make the sale.
If you want to sell something online, you must write sales copy. (Or hire someone to write it for you.)
But what about the webinar/masterclass straight to the checkout page model?
I’ve seen it. If you’re a webinar-junkie like me, you’ve no doubt seen it too. You hop on a free webinar and by the end, the pitch is delivered, leading you either to a proper sales page, or straight to checkout.
Guess what? The webinar? That was copy! It was sales copy.
Even if the seller skipped the sales page...she still utilized sales copy.
As an online business owner, you simply cannot escape the need for sales copy.
Don’t Be Fooled
This might cause you to virtual-punch me, but I’ll say it anyway.
All of your copy is sales copy.
This blog post, yep, this one. It’s sales copy.
Now, it’s not a sales page per se. But it is sales copy.
You’re fooling yourself if you’re churning out your website copy, blog posts, social media content, without a care for conversions, thinking it’s not sales copy.
It’s all sales copy. If it’s not, you need to reconsider putting it out into the world.
If your goal is to sell anything, at any point, consider all of your copy sales copy.
If you’re not selling anything, ever, feel free to write any old copy.
Does this mean you’re asking for the sale in every single piece of content you publish? No.
Does it mean you should approach your copy with your conversion copywriter’s hat on? Damn straight.
If it helps, you can call it conversion copy. Conversion = taking action.
Conversion copy guides the right audience to the desired action. That action can be to purchase, to sign up for a webinar, to submit an application, to leave a comment.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?
It means you need to understand conversion basics and develop conversion strategies tailored to your audience for your content and copy. (Or hire someone to do it for you.)
Good places to start:
Crazy Egg blog (conversion rate optimization advice) https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/
Copyhackers blog + tutorials (the authority in conversion copywriting) https://copyhackers.com/
Get Uplift (customer-centric conversion optimization) https://getuplift.co/
Val Geisler (email conversion optimization) http://www.valgeisler.com/blog/
HEY, I'M MELANIE SPARKS.
I'm a conversion copywriter for digital course creators, experts, and service providers who have hit 6 figures or more and want to scale by staying in their zone of genius.
I help you go from Offer to Empire™ by nailing your offer, messaging, and strategy, then layering on the conversion copy.
Want to know how we can work together? Click here.
