Us marketers tend to talk a lot about how things have changed, how customer behavior and expectations have shifted, how the way we market products evolved. It’s true, things did change a lot, however, there are some things in marketing that never get out of the focal point.
One of these things is making an offer. Making and presenting an offer might still be one of the most important things in the entire marketing landscape. Why? Because if your offer doesn’t resonate with your prospects, you can say goodbye to your conversions. That’s the hard truth.
There are a lot of different things that go into a sales campaign, however, if you are constantly getting unsatisfactory results on sales and landing pages, the first thing you should inspect is your offer.
Presenting your offer is the bread and butter of your sales efforts, so analyzing every element of your web page carefully can help you with pinpointing the areas where your offer fails to deliver to your customers.
In this article, we’ll help identify these elements and give you a few tips on how you can improve them so your offer conveys the messages and makes your customer convert.
Test the elements
Headline
The headline of your sales or landing page is one of those places where your offer can either shine or fail. It’s the first thing a person reads when visiting your page and thus, makes a great place to speak clearly about your offer.
Keep it informative and clear, people can usually identify cutesy headlines full of fluff and leave the website more often than not.
With that in mind, keep it informative, to-the-point. Let your potential customers know that you’re here to solve their problem. Your headline should reflect that you’ve put in the time and the effort of researching your audience and their needs. Ultimately, your product should also do the same.
Graphics
Images and videos can help you a great deal if they serve the purpose of explaining your offer, otherwise, they can potentially distract your prospects. As such, if you have any graphics above the top 25 percent of the screen, try moving them further down or try to find something that explains your offer or backs it up.
When you are using visuals with people in them, make sure to include different ages, ethnicity, genders, etc. You want to cover a broad range in the spectrum to find people who can envision themselves as that person in the picture and form a certain relationship with your product.
Sub-headline
As with the header, you should always make sure that your sub-head is clear when it comes to explaining your offer and benefits it gives to those
Lead
The way you start your sales copy can make a world of a difference. If you were hitting positive tones in the past, try hitting a negative now. Test being direct if you’ve been mostly starting with stories till now.
On the other hand, the best copies always hit hard on the “before and after”. Your customer wants to know how your product will change their life so discuss the differences between the before and after so your customers can see themselves making the transition from one state to the other.
Video sales letter vs Long-form
Using video sales letters (or VSL’s) are great for conveying a huge amount of info rather quickly, in a way that’s easy to understand.
If you’ve never experimented with videos, give them a try and see how they work out for you.
When working on a VSL, experiment with a few different ways when it comes to presenting the info:
- Have a single person give all the info
- Use different places, styles, etc.
- Use a screen next to the person and show a copy that’s highlighting the essentials of the offer. The screen can also be used to showcase the offer or the digital product as well.
Video letter sales letter elements
Voice – See how different speakers affect your sales results of your VSL. Have speakers use different tones and delivery. Test excited and serious tones and see what works better.
Speed – Try speeding up the entire video by 10 percent. Sometimes that’s all you need to grab the attention of your prospects.
Volume – Experiment with lowering the spoken audio volume on your sales video. It can potentially increase engagement since the viewers are more likely to pay attention when your speaker talks quietly.
Headline – Deciding whether to put your headline on the first slide of your video or placing it above the actual video will depend on the headline and lead. See for yourself. If your headline is good enough to motivate your visitors by itself, it can stand above the video. Test your options and see what gives the best results.
Background color
Testing different backgrounds can also help improve your offer.
Go with the most commonly used things as they are proven to work best:
- Black
- White
- Branded static visuals
Note that these can work either for landing page backgrounds as well as for static videos.
Click-to-play vs. auto-play
Auto-play works best with traditional direct response video sales letters, but if you have other elements on the page along with a copy see how your results differ when the video starts automatically and when your visitors need to click in order to start it.
Also, if you opt for playing your video automatically, make sure to auto-mute it.
VSL vs Doodle video
Doodle videos can be a great way to help boost your conversions, however, they don’t always steal the show from traditional sales formats. If you already have a video that’s performing well, test it with doodle animation and see how it goes.
CTA or Buy button
Time – is your CTA or add to cart (buy) button visible when customers arrive on your site? Try “popping” the button where you would regularly call to action with a pop-up.
Also, if you are tracking your metrics regularly, you can try test-popping your CTA just before the point in the video where most viewers tend to leave.
Color – A contrasting button is a great way to boost conversions. That being said, Green, Yellow, and Orange can all work – just make sure they complement your brand’s colors.
On the other hand, try to leave out red as an option altogether. People usually associate this color with stopping the action.
Text – As with your headline, leave the fluff out and use clear words that signal what will happen if your visitors click. “Buy Now”, “Get Access”, “Add To Cart”, “Become A Member” all signal the next step of what’s going to happen as a result of their action.
Bottom line, the clearer you are, the better.
Your product
If you are offering digital products, make sure to inspect the following things:
Course length – If you’re offering courses, run a few tests, and try breaking apart your courses so there are fewer topics in a single course. This might be challenging and will depend on the content of the courses, so be a bit more thorough with this one. There’s no benefit from breaking apart courses if they are easier to digest as a whole. The same goes for module lengths.
Digital products – You might offer an online tool that comes with different features. Try offering it with different features (for example, basic, premium, pro). You can also introduce limited special runs, discounts and so on. If you offer more than one tool, you can also create bundle packages at lower prices.
Take a look at your memberships – Membership options can really make or break an offer so examine your current membership arrangements and see if there’s any need for improvement.
Are you providing enough value so it’s worth having a membership?
Are people motivated to become members or are they more on the “one-time buyer” side of the scale?
Examine premium and bonus content – Are you offering premiums or bonuses at all? If yes, do they actually improve your offer? What do you want to reinforce with them (memberships, one-time purchases)?
If you offer physical products, analyze the following:
Quantity: How many products can visitors get at a time?
Shipping: Are your shipping policies following the trends? If they are up to standards, make sure to highlight them.
Bonuses: If you are able to pull it off, adding bonuses to your products can be a great way to improve your offer. Even the smallest things, like stickers, can help you build your brand and excite your audience. If you are able to provide more impressive bonuses, feel free to highlight them within your offer.
Price
Price is the most sensitive variable on this list and will have the biggest impact so wait until the very end to test it – start with the lowest price you can and increase to the point where you get resistance.
Options
It makes perfect sense to offer more pricing options and multiple levels when trying to sell your products or services, however, more often than not, a single offer works best. Test out a few different options – one with a single offer and other variants with no more than two different product or service arrangements (for example, basic+premium membership, or premium+VIP), so you can see which one works best for you and your customers.
Guarantee
First, take a look at the length of the guarantee. Is it 30, 60, or 90 days? Also, look at the wording (30-day guarantee – a month guarantee, a year – 356-day etc.).
These subtle changes can make a huge difference in the eyes of your customer so make sure to test them.
Scarcity
Introducing scarcity is a great way to motivate people to make a purchase. There are different ways you can go about this.
Driven scarcity – with a discount-expiration timer (XX/XX/XXX)
Unit Scarcity – limited amount of units available at the given price.
On the other hand, if you are already implementing these tactics, try launching your sales/landing page without them and track the results you’re getting.
Need a great summary of the 4 things to ask yourself to see if you are giving the right offer to your customers ? Click on the image bellow!
Finishing thoughts
As you can see, there are a lot of different things going into creating an offer your customers can’t resist. You should inspect every little detail and element of your sales and landing pages. The places where you position your headlines, sub-heads, the formats you use, the copy you write, your CTAs all have a profound effect on how your prospects will decide in the end.
If you’d like help with creating such an offer, or better yet, would like someone to take care of it for you, reach out to us. We are eager to help.
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