6 Questions a Sales Page Needs to Answer

A sales page is the place where it all starts. It’s the page you use to present and sell your products or services to the online users. Usually, this page is focused on a single product or service, or on a particular group of products or services.

The goal of the sales page

The goal of this page is obviously to sell the product or service you’re providing. However, to achieve this, you will have to master the art of creating a high converting sales page. It puts the product into the spotlight, along with promoting its features, benefits, and reasons why this is something the potential customer would want. One of the main metrics you will use to analyze the quality of this page is the conversion rate. This percentage refers to the number of total page visits, compared to the number of sales generated through this page. And the whole purpose of creating a sales page is to generate as many conversions as possible by having a high-converting sales page. Usually, the process requires a lot of optimization, testing, planning, and analyzing the efficiency of the overall page design. You need to keep getting back to the sales page, analyze its performance, and discover ways to make necessary changes. At this point, there are six questions you need to ask yourself. The purpose of these questions is to help you design a page that maximizes the effect you want to achieve. They will serve as guidelines to reshape and refocus the sales page to get the most benefit from its promotion.

1. What is the page about?

Even though this seems like an obvious question, there are so many pages online that fail at answering this core question. They simply don’t make their page obvious when it comes to what is it about. Although the product or service might be familiar to you, some of the online users might have never heard of it, especially if it something innovative, something new on the market. You need to explain the essence of the product, and your page content should be quite clear and straightforward. Don’t just assume that online users know everything. When online users land on a specific page, they need to assess what this page is about quickly. Have in mind that the time they’ll invest in assessing the page is rather short, sometimes only a couple of seconds. This means that attracting their attention should be done within the first few seconds. Hence the need to place the most important, attention-grabbing information at the top.

Elements of the landing page

When creating these elements, you need to think about what your page is about all the time.

• Headline – As the most prominent part of the sales page, the headline has a high impact on the attention of online users. When it comes to the sales page, a headline usually contains the product or service name, as well as the brand name. Usually, it is accompanied by a tagline that tells more about the purpose of the product, usability, benefits, and uniqueness. It is also a handy attention grabber.
• Subheadings – The purpose of the subheadings is to break down the entire concept of the page into smaller units. These units are easier for online users to digest and comprehend. Subheadings usually bring more information about the product or service such as product or service details, terms, description, benefits, etc. Use subheadings to organize page content into sections. Usually, you will use different page design to separate between the sections.
• Page content – Finally, the third part of the page represents the actual content. This content needs to be relevant to the topic. It needs to convey a message that features your product or service in the spotlight. Using narration, storytelling, and simply allowing online users to get closer to this product through a powerful description will help you generate their interest and encourage them to make a decision to buy.

2. Who are you trying to reach?

Your target group needs to be the focus of your sales page creation. You need to keep getting back to the online users you’re trying to reach. Think about what they want, need, how they make decisions, what might influence their decision, and ultimately, how you can help them meet their demands. This kind of thinking will help you be more persuasive in your tone. Your language needs to be relatable, and thus, it will provide a better effect on online users. This way, you’ll increase your power of persuasion and achieve better results. Your content will also be more engaging, which means the users will be focused on the sales page longer. Have in mind that increasing their page time is a good thing. You need the users to be engaged and to show interest in what you have to offer. This way, they are more likely to buy from you. Think about it this way. The reason they are spending so much time on your page is because they are seriously considering this product or service you’re offering. They wouldn’t invest so much time into reading your content, analyzing your reviews, going through all the testimonials if they weren’t genuinely interested in how this particular product or service can be beneficial for them. Your page content needs to push the right buttons. You need to predict how the users think, the questions they might have, or doubts, and you need to create content that solves all those questions. This can only be achieved if you really understand your target group and if you really know their buying habits.

Analyze the buying process

Before you go on to create such customer-based content, use these techniques to think about the buying process:

• Who is your product for?
• Who has bought your product in the past?
• Narrow down the group based on different criteria: age, location, interests
• Illustrate the buying process for such a customer starting from the moment the need occurs until the need is met
• Analyze the stages of the sales funnel and phases each customer goes through
• Think about what can encourage (or stop them) to make a decision and to go towards the next stage of the sales funnel

Find out more about creating a sales funnel and why you need one in this article: Creating a Sales Funnel

3. What is the action you want to encourage?

Often times, people are focused on design, and how the page looks like, how it performs on mobile devices, etc. Even though these are all important parts of creating a sales page, there is more. Here’s a simple question that directly helps you increase the performance of your page.

What is the action you’re aiming to encourage? What do you want online users to do?

When it comes to the sales page, usually the sale is the obvious answer. However, try to be specific and define your conversion.Do you want people to buy, subscribe, apply now, get the discount, grab their product, gain access, hire a service? Define the action you want users to do. The purpose of these short, but specific answers is to encourage conversions. When you spell out the intention the potential customer might be having, you increase the chances of them actually doing so. If you want users to subscribe, then use this word as a conversion trigger. The word also helps you define your CTAs on the sales page. To make sure the CTA really is effective, it is suggested that you also do A/B testing and analyze the effect each text variation has on the percentage of conversions.

4. Why should the online user choose you?

In the majority of cases, the product or service you offer is not unique on the market. You probably have competitors, i.e., businesses selling the same type of product or service. What this also means is that you are trying to reach the same online users. Another way how your sales page can stand out is to highlight what makes you different. Explain why online users should choose you. Usually, you will have a segment of the page that says something like:

• How can you benefit from the service
• What’s unique about the product
• Why you need this product in your life
• How can your life be better/easier with this product

To boost the power of persuasion through this section, you will need some trust signals to increase credibility. It can be a result of a study, testimonials, recommendations obtained from influencers or famous people in the industry. This can all be a motive for people to seriously consider your product over any other competitors present on the market. Potential customers go through a thinking process while deciding to buy, so understanding that this is your opportunity to persuade them. Have in mind that:

Up to 40% of consumers change their minds at the point of purchase because of something they see, learn, or do. (Psychology Today, 2017)

5. What is the problem your product solves?

Here’s where a little bit of psychology comes in handy. You see, people have a problem or an issue that your product or service can solve. Explaining this problem in details and putting down some common issues enables quick identification with those statements. Imagine a person reading those problems listed on your page, and thinking, “Yes, I know how that feels like.” or “Yes, I have the same problem.” They’ve already started saying yes, which places them in their positive mindset. You will get them interested, pulled into the story, which is skillfully designed to target their vulnerabilities and how you can be a hero of the story that solves those problems or issues. This is why one question to answer on your landing page is what is the problem and how you can solve it. What can additionally help with defining these is having a deeper understanding of your audience. Then you can make statements such as:

• Have you ever been in a situation to …
• Has this ever happened to you …
• Do you spend so much time trying to solve …
• Do you ever feel like no one understands what you’re going through …
• Have you ever tried … and it didn’t work?

These and similar statements are designed to illustrate the problem. They encourage customers to start thinking that the solution is near. While this might not prompt them to buy immediately, it will definitely encourage them to keep reading your page as they will get extremely interested in what you have to say on the topic.

6. What is the result?

Finally, online users want to see the results. The purpose of this question is to help customers imagine the results. Not only can they identify with the product, but they are also one step from completing their purchase. They have already recognized the quality, they have been reading your content, and they understand the product/service value. Now the final stage is to determine how this fits into their life. Here are a couple of phrases that can help you encourage the process of visualization for your customers:

• Imagine there is a solution for ….
• Imagine having the life you’ve always wanted
• Imagine not having to worry about …

It’s similar to physical products representation. Seeing a new TV in the shop window is one thing, but place that TV into a beautiful living room,  along with some home decor, and you’ll have your customers right where you want them – imagining the same TV in their own living room. The same can be applied in the online universe. When you highlight the results customers could achieve, this will bring them closer to actually believing that the product can get them there.

Conclusion

To conclude this article, here’s an interesting customer-related statistic:

56% of consumers said they have higher expectations for customer service now than they had a year ago. This number jumps to 68% for the 18 – 34-year-olds surveyed for this report. (Microsoft, 2016)

As the customer expectations grow, so is the need for you as a business owner to understand the customers better and to incorporate all of these questions into creating a successful sales page. It’s crucial to understand the importance of this single page. Usually, it’s published as one of the last pages that go live before launching a site. Not investing enough effort into creating a beautiful, engaging, and converting sales page can be a massive waste of effort and really hinder the success. Ask yourself the right questions, work with great copywriters and landing page designers to create a sales page worthy of your product which will become the basis for all your future promotions and marketing efforts propelling your business forward.