I had a dream the other night in which you all were watching me write a sales page over my shoulder. I figured it’s time I tell you how to sell more of absolutely anything. (And if you don’t like this article, just pretend it’s a bad dream.)
To start selling more, take a look at the website or blog pages where you have products available right now. Photographers — I’m looking at you! Your sales pages tend to suck nuts because you treat them as something vague like “info” and you don’t talk about the products that will be coming out of the experience. (Products are tangible. People like tangible. The end.)
When you write about your products or your services, you are creating a sales page. There is a right and a wrong way to write a sales page, and these tips will point you in the direction of “right.”
Sell more tenet #1: assume we know nothing about who you are or what you do.
You are not Jillian Michaels trying to sell workouts or Beyonce trying to sell music. You are you, and you are lovely — but we’re going to need some details about what you’re selling.
To make buying as easy as possible for your customers, give them the “why” of the product, as well as the relevant details.
Tell them why a particular product came to be and what it can do for them as well as describing its dimensions and other qualities. Don’t assume we know a massage lasts for sixty minutes or that it’s okay to keep your panties on for the duration. Don’t hope we know hiring an interior designer to remake a room completely will be a three to six month process. Don’t think that because we like photography, we know what an archival album is or what “proof set” means or how many hours of coverage we want from our wedding. (Some? Enough? We have no idea.)
Walk your customers through what you’re selling, what it can do for them, and what’s going to happen next when they hire you or buy from you.
Sell more tenet #2: make it so clear a three-year-old can understand it.
Yes, a three-year-old! Those kiddos have short attention spans, so make your paragraphs short and clear. Include photos on your sales page to show off what you’re selling.
Sell more tenet #3: include testimonials.
We instinctively trust the word of other people more than the person selling an item, so load your sales page up with testimonials wherever possible. A few paragraphs about a product — testimonial. A few images of a product — testimonial. Keep positive words flowing in and around and through information about your product.
Need three easy ways to capture kind words from past clients? Click here.
Sell more tenet #4: offer a sample.
If I walk into your bakery and don’t know which muffin I want to buy but you’re sampling Banana Supreme, odds are that I’ll buy a Banana Supreme. If I walk into your brewery and have no idea which beer I’d like to drink, I can ask for a taste or get a flight of sample sizes to try out the latest brews on tap.
Samples make the buying process easier for everyone involved.
Where possible, offer trial, mini, or free samples of your products and services. I realize that in some industries that’s nearly impossible — take photography as an example — but you don’t get to throw your hands up in despair, here!
You could hold an event in which you’re offering teaser-length sessions of some kind. Maybe you call that a mini session, maybe you get business owners in to shoot headshots for Facebook one after the other, maybe you hold a boudoir party and give each woman eight minutes behind the camera. These are shortened versions of a full session that allow people to, in effect, sample your work.
Want a sample of the books I write? BOOM here’s a copy of Go Your Own Way: free yourself from business as usual.
