sales page review please

Hi Matt,

Well, the copy isn't bad. Yes it can be improved. But I think it's Ok for studious students.

The price point shouldn't be an exact figure. $9.99 or preferably $9.97 looks like a lot less money.

Apologies if I've got this wrong - but is the link you posted your "sales page" and it's getting 1000 visits or is there a squeeze page getting 1000 visits?

If there is a squeeze page could you post the link?

If your link is the page that gets the 1000 visits - are you saying only 20 -25 people hit the buy button but don't buy?

The buy button takes people straight onto PayPal.

I might get slammed for saying this. Because usually when they hit a buy button - they're buying.

But it might help if you have a pukka "Again here's all the great stuff you get" page - then a PayPal link.

Also have you researched that "The Great Gatsby" is THE book people most want to or have to study?

I'm dense on all things inter web - but is the "Great Gatsby" mentioned when you're driving traffic to the site? (sorry but I don't even know what "organic" traffic means).

If the title isn't mentioned - it may be the wrong book.

But if it is the right book and I'm assuming it is...

You're giving a huge amount of information about the book away on the site - and people may just use this - feeling "great news I don't need to buy the Essay Plan - I've grabbed everything I need"

So you might restrict some of the free details.

Hoping internet experts will give you much more useful advice.

And again sorry if I didn't understand your post.


Steve

Continuing with Steve's "big picture" theme - are you sure you're aiming this at the right market?

Is it the kids who buy this sort of stuff, or is it their parents?

And proofread it, there are far too many sloppy mistakes considering what you're trying to sell.

[Note to Steve - Organic traffic is traffic you get from the natural search engine results, not the paid ads]

Ahhh thanks Andrew,

So "organic" means no additives or preservatives.

Just like special food but virtual.


Steve

Thanks for all your help guys
Steve, the site as a whole (with lots of other information) gets 1000 a day this is just the page where i try to sell something, it gets 20 - 25
The whole site is about this book so people are defiantly looking for information on it. I chose to do this one first because I know it best and once its profitable I'll role out more titles under the same format

Andrew, I am worried that it would be the parents who end up paying but i think it is the kids who actively look for the information. Any ideas on how i could appeal more to parents?

Herm, I think your right about shortening it, it started quite short then i kept having ideas and wanting to add things but I'll give it a trim...and have someone who can spell look it over.

verial - this is great advice, unfortunately its a word press blog and I really don't know to change it much to follow your suggestions but i can change some font colors and add in my product pictures. I defiantly want the testimonials to stand out more even though I've only got three...

Okay I've tried to make the changes you asked for, proof reading will take a bit longer but I tried to shorted it, use more colour, removed comments, center justified testimonials and italicized them.

Does this look any better now? Would it help if I removed the horizontal menu at the top of the page. i can't really change the header because its the same for the whole site and it is what drives traffic to this page.

Its okay Jeremy I'm glad you offered your opinion and some of the points you've raised do trouble me sometimes but for the sake of everyone else here I'd like to give my side of the argument so people won't think this is a terrible idea and stop helping me improve my sales page.

Yes there is a lot of stuff on the internet already for free. I think they're rubbish and I can do better. They offer a lot of fluffy, long winded background information without actually telling you what you need to write in an exam to get a good mark.

Will students care enough to buy it? Maybe not, especially if they have 18 book that year and this is just one but When i was a student (in UK education systems might be different) I studied 3 books and Gatsby was worth 50% of my total mark.

Yes I am saying I can help you with your 'book report' Some people find it hard to write 'book reports' some teachers make you write a new 'book reports' every week, some 'book reports' have to be done under exam conditions and then some people show the results of those exams to universities so they can study english and write more 'book reports'. So yes i think people want help with that and I think there is money in it

On my organic traffic. Yes i know about the film, is it bumping my numbers up? Maybe indirectly because more teachers are teaching the book this year because of it but all the people that end up on my site get there through long tail targeted keywords like. "Does Gatsby really love Daisy in the great gatsby", or "quotes that show Nick is a reliable narrator plus page numbers" these people are studying the book not looking for movie trivia.

The only point I am worried about is that the story at the start is rubbish. Does anyone else want to weigh in on that

Do people think i should add a section slamming the free alternatives or maybe one especially for parents or about asking there parents?

Matt I'm sorry to say, but this is a terrible idea.

No teenager in this world is going to spend $10 for... What ever the hell you are offering. (Why would I buy something from someone who can't tell me what the hell he is selling?)

2nd, teenagers don't have credit cards. How are they going to buy your guide? Ask their parents to pay $10 so they can have what appears to be a cheat sheet? You think any parent is going to pay $10 to help their kids take a short cut? No. They want their kids to read the damn book.

Your copy is terrible, your idea is terrible, your market demographic is terrible. Start on something new. Turn that website into an amazon affiliate site for books.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but one day you will thank me for saving your time.

Okay, can we stop with the 'this is the worst idea I've ever heard' stuff. While I respect that you all know a lot about copy writing you don't know anything about this product, modern students or the other rival competing products so I'm not going to pack it all in because you had one quick look and your 'gut' told you it was a bad idea. You are not as all seeing and all knowing as you think you are and trying to shit on other people's ideas to make yourself feel more important makes you look like a jerk. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but one day you'll thank me because people won't dislike you as much.

That said I am looking at ways to market more to parents, which will focus on how this guide quickly and easily teaches fundamentals, which it does. It is not a cheat sheet, it is not a replacement for reading the book...well it could be but I'm not selling it on that and no where on my sales page does it say 'don't read the book'

I will also experiment with price point although I think that they are already getting a lot of value for their money. It is perfect for highschool kids aged 17 and 18 in there last years of school. People that age have money, people that age are worried about their exams.

It is also helpful but a little basic for a college student trying to get to grips with the book quickly. They have ten dollars to spend if it makes there life easier. It is also perfect for an ambitious younger student who wants nothing less than an A+, there are loads of them around and what do they all have in common, pushy parents. it might not be a huge market but it exists, I know this because while I was giving away the beta version free I got requests from all sorts of people including parents and college students and the feed back has all been positive.

Okay, so back to the beginning
If you don't like the copy, what would you do to change it?
Do you think it makes people want it enough to pull out their walets?
Would a video or more pictures help?
Are the ideas being explained clearly?

Thank you all for your time

Mark I am increadibly grateful for all advice and you will see that I have helped implemented all helpful suggestions given so far. I know he doesn't owe me anything and he has a right to tell me what he wants. I am 100% certain that he knows more than me about a whole host of things which is why I am here. What I am objecting too, perhaps a bit childishly, is that he thinks he knows more about me about my product, my demographic and my business and on that information that he took very little time to put together he decided that it everything about my idea was so terrible that the best thing I could do was quit immediately.

His idea to turn it into an affiliate for amazon books would not have worked. Everyone who is studying The Great Gatsby will be given that book by their school and everything that is in the cliff notes guide or york notes guide, as other people have pointed out, is available free on the internet. On top of this they only cost about $4 so I'd be making $0.16 commission on every one. I would have to sell 63 affiliate books to make as much as one of my products. He would have known this I'm sure if he had stopped to think about it. I was angry because he clearly hasn't put a lot of thought into it yet is confident enough in his own opinion that he recommended I shut the whole thing down.

I don't expect the world. Even Fxstay's comment "completely agree" is very helpful to me. Now a few people have all said the same thing I have taken that on board and am working on new methods and copy to market more at parents.

I don't agree that they don't owe me a thing. I think everyone ought to at least be civil to everyone else, even if they're newbies and there copy is bad. I don't think he was motivated by a need to help me out but wanted to making himself feel better about his ideas by stomping over mine.

Once again sorry if I'm offending anyone and being cheeky but I still need a lot of help. I've realized how resistant teenagers will be so I've written a new guarantee to try and sooth them.

Steal From Me


I know that you don't really want to spend your money but I am so confident that this product will save you time and help your grade that I am offering a lifetime guarantee. At any point after purchase just let me know and I will give you 100% of your money back no questions asked .


Buy it, try it out and if your not completely convinced you can get your money back and still keep the product. I can only offer this amazing offer because I know this will help you. On top of that if there is a question I haven't answered, let me know and I will write a full answer to that question, send it to you, then add it to the guide so everyone else can benefit.


Take action now and get more time and better grades, you have nothing to loose!

Thank you for your response and explanation Mark. I will take heed of this and not take things so personally in the future. I am sorry I made my response personal I shouldn't have done that and will leave my emotions out of this forum from now on.

Does anyone have an opinion on whether this guarantee is any good or how to improve it

Steal From Me


I know that you don't really want to spend your money but I am so confident that this product will save you time and help your grade that I am offering a lifetime guarantee. At any point after purchase just let me know and I will give you 100% of your money back no questions asked .


Buy it, try it out and if your not completely convinced you can get your money back and still keep the product. I can only offer this amazing offer because I know this will help you. On top of that if there is a question I haven't answered, let me know and I will write a full answer to that question, send it to you, then add it to the guide so everyone else can benefit.


Take action now and get more time and better grades, you have nothing to loose!

I've added a whole new section called for the parents so that if kids really want it but don;t want to pay they can show this to there parents. My question is should I have a choice at the start, click here if your student, here if your a parent and show them different sales letters?

Thanks for that advice Seth, I'll work on another headline and definitely try out that formula.

My other reason for posting was I made my first sale!
I have no doubt that the fact it came just days after I asked you guys for help so for everyone who helped make my copy better with your advice, thank you again from the bottom of my heart

This right here tells me you don't know as much about your market as you claim to.

I'm glad you're listening to advice from some of the pros here who have taken time out of their busy schedules to help you out. As you can see from the resulting sale, often what they have to say is really helpful, even if it's not what you wanted to hear.

angiecolee I don't quite understand why those numbers reveal an ignorance of my market. Are you saying that if I knew my market better that more people would go from the main site to the sales page or is there something else that i'm missing completely?

Because I'm confused I'll throw out some more information but it might not have anything to do with what you have said. The site is what i think is called an authority site. There is a lot of content on the site that is useful free and receives traffic from google. A small part of this larger site is a page where I try and sell something different and better than the information already given away in the free site. So even though 1000 people go to the site only 25 of them are sufficiently motivated to go further and have a look at what is available for sale rather than for free.

I don't no whether you had missed that or I have just spewed out something incredibly obvious and unrelated.

To put it simply, if you knew your market as well as you claimed, you'd be making more sales because you'd have a good product and an irresistible offer. Not saying your product isn't good or you don't know your stuff about the Great Gatsby. You're really married to your product though - and these guys are really trying to get you to be objective, to take a step back and look at the big picture.

I gotta tell you right now, I agree with most of them. If I'm a high school student, I'm not paying for something I can get for free online. Hell, I got this stuff for free online back in the days of dial-up. What makes your stuff special? Plug and play As? Says who? Yeah, I agree that students want to be prepared for exams, but I'm not seeing anything in your copy that tells me what you can provide beyond what Cliff Notes and Spark Notes can tell me.

I know what an authority site is. Cliff Notes and Spark Notes are among the popular authority sites referenced by your target market. What makes you better than them? Why focus on one very specific title?

I think you really need to separate yourself from your product. As Mark said, these criticisms aren't against you personally. Everyone here is legitimately trying to help you sell, and if you think otherwise, I don't know what to tell you.

Thank you for explaining and I assure you i am no longer taking things personally.

I am only focusing on one book because by doing so I make my knowledge of that one book better and am more likely to make a product that beats sparknotes. If i did ten books I would never be able to go into enough depth or think enough about what the students want to compete because th do what they do well.

The first think I will do when this book site starts making money, if it can sell 1 a week for a few weeks in a row for example, is copy and improve the style of what I have already about Gatsby but for Kill A Mocking Bird (that has three times as many searches per month, i didn't stat with this book because I knew Gatsby best)

I know a lot of you are thinking that people won't pay for this because there is a free version but 1000 people a day are choosing my free stuff over sparknotes free stuff so some people think I am better than them.

Now will anyone pay for something that they can get for free, yes if its sold to them right. The warrior forum is an amazing free resource but people pay f WSO because they think that is better than the free advice. In the same way i think my product is better than sparknotes and I think students have enough skin in the game to pay for that difference.

As for knowing my audience well. I don't think that is as important as knowing how to sell (which is why I'm here an believe me I know that my first sale came form you guys.) If someone had invented a car that ran on air but marketed it by putting it in a barn and writing on the front of the barn "car for sale" no one would by it. He knows everything in the world about his niche but because he can't convey the advantages no one cares.

In a similar but less extreme way I know more about Gatsby than a highschooler, I know what information and templates they need to be able to drastically reduce the time and energy spent on writing essays. i know the most common mistakes people make and I know ways to fix them. I don't know however how to make people give a shit, which is why I'm here.

Could part of the problem be that my ads driving people to this sales page arn't good enough? For every 100 people that come to the site 2 see the sales page and for every hundred that see the sales page one buys (so far.) What do you guys think should be my focus?