My Niche HATES Sales Pages...

[SeanyG]

Hey Internet Warriors,

So I am running a business in a niche that caters to 18-26 year olds that are not IM savvy.

So far the business is going extremely well giving away free + shipping videos to get them into my membership.

However, I did some surveying last week and got back some wild results. A top reason why the non-buyers aren't taking my offer is because they believe that sales pages are "scammy". This is from 250+ surveys completed.

So I'm curious to know of any examples you guys have seen of that are top selling products that don't use a lengthy sales page with tons of copy?

I really don't know how to convey all of the information I want into a smaller page...

Any thoughts or examples are appreciated!

Thanks for your time,

~Sean

[Voasi]

Shoot videos.

Videos will condense a sales page into something "hip" and "cool" which is the target 18-26 year old market.

Instead of doing a long sales page, I'd do a few video's preselling in a non-salesy way and then after a few days, give them the sales page, which is a video of you again, closing them with the order form right on the page.

A great current example of this is the CPA Tsunami launch. Mike Hill's done a dozen or so vidoe's of what the course is going to be about, as well as testimonials and then his sales page (which was launched today) is just a video of him on the sales page with an order form.

[Kevin Regier]

Good question and good info. I have not done any video before but have been thinking about it for a while now. I think I will try it for my first launch.

[GuerrillaIM]

I hate long winded sales pages. In fact, I REALLY hate them.

I could list a whole host of products that I would have bought by now if they structured their sites a little differently.

I like having the sales page broken up into a few pages so you can access the info you want. I like to see these pages on a site each with video and bullet points:

About Us
Feature/ Benefits
Testimonials
Demo/ Free Trial
Contact

Basically the same info thats on a long salespage but made more userfriendly.

I also can't stand the over enthusiastic text everyone uses "Sky rocket your Blah with nuclear explosion profit blah blah, laser targetted twoddle blah".

When I buy it's usually from someone who writes more like a normal person would talk and highlights the benefits clearly in an easy to understand manor without any unecessary fluff.

Of course some products are so good that I buy them despite their sales pages, but this is usually based on a level headed recommendation.

[Jack Duncan]

Clayton Makepeace mentioned that he was having some real success with an "online magalog"...so basically lots of little pages of content that "string together" to go for the sale.

I know Agora has tried this in the past with a retirement salesletter as well as an investment salesletter...

You may want to try to see about creating an online magalog site...

BUT...how is everyone else promoting to this market? Is everyone else using a long form salesletter...

In the past, I've found that depending on how well you word the survey, people will often tell you what they think you want to hear...and not what is actually true in practice... and of course, only you would know that...

Hey...trying something really different may just be exactly what you need to do to differentiate yourself from the rest of your competition...go ahead and give it a try.

Cheers,
Jack Duncan

[Jag82]

Originally Posted by SeanyG

Hey Internet Warriors,

So I am running a business in a niche that caters to 18-26 year olds that are not IM savvy.

So far the business is going extremely well giving away free + shipping videos to get them into my membership.

However, I did some surveying last week and got back some wild results. A top reason why the non-buyers aren't taking my offer is because they believe that sales pages are "scammy". This is from 250+ surveys completed.

So I'm curious to know of any examples you guys have seen of that are top selling products that don't use a lengthy sales page with tons of copy?

I really don't know how to convey all of the information I want into a smaller page...

Any thoughts or examples are appreciated!

Thanks for your time,

~Sean

Couple of stuff:

1. Did you offer sufficient proof? Figures? Testimonials? Pictures?

2. How does your tone sound? Could it there be the possibility
that it sounds too hyped-up? And it sounds to be good to be true?

3. Maybe you can try testing with different color (e.g. blue) for the headings
and sub headings? Some people may be adverse to the traditional
bright red for the headlines?

4. You may want to try the mini-site approach, where a single
sales page is broken up to multiple short pages.


You can test with Google website optimizer. Keep testing and
tweaking, and see if it makes a difference.

Jag

[Kyle Tully]

Originally Posted by SeanyG

I did some surveying last week and got back some wild results. A top reason why the non-buyers aren't taking my offer is because they believe that sales pages are "scammy". This is from 250+ surveys completed.
...
I really don't know how to convey all of the information I want into a smaller page...

Hi Sean

I doubt very much it's the length of the page that's the issue. More likely it's the tone/style/colors and general "feel" of the page that's not resonating with your audience.

E.g. If your site looks or sounds anything like a typical IM salesletter then that's gonna turn off a whole bunch of people in like 90% of other niches.

There are a heap of ways you can get around the issue:

1. Get someone who really knows what they're doing to write & design a page that really connects with your audience. Even 18 year old's will read long copy salesletters if they're targeted properly.

2. Re-format your salesletter into a video.

3. Re-format your salesletter into a report.

4. Re-format your salesletter into a multi-page site.

5. Re-format your entire sales process and let email do most of your selling.

Each of those options might work, depending on how you execute them and exactly who your audience is.

Cheers
Kyle

[Lance K]

Originally Posted by SeanyG

So far the business is going extremely well giving away free + shipping videos to get them into my membership.

So I'm curious to know of any examples you guys have seen of that are top selling products that don't use a lengthy sales page with tons of copy?

I really don't know how to convey all of the information I want into a smaller page...

Any thoughts or examples are appreciated!

Sean,

Video Professor, Girls Gone Wild, etc. do quite well with 30 second TV spots.

Try producing a short "pitch" video that hits the top hot button or two for your prospects.

[SeanyG]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the replies thus far!

I'd like to answer a few of the questions here:

1) I have an incredible copywriter doing the writing for me. He is Ryan Deiss's partner and he writes all of the copy for his stuff. The copy is very persuasive.

2) I have tweaked the page and the offer multiple times which has increased conversions. Again, this offer is already converting well however the feedback I got consistently shows that my niche is turned off by long salespages.

3) I give away a free email video course with awesome info to get people onto my autoresponder. Each video and email sent does a lot of selling for me already. Again I've had Ryan Deiss' partner go through this with me to make the email copy and formatting strong and the funnel setup properly.

4) I give away free HD videos via email to get them all fired up since I have a pretty exciting / cool niche. Then I drive them to a long text sales page just as Voasi suggested.

I am a believer of the sales page for any niche however if my market gives me direct feedback I will go with what they are saying. What they are saying is that the length and formatting of the long salespage turns them off.

GuerrillaIM, you seem to get what I am saying. A lot of the successful products sold in this niche are done on small sites that have multiple pages. Sort of the multi-page / brochure site concept.

Based on the advice I see here, the feedback from the market and my gut feeling, I will have to go with a multi-page site with video information (Girls Gone Wild!) on each page and short summary text instead of long sales copy on 1 page.

Looking forward to hearing some thoughts on this!

Also looking forward to testing and letting you guys know the results!

[cvetanski]

Hi Sean,

This is a very cool question, you know.

Recently I have been experiencing the same thing and to be honest, I do not think that only people who are not 'I.M savvy" are the only one that do not like the sale pages.
I am talking from my own experience. I also found that all this long and annoying sale pages are extremely boring and similar. So, I tried selling products using sale pages/ because this is one of the IM standards, right?/but I realized that people who were visiting my site spent less than 20 sec. They just saw the long sales page and took off.
Then, I decided to do another trick. I know that if you have a lot of information you just can't write a couple of lines to describe " how great your product is", but what I did was the following:

I divided the content of my sales page into four different small independent pages.
I didn't use the same content, I just re-wrote it.
So, what I had was the original sales page /in case someone want to go trough it/,but in the beginning of the page I stated that- yes, this is just a long and boring sales page and if you do not like it or don't have the time to go trough it, please skip it and just click the link below to see the actual product with no testimonials and so on. That is where I put a link to my first mini re-written sales page. There I put a picture of the product/ it was an ebook/ with a little info about it and lots of interesting facts about the content of this ebook. Things like- why I wrote the book, or what is the major benefit if you purchase it, and so on.
It was less than a full A1 page, nothing huge or long.
Then I wrote something like, well if you are interested you can go and visit my site to see reviews from people who have bought the book and find what they are thinking. And here comes the second link to my site and the "testimonials" created as comments. Once the person decide to go trough the comments you have to be sure that at the end, two out of four will go back to the site and look to find how they can purchase the product. And there goes my third link - to a smaller copy of my original sales page. I wrote something like- If you like the comments/ reviews/ and you are ready to buy the product just click the link below. Now whoever clicks on the link he is 99% sure that he want to buy your stuff, and if you have made a nice looking / final / sales page you will increase the chances to have more successful online business.
At least it worked for me for a while.

And just one more thing. It really depends on what is your target audience.
Young guys DO NOT LIKE long sales pages.
People over the age of 45 are more likely to check the page and actually to read it very carefully, especially the testimonials part.

Best of luck

[SeanyG]

Thanks for sharing your expeariences cvetanski! Great stuff here! ^^^

I agree that it seems that young guys don't seem to like sales pages. Every singly person I have shown my sales page to that is in my target market says "I hate those long pages".

Thanks for your advice. Anyone else have experiences with this?

[Voasi]

Yea, check out these sites for examples of multi-page sales process:

Website Flipping Masters by Justin Brooke
Fat Loss 4 Idiots / Weight Loss and Diet Center (this site makes stupid money...eat ridiculous)

[Voasi]

Yea, check out these sites for examples of multi-page sales process:

Website Flipping Masters by Justin Brooke
Fat Loss 4 Idiots / Weight Loss and Diet Center (this site makes stupid money...eat ridiculous)

[Jesse Kemmerer]

Remember the relaunch for Mass Control 2.0? A video like that might
be what you're looking for.

Create a video where you basically put your product on display. Think
of the "ShamWOW" infomercial.

All you'd have to do is set up a camera shot that shows you displaying
your entire product. As you go through, show the audience what they'll
be getting, then tell them exactly what each particular piece of your
product can do for them.

At the end, simply give them a good call to action. Because you're
market isn't really, like you said, IM savvy, this sort of presentation may
be what they would respond to the most.

Give it a try and let us know how it works!

All the best,

Jesse Kemmerer
kemmerer.j@gmail.com

[mikestenger]

Video is really your best bet. Converts great, people get to see YOU and build a better relationship with you, and it's just much easier to consume.

[mikestenger]

Oh, almost forgot. There's a neat little formula I recall learning from Andy Jenkins that seems to work great with video. Here's how it goes:

Act 1, step 1: Do you have this problem?

Act 1, step 2: I've got the solution

Act 1, step 3: Here's an example of it working

Act 2, step 1: This is how you use it/do it

Act 2, step 2: This is why this works

Act 3, step 1: What is the result?

Act 3, step 2: What is the viewer benefit?

[futuremills]

i am 25 and i can say i hate sales pages. to me they seem like a pop up ad or somethign that will steal your info. in the past if i saw a sale page i would run away. now that i am getting into IM i understand sales pages more but i still dont like them. When i start creating my sites i will look to make my site look as mainstream as possible

[Joe Fier]

There's no question about it man, you need video instead of long sales script.

No one wants to sit and read a long and drawn out sales copy. I know for a fact that I've never had an interest sitting through even the most "entertaining" and well-written copy.

People want to be SHOWN by you personally. Sales copy actually forces your potential buy to work by manually reading everything to the end. Video will play and they could sit back to watch and become more trusting of you.

That, and with a sales copy, people could easily scroll down to the price and get turned away if it's not within their price range, even if your product is worth every penny!

That's just my two cents.

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by SeanyG

Hey guys,

Thanks for the replies thus far!

I'd like to answer a few of the questions here:

1) I have an incredible copywriter doing the writing for me. He is Ryan Deiss's partner and he writes all of the copy for his stuff. The copy is very persuasive.

2) I have tweaked the page and the offer multiple times which has increased conversions. Again, this offer is already converting well however the feedback I got consistently shows that my niche is turned off by long salespages.

3) I give away a free email video course with awesome info to get people onto my autoresponder. Each video and email sent does a lot of selling for me already. Again I've had Ryan Deiss' partner go through this with me to make the email copy and formatting strong and the funnel setup properly.

4) I give away free HD videos via email to get them all fired up since I have a pretty exciting / cool niche. Then I drive them to a long text sales page just as Voasi suggested.

I am a believer of the sales page for any niche however if my market gives me direct feedback I will go with what they are saying. What they are saying is that the length and formatting of the long salespage turns them off.

GuerrillaIM, you seem to get what I am saying. A lot of the successful products sold in this niche are done on small sites that have multiple pages. Sort of the multi-page / brochure site concept.

Based on the advice I see here, the feedback from the market and my gut feeling, I will have to go with a multi-page site with video information (Girls Gone Wild!) on each page and short summary text instead of long sales copy on 1 page.

Looking forward to hearing some thoughts on this!

Also looking forward to testing and letting you guys know the results!

Something just doesn't make sense here...

Your offer is "converting well", yet your market hates long sales pages?

Maybe the people who don't convert, but the entire niche? If the whole market hates long sales pages, and you are using a long sales page, who the hell is buying your stuff?

It's been awhile, but as I recall from when I was that age, I was pretty good at making excuses for not doing things that didn't make me look bad.

How many 18-26 (particularly males) will latch onto the 'I hate long pages' excuse before admitting that they just don't have the scratch to make the purchase?

I think I'd dig a little deeper before I scrapped a set-up you say is already converting well (laid out by people who have made a lot of money online in many different niches) to start over trying to please a group that may just come up with another excuse.

In your place, I'd experiment with sending a portion of my traffic to a different set-up, maybe the mini-site or magalog model, and see what happens. Even if you start over, you'll likely have to go through the same tweaking process as before, starting from scratch again.

[SeanyG]

Great advice guys! Thanks!

[SeanyG]

Originally Posted by Jesse Kemmerer

Remember the relaunch for Mass Control 2.0? A video like that might
be what you're looking for.

Create a video where you basically put your product on display. Think
of the "ShamWOW" infomercial.

All you'd have to do is set up a camera shot that shows you displaying
your entire product. As you go through, show the audience what they'll
be getting, then tell them exactly what each particular piece of your
product can do for them.

At the end, simply give them a good call to action. Because you're
market isn't really, like you said, IM savvy, this sort of presentation may
be what they would respond to the most.

Give it a try and let us know how it works!

All the best,

Jesse Kemmerer
kemmerer.j@gmail.com

Great stuff here. Thanks!

[Scott Murdaugh]

My Niche HATES Sales Pages...

No one wants to sit and read a long and drawn out sales copy.

Here's a reality check for you... First of all you say you're converting, correct?

There are literally thousands of surveys that prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that people are liars...

If you poll 1,000,000 people and ask them things like...

"Do you buy products from infomercials?"

"Do you buy products through direct mail?"

"Do you like long sales letters?"

The answers you get will be LIES... You want to sell people what they BUY, not what they SAY they'll buy.

I write those "ugly long sales letters" for a living... Why? Because they WORK.

Maybe your niche doesn't respond well to them, but I highly doubt it.

I'm going to quote some Gary Halbert (This is from The Boron Letters)...The Gary Halbert Letter

You want to know what people actually DO buy, not what they SAY they buy.

Here's a true story. Once upon a time a beer company did a survey to find out which of their products customers preferred and you know what? To their astonishment they found that 80% or so of the people they surveyed preferred their premium beer as opposed to their regular beer.

Why were they astonished? The answer is easy. You see, their sales figures were showing that most people bought their regular beer and NOT the premium.

What's going on here? Well, for one thing, it is very common. You see, the surveyed people were trying to give the "right" answer and so they put down as an answer the beer they felt they SHOULD DRINK.

It happens all the time. But pity any poor fool who decides to go into the brewery business based on this kind of erroneous marketing information.

Here's another example of how people struggle to give the "right" answer. How many people do you know who read the "National Enquirer"? Not many huh? Almost everybody I talk with really puts down the "Enquirer". (Even here in Boron) But guess what? The "National Enquirer" is the largest selling newspaper in the world - BY FAR!

Yet nobody reads it. At least not here on earth. It must be all those Martians.

What do people read? I'll bet if you took a survey you would discover that the most read book of all is the Bible.

It's just not true. Hardly anyone (percentage wise) has actually read the Bible. A lot of people own a Bible, a lot of people DISPLAY their Bibles, some people are given to swearing on a Bible but damn-few people have actually READ the Bible.

And who can blame them? The Bible is repetitive, hard-to-read and most of it is deadly boring.

Yet people feel guilty and, in their attempt to give the RIGHT answer, they will say (and often convince themselves) that the Bible is their favorite reading material.

You want to know what some people would consider a sickening statistic? Here it is: MORE PEOPLE READ THE "NATIONAL ENQUIRER" IN ONE SINGLE WEEK THAN HAVE EVER READ THE BIBLE IN THE LAST 2,000 YEARS!

My point is... What people DO is a lot more important (and reliable) than what they SAY.

If it's converting, your niche IS responding to the long form sales letter... They've been used for over a century (yes, before the internet) because it's been proven and tested and tracked over and over again that they WORK.

Here's another example... Ask me if I've...

-Ever spent $20+ on one drink at a bar...

-Ever spent any money at all on "adult entertainment"...

-Ever paid over $80 for a pair of jeans...

-Ever spent over $100 on dinner for a girl I've just met...

-Ever spent $300+ for a cell phone...

Depending on who's asking, I'm going to say "NO" almost every time... But I'll be honest here, I've done at least one of the above before... As to which ones I'll plead the 5th

Good luck,

-Scott

P.S. I'm not saying don't test video, or other forms of shorter sales copy... All I'm saying is just because people say they aren't buying because you have a long form sales letter, chances are they're not being completely honest with you.

I've used long form copy to sell a lot of stuff beyond IM products... Pianos, Home loans... A lot of things. It works if you know how to work it.

[SeanyG]

Great info Scott. Thanks for your thoughts. I have no doubt that a sales page can be made to convert well. I'm feel like I should test the conversions on a shorter form video page as well!

Originally Posted by Scott Murdaugh

Here's a reality check for you... First of all you say you're converting, correct?

There are literally thousands of surveys that prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that people are liars...

If you poll 1,000,000 people and ask them things like...

"Do you buy products from infomercials?"

"Do you buy products through direct mail?"

"Do you like long sales letters?"

The answers you get will be LIES... You want to sell people what they BUY, not what they SAY they'll buy.

I write those "ugly long sales letters" for a living... Why? Because they WORK.

Maybe your niche doesn't respond well to them, but I highly doubt it.

I'm going to quote some Gary Halbert (This is from The Boron Letters)...The Gary Halbert Letter



My point is... What people DO is a lot more important (and reliable) than what they SAY.

If it's converting, your niche IS responding to the long form sales letter... They've been used for over a century (yes, before the internet) because it's been proven and tested and tracked over and over again that they WORK.

Here's another example... Ask me if I've...

-Ever spent $20+ on one drink at a bar...

-Ever spent any money at all on "adult entertainment"...

-Ever paid over $80 for a pair of jeans...

-Ever spent over $100 on dinner for a girl I've just met...

-Ever spent $300+ for a cell phone...

Depending on who's asking, I'm going to say "NO" almost every time... But I'll be honest here, I've done at least one of the above before... As to which ones I'll plead the 5th

Good luck,

-Scott

P.S. I'm not saying don't test video, or other forms of shorter sales copy... All I'm saying is just because people say they aren't buying because you have a long form sales letter, chances are they're not being completely honest with you.

I've used long form copy to sell a lot of stuff beyond IM products... Pianos, Home loans... A lot of things. It works if you know how to work it.

[BrandonLee]

Maybe you just need better copy that, when they read it doesn't feel scamish?

[MichaelHiles]

See how much you sell without a sales page.

[brunski57]

Dan Kennedy preaches the "market - message -media" triangle.

Always deliver your message the way your market wants it... period.

Proof is when they buy.

Both short and long copy play a role in the wonderful world of marketing.

My teenage kids communicate a lot by text messaging. If this turns out to be one of their most favorite way to communicate, when they get to be adults ... guess how I will market to them.

[SeanyG]

Great reply. Thanks!

I think there is a lot of truth in your response. I'll put up the short video based sales page and will see how they buy.

Originally Posted by brunski57

Dan Kennedy preaches the "market - message -media" triangle.

Always deliver your message the way your market wants it... period.

Proof is when they buy.

Both short and long copy play a role in the wonderful world of marketing.

My teenage kids communicate a lot by text messaging. If this turns out to be one of their most favorite way to communicate, when they get to be adults ... guess how I will market to them.

[SolomonHuey]

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but if you aren't split testing, make sure you do. Especially if you decide to make a major adjustment with your "sales page".

Lots of great suggestions already, so I think you've got some work to do!

Solomon Huey

[Andy Fletcher]

Originally Posted by SeanyG

Hey Internet Warriors,

So I am running a business in a niche that caters to 18-26 year olds that are not IM savvy.

So far the business is going extremely well giving away free + shipping videos to get them into my membership.

However, I did some surveying last week and got back some wild results. A top reason why the non-buyers aren't taking my offer is because they believe that sales pages are "scammy". This is from 250+ surveys completed.

So I'm curious to know of any examples you guys have seen of that are top selling products that don't use a lengthy sales page with tons of copy?

I really don't know how to convey all of the information I want into a smaller page...

Any thoughts or examples are appreciated!

Thanks for your time,

~Sean

Could you provide some numbers to go with this?

How many visitors have you had to the site?

Over how long a period?

What was the conversion like on them?

How many people did you survey and how did you do it?

I could provide a lot better advice with some stats.

Cheers,

Andy

[greenovni]

Videos would be the way to go for that particular demographic.

[Black Hat Cat]

Getting a lot of responses here, yet no one even knows what your conversion rate is. Is it 1%? 3%? 10%?

And what percentage of the people said they don't like sales letters? What was the second main reason, and it's percentage? Did you give them options, or was it an open survey where they provided their own answers?

[David Hooper]

What people say in surveys and what they actually do (or respond to) are usually different things.

People say they hate television advertising, but it works...

[Mike Anthony]

Got to agree. Video is your best bet. You can hit all the key points and content without them ever having to scroll down. This is not the reading generation.

[Chris Stigson]

Ok, I can't really add much to this post as there have been like almost all the answers... But consider this... Maybe they are just not your target, cause you really can't get "all of the" all the time... instead the ones who do buy ask them why they did but and do more of that =)